Do……. do…, do……. do…

Call-in Customer: (Conversing in Cantonese): Are you helping people to build websites?
Exabytes Salesperson: That’s right, how should I address you?
Call-in Customer: My name is Ah Hian….

Being all friendly and helpful, our salesperson was officially PRANK CALLED on the second Friday of April the Malaysian way by MY FM’s morning crew 线人专家!!

Our ‘poor’ polite salesperson only realized it after 2.28mins of tele-conversation with the talented DJ, my goodness, the whole tele-conversation was then put on air the following Monday!

And the equivalence made between ‘飞 book’ (pronounced ‘fei’ book) and Facebook by the MY FM DJ was just classic! LOL….

In fact, at this moment we are still wondering if the one who submitted our phone number to MY FM was someone who spotted our phone number on our ads? Or are YOU our fun-loving existing customer/friend? Lol… If that’s you, give us shout out here!

Check out the entire conversation here.

Announcement

Exabytes Network Pvt. Ltd., (http://www.exabytes.sg) the biggest web hosting company in Malaysia in terms of number of subscribers and IT facilities, is slated to join The Internet Show Asia as an exhibitor by next week which is from 13-15 April 2011 at Suntech Singapore. The Internet Show Asia is an internet business event which promises to offer its visitors great knowledge and the sharing of the latest technical trends in its 64 free seminars, the showcase of free Cloud Computing Clinics, Social Media World Asia, free Blogshop Primetime Clinics, Digital Advertising World Asia, etc.

Join our seminar “Winning strategies to do business on Facebook. “ on 13th April 2011, Wednesday, 3.00pm – 3:30pm.

Internet Show Singapore, here we come. Remember to visit us !

Announcement

“Shy Guy! Shy Guy!” There is a chap in Exabytes office who reminds everybody of the popular hit by Diana King ‘Shy Guy’, that kind of guy who would make us and a lot of ladies feel ‘irie’. Yes, he is quiet and shy to strangers, and he is someone who speaks only when spoken. Lunch time is the moment he exudes an air of mystery for no one usually knows his whereabouts. He seldom joins us for lunch and is seldom seen bringing his food to the office. However, after getting friendly to him, you will realize that he is actually not that mysterious and is able to talk ‘nonsense’ non-stop

Introducing our EOTM of Febraury aka Mr Shy Guy, Internet Marketing Executive, Jerrick Teoh! He is new, he is shy, and he is not that outspoken. But none of these matters as in the month of February, he showed us that he was definitely someone who was worth a big round of applause. Not only is Jerrick hardworking and dedicated at work, he is also hardworking and dedicated after work.

And in February, he was voted as our respected EOTM because:

Selflessly continue his work at home even after office hours
Always complete assigned tasks on time
Show genuine efforts
Highly committed to online marketing
Willing to learn as a junior
Punctual to work
Hardworking, responsible and dedicated

Congratulations Jerrick! You’ve made us especially the newcomers proud!

Announcement

Review of the Top Three Shopping Sites in Malaysia

Flood, cyclones and erratic downpours are more than enough reason for anyone to stay at home. Luckily, gone are the days where humans would have to brave Mother Nature’s wrath in order to buy a last minute birthday or Valentine’s Day present. Today’s society can now lounge at home with a cup of warm hot Milo and still enjoy getting their shopping done via the Internet.

However, potential shoppers should be wary as while it’s pretty cosy to think about how a few clicks of a mouse can empower you to have your shopping delivered to your doorstep, the other side of the coin is that you could either end up buying odd trinkets or find yourself spending five hours in virtual stores lost, confused and with nothing of great value to purchase.

The good news is that we will be reviewing the top three online shopping sites in Malaysia.

Site #1: http://www.lelong.com.my

Lelong.my is Malaysia’s most famous auction website, gloriously beating eBay.com.my at its own game. Founded in 1998, the idea behind Lelong.com.my was to build a community of sellers and buyers who could trade practically anything at a low cost while maintaining quality. Just like eBay, everything under the sun is up for sale- from land to photography services, clothing to accessories and pens.

Pros: The layout of Lelong.com.my can be pretty intimidating, but the site also comes with a search engine to help speed up your browsing and shopping process. The site also comes with a double secure and verification system called Buyer’s Protection Program, and SafeTrade.

Even the sellers are protected on Lelong.com.my as bidders would also have to conduct either hand phone or e-mail verification processes in order to bid on an item, which then deters fraud as well. The entire Lelong.com.my website can be viewed in Malaysia’s three main languages- Malay, Chinese and English which makes it easy for anyone to read the content of the site.

