Al-Qaeda’s terrorist member’s car! Someone call CIA! Maybe Osama is having lunch in a nearby Japanese steamboat restaurant!

Yup, I know it is unprofessional of me to capture my own reflection on the side window, but I only had one chance to take the photo, right? If I stood there for too long, who knows what would happen? The car might turn out to be a car bomb and explode!

Right, Al-Qaeda’s official car is a Perodua Kancil. So much for being one of the most famous international terrorist organizations…

Well, maybe it’s because Kancil’s are cheap! Then the cost for each car bombing would be less! Very cost-efficient!

Haha, spotted the car in Puchong, yesterday. Funny dude to label his car like that!

**********

*Ahem*… Now for an official James-Chow.com announcement!

Two months ago, I was contacted by MYNIC, the official company in-charged of all the website names that end with “.my“, such as ‘www.tm.net.my’ or ‘www.thestar.com.my’.

They told me that being the owner of a “.com.my” domain (in my case www.james.com.my), I was eligible to an early ‘priority’ registration for their new “.my” domains. Previously, there was no such thing as ‘www.abc.my‘ or ‘www.james.my‘, as there was only www.abc.org.my or www.james.com.my.

Don’t ask me why is was like that, it’s the government’s policy.

But now, the government has changed the policy and are opening ‘.my’ domain names to the public in March! So I was given the opportunity to register for my own ‘.my’ domain name three months before its official launching in March!

For those of you who are asking why don’t I just register after the official launch… The answer is this: When officially launched, the ‘.my’ domain name is going to be an “unrestricted” domain name – meaning any person or entity in Malaysia, and later – the world, could register for it; very unlike the ‘.com.my’ case, which is restricted to business and organizational entities only.

In the simplest terms – A common name such as “james” would be registered by someone else on the very day or even minutes after its official launch. Just like what happened to the “.com” names!

Yes, there are people or ‘investors’ who register hundreds of common names such as “alvin”, “money” or “happy” just to resell them to people who want them for more than 10 – 100 times the original price in the future! Believe it!

…

OKOK, I know you’re totally bored reading all this. So here’s the announcement!

Starting today, you can access my website using “www.james.my“! A much shorter name! YAY!

Of course, you can still access it with any of the following:

“www.james-chow.com”

“www.james.com.my”

and… “www.james.my”

I still dunno what to do with the last two domains so they all go to a welcome page that links to my main site, hehe…

HARAP MAKLUM! Thank you!

**********

A bit about myself…

Huhu… I’m very insanely busy with the new trimester this week... Loads of stuff to do including my change-of-major process… Yes, it’s still not done yet… Haha…

There’s really a lot of other great things that has happened and I really wish to write about them one by one. But, for now I really don’t have the time, just for these few days… After this week I think I’ll be much more settled-down for the new trimester.

I’ll have more updates soon, you have my word!

P.S. Actually it’s not really a ‘new’ trimester, it’s already week 4. But thanks to our Chinese New Year sticking in week 2, so week 1 and 3 don’t really count!

Ladies and gentlemen,

it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure, that I present to you…

*drum roll*

www.James.com.my !

Woohoo! *cheers*

I’ve been looking for an alternative domain name ever since I discovered the extremely annoying JamesDashChow issue and was determined to prevent my friends from ending up in someone else’s website instead of mine!

But then, .com domain names on the internet are so grossly used up that you practically have to come up with an irritatingly long or wierd name to avoid having your registration be rejected…

By ‘long or wierd names’ I mean names like www.jameswhateverchow.com or www.blahblahjames.com or something like that. And those, are not excellent names at all!

The ideal names are short, concise, and descriptive. The best names are those that are really short and can be easily related to the contents of the site.

So you’ll never see big companies like BMW (www.bmw.com) or KFC (www.kfc.com) having websites like www.bmwgroupautomobiles.com or www.kentuckyfriedchickenitsfingerlickingood.com!

In short, the shorter your domain name, the better it is. People can remember it much more easily!

Of course, www.James.com would be the best option for me, but without the slightest doubt, it is already taken – there are just too many James(s) in this world, way tooooo many! And buying a domain name that is already owned by someone else would cost you up to tens of thousands of dollars, if not millions! Huhu…

Luckily, Malaysia controls and limits the registration of its .com.my domain names to organisations with registered presence in Malaysia only, such as companies or businesses. This greatly reduced the amount of domain names that are taken, and I’ve luckily secured my own name. Yay!

Just to clarify, www.James-Chow.com will still remain as my main website’s URL. On the other hand, www.James.com.my will serve as a portal that redirects back to www.James-Chow.com, this solved my JamesDashChow problem because www.james.com.my is (I think) unmistakably easy to remember! Hehe…

Anyway, something really annoying happened though:

My www.James.com.my domain name was registered on the 4th of Jun. And you know what? Exactly 2 days after my registration was processed (and money paid), the company that registered my domain name offered a bloody 50% discount on all .com.my domain name registrations in conjunction with our nation’s 50th independence day!

AARRGGHHHH!

That is so unfair! Why do I always get the feeling that fate is always against me?! *sob*

Apparently there are more James Chows on the internet than I thought!

Have you wondered why I’m using James-Chow.com (with the dash in the middle) instead of JamesChow.com as my domain name?

Actually I REALLY wanted to register JamesChow.com as my domain name because instead of simply saying that my website is at “James Chow dot com,” I have to

“Hey, my website is www dot James DASH Chow dot com, remember the dash in the middle ya!”

Which is very long and annoying to say

But there’s nothing I could do… If you google search for “james chow” you get a movie guy James Chow, a doctor James Chow, an author James Chow and many other MEs!!!

Simply go to www.JamesChow.com (without the dash) and you’ll even wonder what the hell that page’s for… But no doubt the guy has his reasons. Sigh…

Of course some of you might say I can use other TLDs like .org, .net, .biz and so on, but guess what? Even JamesChow.net and JamesChow.org are registered to someone else leh!

So the remaining ones are .biz, .name, .info and the rest. In this case, I would rather stick to the “Hey, my website is www dot James DASH Chow dot com, remember the dash in the middle ya!” than having to say:

———

“Hey my website is at www dot James Chow dot biz.”

“Dot what ah?”

“James Chow dot biz, biz stands for business loh.”

“Huh… ? Dot bis? Got such thing meh, never heard before la!”

“Got lah, actually there is such a thing. “*swt*

“It’s not a real website hor?”

“Of course it is, I just gave you a URL, didn’t I? ”

“Eh I thought websites ends with .com 1?

“Err… Not necessarily 1, actually…”

“Ok, I will go back and see see la!”

———

… And then he/she goes back and types www.jameschow.bis… =.=” Which doesn’t exist at all!

Actually this may really happen because I know a few friends who really think that websites only end with .com!

But maybe I should be happy with my www.James-Chow.com ler, cuz it’s quite easy to remember and identifies myself accurately! Not bad also mah… Just that next time…

Remember the DASH in the middle ya!”