Archive for May, 2008

Hi! You Look Like a Model!

Published
by
krisandro
on May 23, 2008
in My-Life
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I went to a job interview today looking all smart and professional with my white shirt, black tie and cuff-links and made my way back home via MRT. I made a pit stop at Bugis MRT because I haven’t had a bite to eat all day long and was very hungry that I could eat a whole cow.

cow-goes-moo

[Image from here]

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As I stepped on the escalator that led from the MRT station to Bugis Junctions B1, I heard a voice from my right side.

“Hi!”

I turned to face the voice and what I saw was a smartly dressed man who was probably younger than me. He then continued after getting my attention.

“Hi! My name is XXX and my company is looking for models with an executive look and I think YOU look the part!“

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Right after he said that, my mind immediately had a processing failure. Krisandro has got bad acne scars, many facial moles and humongous eye-bags. KRISANDRO is NEVER associated with the word MODEL, especially when mentioned in the same sentence. Thats just like telling the beer bellied uncle at the coffee shop that he was made for modeling.

I half wanted to ask him if Mediacorp was filming the new season of Gotcha! or he had a very bad case of myopia and had forgotten to bring his glasses out. And mind you, this guy is quite good looking according to my alternate gay ego.

I had to swallow my puke from my own disgust before I can answer “What?” right at the point we reached the top of the escalator.

He immediately whipped out his namecard and passed it to me while repeating that his company is looking for executive looking models.

As I scrutinized his name card and here is the picture of it.

namecard1

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His name was actually HAND WRITTEN on the card and my 1st thought was that this guy was most probably just a temp guy hired by the company to farm for business. My 2nd thought was that it may be just one of those scams where people go down to take photos to only be asked to PAY for the pictures.

He then said,

“We will pay you on the spot if you do decide to take up this offer. Can you please give me your number?”

I then did what I usually do to retain politeness while ending the sales talk.

“Sorry. I can’t give you my number. If I am interested, I will give you a call.”

“But we are looking for models URGENTLY. Can you give me your number?”

This is where many Singaporeans fail. I conducted surveys before and its amazing how easily Singaporeans give up their personal information such as full name, IC no. and address. And the same people would complain when they have telemarketers call them up to solicit for business/scams. “HOW THEY GOT MY NUMBER AH?”

*smacks head*….

I then repeated my answer to him in a polite but firm manner.

“Hey Kirin right? I really can’t give you my number, but I will call you if I am interested.”

I worked my dimples and walked away.

Harlo! No means No! Don’t think you can get my number easily hokay! If this would have been conversed on the internet, all you’ll be getting is…

“KThxBye!!!“

19 Comments

Bloggers Dilemma. Advertorial or Review?

Published
by
krisandro
on May 22, 2008
in My-Views
.

When a company pays a blogger to ‘review’ a product, is it an advertorial or is it really a review? This question came to my mind after a topic in the Ping.sg shoutbox which let to xizor2000 asking me of the following over WLM,

“In your experience…are you able to give an example of what u consider a review and what u consider an advertorial?”

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My answer to him was,

“A review would be a complete unbiased view of a product and an advertorial would be a ‘paid to be made positive Advertisement’“

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I never really thought of reviews or advertorials as separate entities before his question as I generally felt that most blogger opinions can’t really be trusted as they are paid to blog on the product. Before all bloggers swarm onto me like hungry Singaporeans with a plate of Char Kway Teow, let us be honest lar. How many bloggers in the right frame of mind will say what he/she really thinks about the product if he/she is being PAID to do so.

I mean sure, there are ‘ethical’ bloggers who will say what they mean. But the truth is, the ethical one is running the risk of having no companies approaching him or her for jobs. Like how Wendy puts it,

“if I were a company, I would be feeling quite dumb to pay people to say (possibly) bad stuffs about me”

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So when companies pays a blogger to do a ‘review’, are they actually expecting an advertorial?

So when bloggers are paid to do a ‘review’, are we assuming that it is actually an advertorial?

