Fuel Price, 134.9 cents per L, that is very cheap

I just fueled up my car this afternoon. That was 134.9 cents per L and I chose to use E10 , that is 132.9 cents per L. The whole tank is about $49. That is so cheap! We have not used the fuel for this price for a few months!

Alliance of technology partners

Some one asked myself whether we can provide computer hardware. Yes, we can. However, that is not our core business. We will get the hardware from our trustworthy partners.
We are not big enough to have everything. We prefer to put our efforts on the areas we already are serving in. On other hand,
We have other technologies partners are very good at those areas.  Moreover we have some long term relationship with them. We can still ensure the quality.  Finally we have a win win solution. They can get the business from us and we can get the services or products.

We still cannot get away from Search Engines

"Social Media" has became a hot topic during these recent years. A lot of people believe that is the way for online market. I believe that is very useful too. However, search engines is still the most helpful way to search for the information. We need to submit the websites to the search engines

Learning from the failures

I cannot do everythings right, even I tried my best to recover my fault. That may not work every times.
The most important part is learning from those failures. I know there may be some environment factor which we cannot control. However, there are still parts we could do better next times. Thus, we need to sit down and review our failures every times!

Multi income streams

I think that is important to have multi income streams as a startup business. That is too high risk to generate the income from a single area. We have diversity of client base. In case, one industry is going a tough time. We can get enough income from other businesses. That is the reason my company builds mobile apps, custom applications and websites  for clients. Even we do technical support for clients  too! That is hard to do time management for doing well in those areas. But that is the way to have a stable business .

Corporate Culture

Recently, I met some graduates. I had some discussions with them about their first job. I found they are very focus on profession training, salary and the size of companies. I think they should think about Corporate Culture. They should think about whether they can fit in the team and whether their work style is similar with the company they are going to apply. I really wish them can enjoy their first job!

Social Network is not very helpful for internet marketing

We, AdvGen, are managing a lot of local and IT news portals. I found the most of traffic are coming from the search engines, the traditional way. Yes, the segment of Social Network traffic is getting more comparing 3 years ago. That is not as powerful as some internet marketing said. They said the social network can get your website to be well known.
If you ask me, whether that is a good idea to use Social Networks for internet marketing. I must say "Yes". That is a good tool to bring some traffic and get other people to know your website. But you need to do SEO. You cannot only rely on Social Networks.

Going Social

During these recent years, a lot of companies paid a lot of attentions at social media. They setup twitter account, facebook pages and google+ page. Recently, some companies, even some of them are small business, are making some video clips to youtube. They are building their own video channels to promote their own products and services.  That is impressive!

A success story of Australia Software Company - Atlassian

This monday night, I was watching The Business on ABC. During the program, there was a section about A success story of Australia Software Company ,Atlassian. I have been their product JIRA for years, but I never know they are an australian company. I am surprised that is a local startup in Sydney. That was an interesting story. Thus, I paid attention to listen their story. I found they faced a problem which a lot australian companies are facing, Australia is a relative small country. Our local market is not big enough to reach a critical mass. They pointed out Internet is an opportunity for Australian companies to reach the global easily. They are selling their software solutions. I believe that will be a model for every software company in Australia to consider!

Tasty ramen and dumplings

This afternoon , I and my wife had a tasty lunch at garden city. We went to hakataya for lunch.

We ordered a ramen with a free bowl  of  noodles. That was lovely.

Moreover, we had a dish of half priced japanese dumplings.

That was so full. After that, i spent an hour to do exercise. I wish to burn the weight gained by this lunch .
Address:
Shop 2072 Westfield Garden City Shopping Center
Cnr. Logan & Kessels Road Upper Mount Gravatt
Trading Hours:
Mon-Fri 9:00-21:00
Sat, 9:00-17:00
Sun 9:00-18:00

Nitrogen Ice Cream - Nitrogenie

Yesterday, after ANZAC Parade, I had a walk in southbank parkland. I found there is a Nitrogen Ice Cream shop, Nitrogenie. They used Liquid Nitrogen to make ice cream. Well, they are still ice cream, I cannot think they are not much different from normal ice cream, just because Nitrogen is in a super low temperature, it can make ice cream instantly! However, watching the staff making Nitrogen Ice Cream is a kind of fun!

Easter Monday Tour

Yesterday, that was a super nice weather. I and a group of church brothers and sisters went to glass mountains and maleny for some walks. That was fun!

Brisbane Software Development Company have to go Globally

Recently, my Company,AdvanGeneration, setup an online store to sell our software, moreover, we have our account in Google Player to sell our paid app long time ago. The reason to setup them is we wish to go Globally. Brisbane is not big enough, that is too small! We have to sell our software to everyone, not just about Brisbane!

Selling products online is not free of charge!

Some people believe selling products is very low cost, even free of charge. In our example, I have a C# library, AdvGen SQL Backup, which can trigger a SQL backup via C# code. Some of friends believe, I just put the details of online and hooked up PayPal. Then my job is done, I can sit back and relax, lastly, waiting the payments.
My friends, that is not that easy. I need to do the marketing. I have to invest a lot of money for online advertisements. I even talked with a lot of people offline for the product promotion. In this case, our product is only a small project. If we put some major products online, even I need to put advertisements on some local papers, put leaflets into the local people mail box. All of them requires "$$$"(money). You can say comparing the rental cost of a physical shopfront. Running my online shop  is much lower! But that is not cheap!

I am not well

Brisbane Autumn has arrived, out weather got cooler. Yesterday, that was a sunny day, I felt warm around 3pm. That was the time I was about to go out for Brisbane .Net User group at Microsoft Brisbane City Office. Brisbane.Net User Group meeting was good, I know more about Telerik Platform. Their Online IDE is great. You can run a lot of emulators via their web interface, such as IOS, Android and Windows Phone. 

However, after the meeting, that was about 8pm, the weather was very cold. That is the reason I got a cold today. I cannot work today.

Running I.T. Company is not easy.

Some people think that is very easy to setup an information technology company. You just need to do a business registration and buy a laptop. Then you can be the CEO of your own I.T. Firm. Yes, we don't need to a big office and even you can use a home office.  But, I wish to ask where we cam get customers. You may say the customers can find us from our company website. There are  thousands companies doing similar things with us. We still need to do marketing same as other companies. We posted advertisements online and local papers. They required to invest some money. Moreover , we needed to deal with accounting and legal matters. These requires other professionals to help us. Some fees are involved. These are not as simple as you thought

Kessels Road back to normal

Last night, around 6.15pm, I was driving on Kessels Road, near the intersection of Mains Road and Kessels Road. I found the traffic has improved a lot.  Few months, there was a long queue of cars in there around that hours.  I can say the traffic in there are better than "normal".

Facebook has a new interface

This morning, when I got up and turned on the PC, I found Facebook has a new interface. It looks more "Metro"!  Do you like it?

Sunny week

Last week, there was a lot of raining. This week, the sunny Brisbane came back. That is good. I go out for jogging. Just only one side effect. The weather is too hot. That wasn't very nice to work at afternoon without air conditioning.

Raining again!

Most of the time during this week, that is raining. Until now, that is still raining. Moreover, it is getting cool. Well, it sounds we are in autumn. But I don't like this kind of cool and wet weather!