k r i s a n d r o

I’ve been blessed for the last 2 months with a review unit of LG’s new line of LED Backlit LCD Monitors and got no less than the super wide 24″ version, the LG W2486L.

I’ve been using a Samsung 19″ monitor and the immediate reaction upon unboxing the LG W2486L is the sheer size of the screen. LG has been striking on the right notes for the aesthetics of their products and the LG 86 series of monitors maintains the same note with its sleek looking monitor and still packing punches with it’s specifications.

• Display Type: LCD display / TFT active matrix
• Depth: 7.8 in (19.81cm)
• Height: 17.4 in (44.2cm)
• Weight: 9.7 lbs (4.4kg)
• Display aspect ratio: 16:9
• Image Contrast Ratio: 2000000:1 (dynamic)
• Video Format: 1080p
• Color Support: 24-bit (16.7 million colors)
• Response Time: 2ms
• Signal Input: 2xHDMI, 1xDVI-D, 1xVGA

 

It’s sheer size had me demoting my 19″ monitor to the side as a secondary display and using the 24″ LG W2486L as my primary display. As much as I love PC gaming, it’s tough trying to find time to play games on my computer. But I definitely tried to play games like L4D2 and Dragon Age:Origins just to compare the gaming experience on the new monitor. The size, widescreen ratio (16:9), contrast ratio and response time definitely makes it a great monitor to consider if you are into gaming and I definitely wish for more time to play games and harness the quality and screen estate it can provide.

I spend the bulk of my time at the computer juggling between work, socializing and watching videos (I know what you are thinking but let’s not go there). The LG W2486L definitely meets every need that is required of my daily tasks and it definitely increased my productivity with the amount of information I can see with it’s wide ratio and resolution.

If there is a bone to pick, I wish the monitor screen could swivel more freely so that I can find a more optimal angle for my eyes in relation to my computer desk.

The LG W86 series of monitors are available in Singapore selling at the following recommended retail prices:

• S$388 for the 22-inch W86L
• S$498 for the 24-inch W86L

Thanks to Mariko and Aaron for the trial unit!

[Disclosure: I am one of ten only bloggers in Singapore who got to try the LG W86 series before it's local launch date. The unit is passed to me for a trial period for 2 months and I will be offered to purchase it at a discount at the end of the trial and the money will be given to a charity of LG's choice. All opinions in this post are of my own and are just as true when I say "I think I am pretty lame", which might or might not be true to you but definitely still of my true opinion.]

It was a blast at the “Your Blog” event yesterday at the Open Room. The event is organized by the good folks at Ogilvy and the topic was on “How to market your blog Like a brand”.

Yongfook

 

The speakers came from very different backgrounds; we have Yongfook, the handsome-enough-to-make-me-question-my-sexuality CEO of Egg Co., who produced cult favorite projects like Open Source Food (now known as Nibbledish) & Sweetcron;  Arti Mulchand, who has spent much of her career life in SPH and probably regards words as any guy would regard porn; Design Sojourn,  a serious award winning industrial design leader who still has enough humor to ; and not forgetting Andy from ToysREvil who made me laugh so hard from his Singlish and subtle hand-wanking gestures that I teared up.

All of the speakers (apart from Arti who owns a small personal blog) have very successful blogs in their own right and the amazing thing is that none of them made money directly from blogging. The success I am referring to is of course the niche traffic that they have built up over the years and it was the personal branding in their blogs that led them to other opportunities. All these happened because of their blogs; Yongfook dated a hot girl (he also got a job in a big media company in Japan but I like to emphasize the ‘hot girl’ part), Design Sojourn is working for a huge electronics giant; and Andy has… toys. (You guys will never understand how important that is to him)

The great thing about the speakers is that they shared their own experiences on how they evolved as a blogger through the years and it’s exactly what I am or what most of you bloggers are going through. I started off writing in 2004, just wanting to have a voice and not caring about what I say because who is to judge me on my own space? Soon the readers rose from one (myself) to a couple (colleagues, friends) and I found blogging tools like wordpress that relieves me of my lousy html skills. Soon, strangers started popping out of nowhere because of search engines and referrals and I found my voice becoming restricted. I could actually hurt somebody and thus hurt myself from the things I say! I came soon to accept that true opinions (the ones with FUCK YOU! ALL YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!!!) are not meant to be on the web especially when I am not very anonymous.

I soon turned to the ‘dark side’ and got into the hype of putting ads on my blog so that I can eventually strut around in my berms in Orchard during daytime, scoffing at all the stressed out peeps in suits and ties while checking out my adsense account.