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I think that is why a top blogger like kennysia puts an ‘ADV’ in his header which represents ‘Advertorial’ each time he is paid to blog about a product. Firstly, it doesn’t mislead his readers that he is blogging about a product out of his own free will. Secondly, when readers see that it is an advertorial, the clever ones should understand that since it’s an advertorial, the opinions of the blogger should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I think companies and bloggers should adapt a common understanding that when a blogger is asked to blog about a product, it should be stated clearly if it is an Advertorial OR a Review. And this information should be CLEARLY represented on the post to let readers know WHICH it is.

Companies should understand that an Advertorial on a blog is just like an advertisement you see on TV, in between the shows. It’s a total biased view of their product that is in the form of a media to spread awareness of the products existence.

On the other hand, if the company is that SURE of a product, they should tell the blogger to REVIEW it with his/her total unbiased opinions. The company itself or others should also take heart in the true opinions of the blogger and not be afraid of giving the blogger products for review in the future.

If I am a reader and I am presented with the fact of whether the post is of a review or an advertorial, I can read the blog with the correct attitude. I know if I am reading about a product’s existence or the blogger’s true opinions on the product.

And wouldn’t YOU trust a company and a blogger that shows such transparency? I would!

15 Comments

It’s a Blessing To Have a Loved One Who Enjoys Cooking

Published
by
krisandro
on May 20, 2008
in My-Life
.

KuKuNehNeh loves cooking for family and friends. She loves it when people she cooks for enjoys the food and are appreciative of her effort. Having nobody dying yet from her food also makes her pretty credible.

WAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA!!! (She’s gonna kill me…)

The truth is, she is quite the cook. She doesn’t have the vast amount of recipes like my Mum has yet nor the chopping skills of YAN CAN COOK! SO CAN YOU!, but she has the right passion and love for cooking. It’s hard to find a girl who can cook these days you know! They are such a rare species these days that KuKuNehNeh might be labeled ‘Endangered’ in a few years time. I don’t want to end up visiting her at the Zoo, so can you ladies learn how to cook please!

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kukunehneh-animal

WAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA!!! (She’s REALLY gonna kill me…)

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We had our share of fun out BBQ-ing and bowling on Sunday already and we decided to spend Monday at home. Waking up at around 11am like the pigs we were, she went to wash up and worked hard at preparing the meal for the both of us. Seeing her so hard at work, I could not just STAND BY AND WATCH.

So, I stayed in the aircon room and played with the computer.

WAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA!!! (I am so dead…)

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After an hour plus of ‘battle’ in the kitchen, this is what she came up with. (Since these are from KuKuNehNeh, I can name it whatever I want!)

fried-rice
Dish #1: Flied Lice Velly Nice

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baked-beans-with-potato
Dish #2: Buddha Jumps Over the Wall and Lands On His Face

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cabbage-shrimps
Dish #3: Shrimpy Decabbagelicious

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fries
Dish #4: Fries Lor

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My favorite dish would have to be Shrimpy Decabbagelicious. It was probably the easiest to prepare but I love the simplicity of the taste and how well it goes with the Flied Lice Velly Nice.

KuKuNehNeh’s favorite will have to be the Fries Lor. She loves soggy fries unlike me. I always argue with her over McDonald’s that fries are MEANT to be CRISPY. Why? Imagine a fast food commercial on your TV with a sexy male voice saying, “Come! And try our delicious SOGGY fries!”. Doesn’t make sense right? Fries should be CRISPY!

Of course she ignores me and continue poking at every fries on the tray till she gets all the soggy ones and I get all the crispy ones with a finger dent on it.

I was still delighted with all her efforts and then proceeded to do a happy dance before I wash the dishes.

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Actually, the dance isn’t related to the food lar. But I just find it amusing and so it’s here.

Thank you KuKuNehNeh for all the effort in whipping up the delicious dishes!

