Life 18 | I am Danny Foo

Pre Chinese New Year treasures

Before the Chinese New Year, we’re always asked to spring clean the house. So during the cleaning of my room, Ariel helped me rediscover some lost treasures – box of postcards I collected.

You see, at one time, I followed the trend to collect cool postcard designs. And I did this even when I was in Melbourne. So without further due, let me show you some of the cooler postcard designs I’ve kept from the hundreds which I hope goes to the recycling centre.

postcard nokia 3310 — Fancy a Nokia 3310?

It was a shame to keep the Nokia 3310 postcards without folding them.

By the way, the Nokia 3310 was known as the brick phone because it was really durable. Sigh, I do miss my modified blue Nokia 3310 with white LED lights.

postcard-chupachups — Only way out is in

postcard-gateway2 — Guess which company this is from

Not many may remember Gateway. But a quick recap is that it was acquired by Acer and after some looking into the Gateway website they actually continue to sell personal computers in the US. Never knew that. But let’s continue.

I wonder what happened to that Bluehyppo. It was quite a good campaign. Well, moving on.

postcard-sharkfins3 — Eating shark's fin

The series above was for an awareness campaign that shark fins may contain high levels of mercury.

Like the Nokia 3310, you can actually take out the Apple iPod’s from the postcard and place them in your hand. Then you can make it look like you owned one of them. Back then, it was not as affordable as it is now to own an Apple iPod.

And to wrap up, I was surprised to find I had postcards which I could do that! LOL! So I guess this year’s spring cleaning did bring some good to me. 🙂

Wicked Singapore

Last weekend me and Ariel headed down to Singapore to catch the musical; Wicked.

We stayed in a building which reminded me of a Japanese school and we stumbled on an elephant porn shop (no kidding – at least that’s what they call it) and an ice cream shop which had tiramisu with a “kick” to it. 😀

Whenever we watched a musical at Marina Bay Sands, we’d prefer eating nearby to not worry of being late. But don’t expect the greatest of food, especially in the food court.

marina-bay-food-court — Decent looking Sarawak noodles

It was definitely decent looking but you can say, it’s only to fill your stomachs necessarily.

The musical was suppose to tell the origin of the Wicked Witch of the West. And having not watched the Wizard of Oz film before (yes, you may scream blasphemy) I didn’t know what to expect.

Last time we watched The Lion King, I got us seats nearby the stage but it was too near to the right – where the speakers were placed. Though in my defence, I couldn’t help it because the seat selection was automated and I never expected the speakers there. 🙁

This time for Wicked, I bought seats which were a little more pricier and you’d seat in the center rows. However, we weren’t all that tall so taller patrons kind of obscured our view. So, we may try the booth seats in future – if they allow me to purchase 2 tickets.

Thankfully, the musical was superb. It’s theatre design and performance was of the quality when we watched The Lion King musical. I’ve watched the musical Cats in Malaysia but for some odd reason, I’m not sure why the quality wasn’t as great compared to both musicals in Singapore. *shrug*

And before I wrap up this post, can you tell me what’s wrong with this photo?

mcdonalds-curry-sauce — Curry sauce, really?!

I was quite shocked to see the sauce. But thinking how bad it could be was a bad decision. The sauce was sweet and you could taste the eeny meeny bits inside it, like what you get from low cost sauce. I didn’t touch it after 1 dip. *shivers*

An excuse for shopping spree

So…Chinese New Year is coming. But other than clothes for the season, I’m thinking if I should go on a shopping spree and take advantage of the so-called promotions happening. And as much as guys tell you, we don’t shop like girls. I’d say it depends what the guy’s buying. 🙂

I need to get me more related work attire. It’s either I put on weight…

Or, it shrunk – which is what we all want to believe.

My shirt collars feel a little tight and I guess my only pants now were the ones since I bought 2 years ago I believe. Not to mention, I need a new pair of shoes too! My current pair is still wearable, except there’s a crack near the heel. *shrug*

But I guess if it were clothes I’d be wearing during Chinese New Year, then I’d have to get me another pair of Dockers. There’s something about their pants they make which feels really comfortable. While I’d consider skinny jeans, don’t think I like the idea having to carry my wallet and phone in my hands – designers should probably just not have pockets.

I’d love to have more t-shirts. But my wardrobe space is only |_______| so much. But we shall see.

So, who’s going shopping?

ChurpChurp crime scene photos

At around 1.30pm, a guy stepped out of his car and started walking towards the Heritage House building. He was described as wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt. The security on duty noticed he was looking at the building directory and for safety precautions, asked the man to write his particulars in a log book.

Once the man got into the lift, we only know he stopped on the floor; 12B. And security cameras saw him walking towards one of the offices – Nuffnang. He looked as if he rang the bell like any normal person and was permitted to enter by a petite lady.