Cons: Realistically, any Lelong.com.my seller who offers you a ROLEX Oyster Perpetual Milgauss Bamford Limited Edition Swiss Quality watch for RM123 (plus shipment) simply cannot be selling a genuine ROLEX watch, despite what its rave reviews and positive seller feedback would have you believe.

Speaking of positive feedback, praise and high ratings from other members could simply be dupe accounts created by the seller to create positive buzz about their product and services, which may or may not live up to your expectations. If you’re looking for branded products, then Lelong.com.my is definitely not the place for you to shop at. Also, deliveries are limited to South East Asia users only.

Site #2: http://www.pasar.my

Created in 2008, Pasar.my is Malaysia’s most popular Chinese virtual mall as anyone can setup their very own store on Pasar.my for free. These online stores are divided into three types- senior outlets, intermediate shops and general stores. Senior outlets would be categorized as large virtual catalogues that offer bonus points along with their merchandise whereas the general stores would have the bare minimum amount of products up for sale.

This portal sells plenty of feminine items from clothing to fashion accessories to beauty care and home care products.

Pros: Shoppers are protected with buyer authentication certification and signing up for membership with Pasar.my is free. Just like Lelong.com.my, details of the virtual stalls all come with previous customer feedback and verification to ensure the integrity of the trader.

Cons: Seriously, this website is strictly for Chinese reading mortals. Manually translating each page via Google Translate is both time consuming and highly inaccurate. Those with photosensitive epilepsy will not appreciate the blinking advertisement banners on the front page of Pasar.my either.

The seller rating system on Pasar.my is also pretty confusing. For instance, one seller could be branded with one green diamond and another seller with two hearts. If you’re wondering what the diamond and hearts logo is for, then you are not alone. For instance, a seller rating of 250 points earns you 5 green crowns. On the other hand, a 36 seller rating earns you 4 hearts instead of 1 green crown. Also, each store is independent of Pasar.my so you will have to pay each owner separately.

Site #3: http://www.irenelim.com

Just like the site name suggests, IreneLim.com is an online business personally conducted by Ms Irene Lim who sources for women’s clothing from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Malaysia. The interesting thing about this site is that each article of clothing is personally handpicked and selected by the owner herself.

Pros: Unlike Lelong.com.my and Pasar.my that operates like a trading community, IreneLim.com offers shoppers the experience of personally buying items directly from the business owner. IreneLim.com also comes with an active mini discussion board and great after sales service. There is something definitively satisfying about buying merchandise from an actual person who exists, rather than a faceless entity!

Cons: For the moment, IreneLim.com only caters to the women’s wear, children’s clothing and festive hampers.

IreneLim.com and Exabytes

One interesting banner placed on the upper right corner of IreneLim.com testifies that IreneLim.com is being hosted on an Exabytes-sponsored server. Further mouse clicking has then lead us to an Exabytes promotion offering free dedicated servers for sites with high traffic (i.e. a minimum of 3,000 unique visitors daily and a minimum of 3 page view per visitors for the past 3 months). The fact that IreneLim.com is already hosted for free on Exabytes is a pretty big testament to how popular her online store is.

In a Nutshell

If you love buying random trinkets, Lelong.com.my would be a suitable shopping site. If you’re proficient in reading Chinese, then you could also try Pasar.my. However, if you are looking for high quality products that come with an affordable price and a business owner’s personal touch, then you should definitely drop by IreneLim.com.

Contributed by Jasmine from 100 Web Hosting – a reliable web hosting review and resources website.

Announcement

On this romantic and passionate day of the year, do you plan to express your love with a box of chocolates or simply a Valentine’s Day card to your loved one? While Valentine’s Day is celebrated in many countries with different practices, you might be surprised that in country like Japan, only females are supposed to give males chocolates, not the other way round.

And of course, many people nowadays choose to spend time with their friends and family on this special and loving occasion.

Exabytes wishes everybody a Happy and memorable Valentine’s Day! May you and your loved ones have some sweet and quality time together, just like our 2 Exabees

Announcement

7th Day of Chinese New Year, 2 auspicious animals arrive at Exabytes office, bringing together with them the auspiciousness and good fortune to wish Exabytes Happy 10th Birthday. Indeed, 2011 marks the tenth year of Exabytes since its inception, and in celebrating our 10th Anniversary this year, more surprises are in place for Exabees and Exabytes’ valued clients. This morning, Lion Dance is one of the surprises.

At 9.15am, all Exabees wearing in red are anxiously waiting for the arrival of good luck, some even suggest to hide and give the 2 auspicious lions a surprise. 5 minutes later, the first hit of gong is heard, amidst cheering and clapping of hands among Exabees, a gold lion and a silver-red lion danced into our lobby with their full fledged gong equipment. ‘Tuck Tuck Dong Dong Dong Chang’, ‘Dong Dong Dong….. Chang’ is heard everywhere and it is truly ear-shattering, loud enough to scare away all the bad evils and bring in the good luck.

