Blogging and the Law

The following items are taken from the New Sunday Times. It is about a question-and-answer session at the elawyer Law Conference 2009 themed “Blogging and Law” recently:

• You create a fake Facebook profile about your friend or foe, can you get away with it? No. Lawyer Nizam Bashi Abdul Kariem Bashir said the person responsible would be liable for defamation. “The strongest defense for defamation is justification. If you express an opinion and the facts are reasonably accurate and it is published in the interest of the public, then it is acceptable,” said Nizam

• Someone takes an unflattering photograph of you and posts it on his blog; can you do anything about it? Apparently not. For unflattering photograph, intellectual property lawyer, Foong Cheng Leong said:” So long as it is that person who has taken the photo of you, he has the copyright to it.

• What about taking a video from YouTube and posting it on your blog? “You would have infringed copyright laws as you have reproduced material without consent,” he said.

• What if someone posts an unfavorable comment about a minister on your blog but you reply to the post saying the comment is inappropriate. Are you liable? “Yes. Your response will help only in the mitigation of your sentencing or damages against you.”

• On copyright, Foong said if you drew a caricature and commissioned someone else to do illustrations for your blog, you would own the copyright to the caricature and illustrations. “Even if you paid the person just RM1 or RM2 to do it.”

• If an image is taken of a website and posted on a blog, said Foong, the defense of fair dealing would be available if the website was credited to the proper owner.

• What if you link your blog to a website that contains defamation information or images? The courts, said Nizam, had held that it was fine if the link just contains the name of the site as opposed to its uniform resource locator.

• Are you still liable for defamation if you use someone’s name in your blog, and in brackets, explain that it is just an example? “Even if the comments were humorous, parties have still taken matters like this to court. It would depend on the context of the information. Brackets might not necessarily work on all occasions.”

• Nizam said it was defamation if a blogger's writing injures the reputation of another person.

• If there is a defamatory comment on a blog but the blogger subsequently removes it, is he still liable? ”Yes. It will only help in the mitigation of sentencing. There is freedom on the Net, but there must also be responsibility.”

Blogging is fun but we have to blog with care in order not to run foul of the law.

An Organized Home - 5 Benefits

Whenever you step into a house it is pleasing to see a place that is neat and tidy. An organized home is more than a delight to your eyes. It has many benefits:


1. Positive energy: There is a place for everything in the house. There is a place to store your items and there are bedrooms and a kitchen in the house. According to Feng Shui masters, your house is able to generate positive energy when your house is tidy and neat. It is especially so when you don’t turn your living room or your bedroom into a storage area.

2. Better time management: When things are kept where it should be, you waste no time to retrieve an item when you need it.

3. Save more money: Imagine your table is a few piles of paper and you can't locate your latest credit card statement. The bank imposed late payment charges plus interest just because you can't find your statement to pay the bank on time. You can save all these unnecessary expenses when your documents are filed systematically.

4. A feeling of well-being: You are either positively or negatively impacted by what you see in the house. An organized house will definitely vibrate in you a feeling of calmness and peacefulness. This will indirectly positively affect your health and well-being.

5. More Productive: An organized home means you are able to do things easily and quickly and it frees you to spend more time on things that you are interested to do.


Organize your living space to improve your quality of life at home. Do it right away to de-clutter your house.

Google Alerts, Your Blog and You

Google Alerts

Recently I have created Google Alerts .to check the following keywords: Charles Chua C K All about living with life An email will be sent to me on a daily basis should my name or my bog is mentioned in the blogosphere. The whole idea is that you can find out what others are talking about you and your blog on the Internet. When there is a favorable comment about you, you can respond quickly to it. On the other hand, at any time when there is a smear about you, you can also act immediately to notify the host of the website to take it down. The faster you respond to it the better it is, before there is further damage to your name. From time to time you can also search the web by typing in your name or your blog title to do a check Another place to investigate is Technorati. Go to their Watchlists to add the URL of your site, your blog title, and your name. You will get similar results like Google Alerts. Go and find out on the Internet what others are talking about you and your blog.