No security footage was retrieved from the Nuffnang office. But we know the man left the office between 2.20pm. What happened inside is still unknown. However, we do know the man left with this.

churp churp usb thumbdrive — Measuring almost 3" tall

Then, at 9.38pm we got the call. It was a messy sight and not for the weak-hearted towards cute things. We found ChurpChurp…murdered!

churp churp usb head — Where's his body?!

All that we know is this was the work of some sick person who could only imagine such a devious crime. Beheading this poor cute thing and taking its body for its trophy.

We’ve setup a hotline for the public who has information of this man to come forward. The number to dial is 1-800-I-did-it.

Thank you to the Churpers

And yes, thanks for the USB thumbdrive after my review of your website redesign. I’ve been wanting a spare to put music in. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I really enjoyed writing it. 🙂

P.S.: Guess the murder weapon. *grin* And if ChurpChurp reads this, could you please give me another thumbdrive to give to my winner? 😉

How Simpleet started

Simpleet is the website design company me and my partner; Hawk, started. However, we never started Simpleet as Simpleet. So I’d like to share how we started Simpleet and keep this as my note of historical events.

Back in the days

Me and Hawk made our first contact in our secondary school years. It so happened that our friend; Terry, put us in touch because I had some web questions. From then on, Hawk was always my go-to-guy when I had technical questions. However, we kind of last touch when we went to college and university.

just like fate

My lecturers in Australia had me motivated and inspired as I completed my multimedia degree. This gave me my higher purpose to return to Malaysia, help and show students interested in pursuing a career in the Internet industry that there was a future and they should pursue it if they had the passion for it.

Just like fate, a website project brought me and Hawk working together. At the time, we were both freelancing under a project manager. However, a fallout happened in a project between the customer, our project manager and even, us.

The first step

Of course, the story didn’t end there for me and Hawk because we were both doing what we loved. We both saw how our skills complemented each other and not long after distributing my business cards like confetti, we got a project from my brother’s friend.

We didn’t call the company; Danny and Hawk, or had a cool name at the time, but we did agree to start calling our makeshft company; Websites Made Simple. And because the domain was taken, the default website for our outfit was my personal domain; dannyfoo.com

People found us

Ever since we started, it’s been about people finding us through the search or having referred by friends or relatives. And I do find it weird sometimes when people say they found us online, because we never exactly optimized the website for targeted keywords. *shrug*

World of business networking

I was invited by a friend to experience word-of-mouth marketing. It was an event that started at 7:00AM in morning and all I was told was it would be a great opportunity for me to network with business owners. And honestly, the word “network” worried me and thought what I had gotten into. Because the word was easily misconceived as mutli-level networking. Thank God it wasn’t!

The organization called; BNI or Business Network International, was me and Hawk’s first serious step towards marketing our business. I really liked the idea and experience of how a room of business owners exchanged business referrals for one another AND didn’t expect commission in return. It was fantastic!

But…yes, there was a but. In order to qualify for participation, we had to be a real business with registration and all. Though this would sound embarrassing, this was the truth. When me and Hawk ran Websites Made Simple, it was sheer simplicity. All profits were split 50-50 when projects completed, that’s it.

How we ran the business changed when we joined BNI. We approached a company secretary to register our company. But we didn’t want to call it; Websites Made Simple, because it was a mouthful. And our research showed, a good name is between 2-3 syllables.

Simple 1337 gamers

We cracked our heads coming up with names. But the one which stuck is now known as; Simpleet.

It was really tough deciding on a name. So much so, I started to read articles how web company names were made – joining 2 words and how choosing a good company name is between 2-3 syllables.

One night over mamak, Hawk and I tossed names for the company. We both wanted to keep the word “simple” in our name because we built websites made simple for users. But being a mamak session, conversation detoured to games we were playing too. Then, I asked if he knew about the leet language so he told me about the hackers language and origin of 1337.

From that point, we slowly came to the name from simple and elite to simply elite then Simpleet. And the rest they would say, is history.

Simpleet’s higher purpose

I just finished reading the book; Delivering Happiness: A path to profits, passion and purpose by Tony Hsieh, CEO at Zappos. I was absorbed through the whole part of Tony talking about company culture because this was what I want in Simpleet ever since we started and I know we will be doing it.

But other than that, reading this book made me feel it’s time I sat down with Hawk to find out, what is Simpleet’s higher purpose now.

To Tony Hsieh: Thank you for writing this book and making it really real. Thank you for sharing your experience and I know that I would’ve wanted to work for Zappos if I finished my degree in the US and worked there. Thank you for the motivation and inspiration from your book. And if given the chance, I would definitely love to tour the Zappos office, experience the WOW, bump chest with you and give you a hug as a final thank you. Thank you.