11 Comments

Krisandro.com Needs Your Opinion

Published
by
krisandro
on May 20, 2008
in Announcements
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I have been getting feedback from bloggers and friends about the current website. These are some of the ones I have heard.

#1. The website layout is too messy.

#2. The website loads too slowly.

#3. Too many ads running.

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So far, I have addressed #3. I took down the google adsense and since yesterday, I took down the nuffnang ads as well as they were causing my site to slow to a crawl.

As for #2. The slow site load times could be due to my lousy webhost or due to the increased loads recently. That I can’t do much, but I think I shall cut down more widgets to increase the load times.

As for #1, I didn’t really think much about it till a few people brought it up to me. Should I just reduce to ONE side bar to help?

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I need you guys and girls to give your opinions on the website and see how I can improve. I know I cannot please everyone, but I sure would love to please as many guys as possible.

Okay. “please as many guys as possible” sounds totally wrong.

If you got any other suggestions to help improve this website. Please say something! Do not give useless comments like “KRIS! YOU SUCK!” or “KRIS! MY GRANDMA’S BLOG IS MORE L33T THAN YOURS!”. I need constructive criticisms, not facts.

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Comment away people! Thanks!

20 Comments

I Almost Got Sued Over A Picture on My Blog

Published
by
krisandro
on May 18, 2008
in My-Views
.

I am usually a ‘rest on weekends’ kind of blogger, but I got home after the ping.sg gathering at Brewerkz and saw an unexpected comment on one on my post.

copyright-infringement

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Yes, I was told to take down an image from this post or risk legal actions being taken against me. Without a 2nd thought, I immediately went to my wordpress panel and removed the image from the post as well as the server. I don’t make money out of this blog, and being sued over one 350 x 232 pixel picture is simply not worth it.

It was DEFINITELY my fault for not checking out what creative commons Andie had for this picture. I simply screenshot it, did some cropping and attributed the picture by putting a link back to the source. Photographers/graphic artists place different creative commons on their work. Some like Andie, do not allow any form of copying and some do allow people to use their work provided that people attribute the source/originator.

There are 2 thoughts I have on this matter.

First, is of course a reminder for me to check on the allowed usage of any images I find on the internet before utilizing it. I still have a lot of images on this blog that I am too lazy to double check now. I’ll just wait for each one of the owners to come and threaten to sue my poor ass. :-P

Secondly, I will like to touch on what I feel about copyrights on images. In this new age of online media, your work can be easily seen by an enormous amount of people depending on how popular your website is. For the new age photographer/graphic artists, sale of their work is no more subjected to galleries at museum and promoted by the local newspaper. A budding photographer or graphic artist can just post images on a website and money and/or fame will come.

The worry of photographers and artists is that people will use their images for monetary means without their consent and their deserved share of the money. Some are also afraid that other people will claim their work as their own.

I just feel that photographers should just allow their work to be used with proper attribution of the images to the original authors. It’s FREE publicity if you think about it. With the new age of media, you will find that bloggers are great avenues of advertising your work.

Of course some might argue that not everyone will attribute the images to the original authors. And if a person wants to just download the image and use it for print, there is no way you can stop him/her.

Photographers and graphic artists should do the following to reduce the odds of the above happening.

1. Do not post full size images. Use web sized ones. Images of that small size looks good enough for the web while ensuring that people do not download it off the web and do respectable prints with it.

2. Watermark your images. By putting your name and/or your website on your images, you increase the odds of some trackbacks from the information on the image. Having dabbled in photography before, I know some photographers who hate to watermark their images as it ’spoils’ the image and it is also troublesome to others to add watermarks for each image.

In my opinion, the benefits of allowing ‘free distribution’ of your work far outweighs an anal approach to “NO! YOU CANNOT USE MY IMAGE YOU *TOOT*. I’LL KEEL YOU!”. Sure, there may be more people who use your work without proper attribution and even some assholes who will claim your work as theirs, but you will get more recognition and business from the exposure you get from the few good ones.

Anyone got thoughts to add?

34 Comments