What can random acts of kindness do for you?

These are random acts of kindness:

Say “Hello” to strangers.
Smile at people you meet.
Say "Please" and "Thank you" to counter staff.
Greet someone on the way to work "Good morning.”
Before leaving tell the other person to have a happy day.
Compliment the receptionist that she has a nice head of hair.
Praise your colleague in the office about the dress she is wearing is very attractive and it suits her very well.

These small gestures mean nothing to you but they mean happiness and much more to others. When you bring joy and cheerfulness to the other person the positive impact on you is even greater. Let's find out:


Health: According to a study of 2016 church members, it was found that those who regularly helped others had better mental health and a lower rate of depression. Other studies found that helping people were less likely to fall ill from chronic disease and tended to have better immune systems. Kindness also regulates emotions.

Kindness begets kindness: President Obama helped a stranger who was stranded at the Miami airport without money to pay a $103 luggage surcharge way back in 1988. She paid the $103 back to Obama the day after she arrived in Norway. In return, 2o years later, the woman voted for him and donated 100 dollars to his campaign.

Self-confidence: You build up your self-confidence because you have shown to yourself that you are capable of helping others. And it gives you a sense of self-worth and optimism.

Your own happiness: As the saying goes," Happiness is like jam, you can’t spread even a little without getting some on yourself.” Kindness enhances our feelings of joyfulness.

Relationships: By being kind to others you establish a healthy relationship with them.


As the financial situation is getting from bad to worse, we are now living in a world full of sadness and hopelessness. By spreading kindness around, we bring hope and happiness to others and we build strength in ourselves.

Spread kindness around.

Positive Customer Relationships – 10 Customer Care Tips

Customer Service

According to Henry Ford, “It is not the employer who pays wages – he only handles the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.” Customers are the most important people in your business. When you take good care of your customers, you take good care of your business and it translates into higher revenue and better profit for the company. Here are the 10 valuable tips to take care of your customers:


1. Response to your customers positively: Replying to customers’ requests and questions with a positive answer. When you are unable to help you still can tell the customers what else you can do.

2. Attention to detail: Satisfy the customers' requests. Listen carefully and attend to their needs fully.

3. Keep your promise: Deliver the goods as promised, and promise only what you can deliver.

4. Exceed customers' expectations: When you are able to keep promises to your customers you go the extra mile and do more for the customers.

5. Feedback: Communicate with your customers. Get feedback from them so as to know what you are doing is right or wrong. Encourage the customers to express their opinions freely- positively or negatively for further improvement.

6. Customer is always right: Even when the customer is wrong he is still right. Do not aggravate the matter by telling the customer that he is wrong. You can’t win a customer by winning an argument.

7. Difficult customers and complaints: Handle the situation tactfully and promptly. Do not inflame the situation. Get another co-worker to help if necessary. Give them what they want. When you resolve the problem to their satisfaction, studies show, 70 percent of people will buy from you again.

8. Get to know your products well: Know your products at your fingertips. Recommend the right products to meet the needs of the customer. A satisfied customer will be a strong supporter.

9. Caring Attitude of the staff: A friendly, helpful, courteous, and positive attitude of your staff will go a long way to keep the customers happy, satisfied, and come back for more. Another important point is that when you treat the staff fairly the staff will, in turn, treat the customers just as well. People like to be treated the way you want to be treated.

10. Empowering the staff: According to American’s number one customer service company, Nordstrom, their Rule #1 for new staff: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules. Allow your staff the freedom to decide the best course of action to satisfy the needs of the customers.


Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s Restaurants, says,” Remember, you can’t take a customer for granted. There really is no such thing as customer loyalty. If you want to succeed in business, you have to be loyal to your customers, in order to get them to keep coming back."

Boost the Quality of Your Sperm – 6 Productive Tips

According to China Press, a local Chinese newspaper, there are a few ways to improve the quality of your sperm and you can do it naturally and easily: 

 1. Abstain: Have sex after an abstention of 4 to 5 days. According to Swedish research, the quality of sperm is at its best when you keep away from sex for four to five days. In other words, have sex after a break of 4 to 5 days. 