It didn’t work. So now I am back to where I started, and realize that not everyone can make money through blogging directly (certainly not me).

Their blogs were a brand. People who knew of Yongfook, Design Sojourn & Andy knew what they were about and their success were built upon shaping their blogs to their strengths for a niche audience. Getting success in terms of traffic hits are not much of a secret these days considering how much information is out there. Barring bloggers who cannot write coherently or has no opinion whatsoever, we all can succeed in our own right.

So what’s my niche to work on. Humor methinks.

It’s a little on the ‘Lame’ side of humor but I’ll get whatever laughs I can get.

Don’t make me come over and tickle you.

(Check out the key take aways summarized by Brian Koh of Ogilvy)

(Oh and Arti, if you are reading this. You were shaking so bad throughout most of your speech but the points that you put across were definitely a lot of food for thought.)

The previous theme of my blog had many people saying that it was too gay-ish for me even though I really liked the design that was adapted from one of Cimoetz’s designs.

One other problem I had with the old theme was that it loads pretty slow and so I went to the wordpress theme directory and fell in love with the current theme that you are seeing now. My feel for this theme after tweaking it here and there is that it is much neater than the previous theme with only one sidebar. The colours are also more erm…. *ahem*… manly.

And since the ‘floating’ head of krisandro.com is such an *cough* iconic thing, I have since placed it up where my blog header is.

A couple have complained that it is less ‘read-friendly’ though, and I have made the text in the body darker for better contrast. Many have also complained that the load times are still slow despite it being faster and I don’t think I can do more for that problem apart from changing to a local host.

Any other feedback on the new theme? I would love to hear from you!

Oh! And do join to show your support! I haven’t found a better use for the fan page yet and so for now, it’s all for my ego’s sake.

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!!!!

The very first popular blog that I came across was Xiaxue‘s back in the days when she was funnier and less commercialized(IMHO). Blogs at that time were a form of entertainment and a way to keep myself updated on my friends lives. Having a steady income back in 2005, I got a webhost and the URL ‘krisandro.com’ without going through what most bloggers go through; Having a free blogging platform like blogspot/wordpress/xanga and then realizing later that they want a self hosted blog.

It wasn’t my intentions to use it as a blog in the 1st place but I eventually hopped onto the bandwagon and started to write. I used dreamweaver/frontpage to design and code my blog and it wasn’t powered by any blogging platform. I don’t have any friends who had a self hosted blog during those times, and without the knowledge of blogging platforms for self-hosted blogs, you can imagine how stupid it was for the period between March 2005 to Feb 2008. I was basically coding everything manually like my archives.

LOL

My traffic back then was mostly made up of my ‘offline’ friends and colleagues and then I start to hear good comments that I was ‘funny’. I then started to write a little more frequently and got ‘tomorrow-ed’ a couple of times. Unfortunately, after migrating to wordpress, you guys won’t be able to see the old entries that I had before Feb 2008.

I had a very long blogging hiatus for a period of almost 6 months because of personal reasons and there are 3 reasons that made me come back to blogging in February this year.

#1 – Friends

KuKuNehNeh knew me better through my old blog archives and after we got together, she kept badgering me to revive my blog. Friends like DX, Ade and my WLNY pals also popped by every once in a while through my shoutbox and say things like…

“YOUR BLOG IS DEAD!!!”
*REMOVE COBWEBS*
“KRISANDO!!! COME BACK! I LOVEEEEEEEEE YOU!!!”

Okay, it’s obvious that I made the last one up but the point is, these people gave me the confidence that they would like me to write again.
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#2 – WordPress

Seriously. Without wordpress, there is no reason for me to update my blog as often as I can now. Everything is great about the platform to the point that I only need to concentrate mostly on content, content and content. Well, in krisandro’s blog, it’s actually rubbish, rubbish and rubbish. But I know you guys like rubbish and rubbish is gonna stay!
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#3 – Ping.sg

I don’t think the traffic for June can match the traffic of May though

Without Ping.sg, my blog’s growth would not have been what it is now. Nice folks do submit my works to tomorrow.sg every now and then but it is Ping.sg that gives me constant traffic. It’s also the folks at Ping who are very supportive of my blogging style and they make up a majority of the ones who leave comments whenever I post something up and it feels bloody nice to have people leave comments.
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This is my 100th wordpress post, and I’ll dedicate this to the 3 reasons I mentioned and all my supporters, including those who are SILENT READERS. You know who you are.. (Cuz nobody else knows who you are…)