 2. Masturbation and actual intercourse: To develop test tube babies the sperm produced by normal sexual intercourse is better than by masturbation. 

 3. Do not smoke: As mentioned in the paper research was conducted by comparing smokers and non-smokers of 18 years of age. The quality of sperm decreased by 49% for those who were smokers and their concentration of sperm also dropped by 37%.

 4. Make love at home: Research indicates that the quality of sperm is better when you make love at familiar places such as your own home. 

 5. Ejaculation within 10 minutes: For the purposes of making a baby the faster the better. It is recommended that you ejaculate within 10 minutes during erection because according to research the quality of sperm is at its best when you ejaculate within the time frame. 

 6. Healthy lifestyle: In order to avoid oxidation damage to sperm you need to control your stress, reduce work pressure, have sufficient sleep, and follow a balanced diet. Get away from the polluted area to avoid free radicals. 

 Hope you find the tips useful and are able to boost the production of quality sperm. Happy lovemaking and baby-making!

Baby Boomers – The 7 Ingredients of Happiness

Baby boomers have special needs. However, it is still possible to have lasting happiness with the following ingredients:


1. Health: This is the time for the baby boomers to enjoy the carefree years. However, life is only enjoyable when you are in good health. Live a healthy lifestyle. Eat a balanced diet, breath in a lot of fresh air. Be physically active every day.

2. Companion: Life is more fulfilling when there is someone to share your happiness and sadness and a shoulder to cry on when the need arises. It is more meaningful when you can communicate with each other about the ups and downs of life.

3. Money: Money may not bring you happiness but without money, life is going to be miserable. Make sure that the retirement fund is sufficient to last as long as you live and the fund is also able to generate passive income for you.

4. Shelter: Ascertain that the house that you live in is owned by you. Do not be too happy to sell your own house and move in to live with one of your children. How sure can you be that you will be able to live there until the end of your life?

5. Friendship: A healthy relationship is a thing that keeps the baby boomers occupied in mind and in spirits. Enjoying an afternoon tea with your friends and making a trip to somewhere together are some of the wonderful things to do in life,

6. Lifelong learning: Keep yourself meaningfully occupied by learning new things. Blogging is one of those things that you should take up. There are a lot of things to learn every day when you surf the net. You can tweet, write on the wall, and post your articles, get comments about your posts and you can look at your Traffic Rank every now and then. It’s exciting and there is always something to look forward to every day.

7. Positive mental attitude: Be cheerful and look at the bright side of things. Life may not be a bed of roses, but when you decide to be cheerful and look positively at the years ahead of you, you will be happy.


According to a Chinese newspaper, it refers to baby boomers as the age of sunshine and happiness (阳光乐龄yang guang le ling). Enjoy your sunshine years and be happy!

Related article: Happiness and a More Satisfying Life - The 7 Ingredients
Baby Boomers – The 7 secrets of Joy and Happiness in Continuous Learning

Getting along with others – 10 Human Relationship Tips

No man is an island. We are independent and at the same time, we are also interdependent. It is essential that we cultivate a healthy relationship with others. The fact is that we treat others the way we want to be treated. Here are the 10 tips:


1. Don’t judge a book by its cover: Accept others with openness. Do not form a judgment without a deeper understanding of the other person. Accept others as they are. Accept their uniqueness. We shall never have friends if we expect to find them without fault.

2. A person’s name: In his book, How to win friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie mentions that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

3. Talk to others: When you start a conversation with the person next to you, you actually acknowledge his presence, and that makes him happy.

4. Be cheerful: Smile at others, and people will smile at you. When you show an angry face those people around you are wondering what is wrong with you or them.

5. Lend a hand: When you perform random acts of kindness you feel compassionate and capable. People are impacted positively by your kind gestures and it makes you happy.

6. Show an interest in others: According to Dale Carnegie," You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

7. Praise and criticize: Praise others in public and when you must criticize do it privately,

8. Think from the people's point of view: Before you do anything think what you do will affect others. Always ask the opinion of others.

9. Be Courageous: When you have done something wrong admit it that you have made a mistake.

10. Be polite and humble: Say "Please” and "Thank you" to others. You can be rich but you don't have to be boastful.


According to Alfred Adler, the famous Viennese psychologist,” It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring."

Chocolate – Health Benefits

Chocolate

It’s a delight to melt a piece of chocolate in the mouth. It is also a great feeling to know that we can find so many health benefits in a piece of chocolate. Here are some of the goodness:

 1. Brain Stimulator: Whenever you eat a piece of chocolate you have a pleasant feeling because it stimulates endorphin production, In addition, it contains serotonin which is an anti-depressant. You can also find other substances like theobromine and caffeine which are stimulants. 

 2. Anticancer: Dark chocolate which is made from cocoa beans contains antioxidants that have been shown to combat cell damage that can lead to tumor growth. 

 3. Reduce blood pressure: People with high blood pressure can reduce blood pressure by eating a small amount of chocolate every day. 

 4. Good for your heart: A daily consumption of a small amount of chocolate is possible to lower the risk of a heart attack. Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol). 

 5. Cough: According to research chocolate may be effective to prevent persistent coughing. The presence of theobromine in chocolate is found to be almost one third more effective than codeine, the leading cough medicine. Chocolate also seems to soothe and moisten the throat 

 Chocolate may be good for your health but it is recommended that it is eaten moderately because it is a calorie-dense food that is rich in factory-added fat and sugar.

Build a Name for Yourself on the Internet

Brand

Image source:https://www.grouphigh.com/blog/how-brands-are-powering-opt-in-influencer-networks/

What do you want your blog to be perceived in the blogosphere? Here are a few things that you can do to make your website stand out among others:

1. The Purpose of your blog: What do you want your blog to do for others? Unless you are writing for your own consumption you expose your blog for the benefit of others. As an example, my blog is about self-improvement. I want to share ideas with my readers to improve certain aspects of their life like health, money, parenting, and other things.

2. Your title and tagline: Your blog title and the tagline will more or less convey a message to the people about your site’s objectives. From my subtitle, I am telling the world that I will blog about self-improvement in one’s life in 8 areas.

3. Your articles: As an example, every article that I post will direct the readers' attention to one area of life to improve for the better. Your articles should be closely related to your niche.

4. Promote your blog: Get your blog to be noticed by others online and offline:

· Social media: Bookmark your articles at social networking and social bookmarking sites. Obtain backlink to your site by submitting your popular articles to article directories like ezinearticles.com. Join related forums and carnivals. Comment on other similar blogs. Make friends with like-minded people on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk…

· Business cards: Include the address of your website and a small description of your site in your business cards. Hand out your business cards freely to people you come into contact with.

· Newspaper and magazine write-ups: Solicit newspapers and magazines to do write-ups about your blog. The best time to do it is when you have something special happening at your blog or when your blog has reached a certain milestone. I will request for a write-up when my blog’s Traffic Rank is in 6 digits or when I have improved my PageRank.

Things will not happen immediately. You will have to do it consistently to get the desired results. By impacting your blog title, your tagline, your articles over and over again you will curve a name for yourself on the Internet.

Wish you good luck.

7 Tips to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Internet Traffic

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You have been blogging for quite a while and the traffic to your blog seems sluggish. Do not despair and do not give up. Here are the 7 tips to help you get more traffic to your blog:

1. The theme of your blog: This is the niche subject of your website. Be very specific about the topic that you are writing about. When your blog is a niche website about a particular topic you will attract more readers to your site. Let's say you are a cat lover and you keep a few at home. You have a lot of things to talk about cats, such as cat food, their habits, how to care for them, diseases of cats, and benefits to human beings as pets. For me, my niche is self-improvement and from the tagline, you will notice the areas that I blog about.

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2. Rhythm of posting: The readers are expecting and watching. Keep on posting on the dot. When you decide to post an article a day. Do it every day at the same time. Do not turn away your valuable readers by posting irregularly. Once they are gone they are gone forever.

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3. Compelling articles: Original and unique articles will be noticed by a lot of readers. It is a challenge to write such articles on a regular basis. Take the challenge, keep writing every day and over time you will have accumulated a lot of articles and some of them, I am sure, will turn up to be very popular with the readers.

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4. Take your articles to where the readers are: Don's expect a new blog to get traffic instantly. You have to take your articles to where the readers are. Bookmark your article every day at social networking and social bookmarking sites. Digg, Facebook, Plurk, Stumbleupon Twitter are just a few of them. Submit your popular articles to article directories such as ezinearticles.com.

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5. Forums: Depending on your niche you should join forums to express your views in the field of your expertise. For me, I will choose to join forums pertaining to self-improvement.

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6. Make friends: Join social networking sites like Facebook, Plurk, and Twitter to make as many friends as possible. Interact with them and introduce yourself and your site to them.

7. Carnivals: Participate in carnivals. Go to blogcarnival.com and join carnivals on the same theme as your blog. You will get readers of similar interest as well as a one-way link to your blog.

You cannot expect traffic to surge overnight. It takes time and a lot of daily effort. Make it a habit to do the work. Slowly and steadily you will get more and more readers to your site.

Wish you success in blogging!

Self-Improvement as a Niche for Your Blog

Seif-Improvement

You were told to have a niche blog when you do blogging. But what are your interest and passion? What can you write about without running out of ideas? I am asking you to consider the following with a common niche. It is all about improving your personal self:

Personal development
Personal improvement
Self-improvement
Self-development


What can you blog about this subject? There is no limit to what you can write and the sky is the limit. The following are just some of the things that you can post on your blog:

Inspiration
Motivation
Productivity
Psychology
Money
Health
Education
Parenting
Self-development
Self-improvement
Happiness
Work
Homelife
Relationships
Blogging

I checked with Google and I got the following results:

Personal Development Blogs: 48,400,000 entries
Personal Improvement Blogs: 9,880,000 entries
Self Improvement blogs: 6,500,000 entries
Self Development Blogs: 25,700,000 entries

As you can see these keywords are very popular with the readers and with so many blogs out there writing about the same subject, it is indeed a great challenge. Why not take on the competition and get into it to see how good you are among all the other blogs? It’s a great motivation to you when you are able to improve your position in the blogosphere where the fight for the top is fierce and relentless

Wish you success in your niche blogging.

7 Psychological Needs of Children

A healthy growth of your child needs to be satisfied with certain psychological needs. To understand and promote the growth of your child you need to understand his psychological needs:

1. Attention: You need to pay attention to your child. As a child he likes to attract the attention of his parents. When you ignore him he will behave negatively to attract your attention. Always be attentive to your child.

2. Acceptance: A child is happy when he is accepted by his parents. He knows how to behave in order to get the approval of his parents. Accept your child unconditionally.

3. Respect: A child needs to have self-respect and to be respected.When your child does not respect himself and he is not being respected his self-esteem will be low and he feels helpless and down. The worst thing that can happen to him is that he will not have the confidence to live in life. Praise your child whenever he does something right to boost his self-confidence.

4. Belonging: Every one hopes to be part of a group. It is the same with your child. He wants to have a place in a group. If he is rejected or bypassed it will affect his healthy development.

5. Love: The emotional support and the love of his parents stimulate the child’s mental and physical growth. Shower him with love and tender care.

6. Achievement: It is the motive of your child to learn something and to achieve success. Provide positive reinforcement in his quest for knowledge.

7. Friendship: It is natural for your child to make friends. Encourage your child to socialize so that he learns to get along with others in a normal and healthy situation.
   

When you understand the psychological needs of your child and are able to satisfy his needs without hindrance you will promote a positive growth in your child.