On reaching the lobby, dancing and greetings by the lions are followed by the throwing of tangerines to the Exabee crowd. In Chinese, as the pronunciation of tangerines is similar to gold, we are elated to received gold from the 2 very luck-promising lions. And the first endeavor, are of course to ‘pluck the green’ aka ‘Cai Ching’ in Chinese, using their martial arts skills some say originated from the Kung Fu of Wong Fei Hung.

Approaching the green which is hung around 8 feet high like 2 curious lions, they danced a little bit and fought like 2 giant cats under it before the gold lion making its Wong Fei Hung martial arts still jump and get the green and the Ang Pow (red envelope) in one single attempt. Amidst big round of applause, the lion returns to the ground, spits out the green and keeps the Ang Pow.

Our spirit runs high, adjourning to our desks the 2 lions are now heading to each department of Exabytes to greet us plus helping us to tear up and ‘eat’ the tangerines on our tables.

Thanks very much for the spectacular performance of Lion Dance and our CEO Chan Kee Siak for inviting the lions, auspiciousness and prosperity. Lastly, this enjoyable and motivating event is wrapped up by the group photo taking session with our gold lion, with great luck and more surprises promised in the year of 2011, officially the 10^th Anniversary of Exabytes Network.

For more photos: Please visit our FB Fanpage or Click here.

Announcement

Soon after the 1 January New Year celebration observed by many people around the world, the joy and fun for the celebration of 2011 is not over yet, as we are now marching into Lunar New Year on the Chinese calendar, the prosperous and calming Year of the Rabbit.

Often viewed as a very cute and adorable animal, the Rabbit is also the fourth celestial animal in the 12-year cycle in the Chinese Zodiac for the Chinese calendar which represents graciousness, beautiful manners, intelligence, happiness and faithfulness.

Exabytes wishes everybody an auspicious, promising and fruitful year of the Rabbit! We can’t wait to see your online business prospers in the happy year of the Rabbit, and to help make this a reality and reinforce it, we will continue to provide YOU our valued clients with more and more value-added services.

To celebrate this special occasion, our office will be closed from 2 February to 6 February 2011 and resume operation on 7 February 2011. In case you encounter any technical issues, don’t sweat it, as our professional technical staff will still be working 24×7 to assist you day and night.

Happy Holiday everybody!

Announcement

Exabytes Annual Dinner 2011 was filled with laughter, excitement and many alluring prizes. When the Organizing Committee announced that this year’s annual dinner would be held at Tanjung Bungah Beach Resort by the white sandy beach, our hearts beat faster in anticipation.

In addition, huge prizes such as a 32″ LCD TV and an iPad had kept us bewitched. Among all the exciting activities our very dedicated OC had prepared for us, the most eye-captivating game was the MAGIC MUG water pouring which saw the faces of Exabytes’ VIPs cum investors appeared when hot water was poured into the mugs. Besides, there was a very prosperous, luck-promising game – PAPER BUNNY FOLDING

Registration started at 4.30pm and door gifts – pouches which filled with 2 packs of kiam piah, 1 Ang Pow, 4 voting papers and 2-3 origami papers of our group colors were distributed.

The fun began from the first game ‘Find Your Path’. A game which tested our luck, IQ as well as responses, it was played to determine the amount of time each team would have to fold their paper bunnies in the second game. Each team (Team1-5) would take turn to roll the dice and answer an IQ question. If the team was lucky and got the number which matched their group number, they could skip the IQ question and won themselves one point which was equivalent to one minute in the next game. However, one point would be deducted for every wrong answer given. Outcomes – Team1: 5 mins, Team2: 6 mins, Team3: 7 mins, Team4: 8 mins, Team5: 9 mins

Subsequently, it’s ‘Who Wants to Have a Bright and Promising 2011?’ Based on the outcomes of “Find Your Path’, Ee Dawn the Origami master (Origami – the art of paper folding) couldn’t wait to teach everybody the ‘secret techniques’ to produce a good paper bunny for the Year of Bunny. After the less official Origami teaching session was conducted to each team to produce the prosperous paper bunnies, we learnt that having folded the most number of paper bunnies didn’t guarantee us a win in this game. Instead, we had to find and ‘feed’ our bunnies the REAL CARROTS of different weights which were hidden all over the place!

In the end of the game, Orange team with their orange bunnies proved to be the most prosperous team with the heaviest carrots counted in total. Congrats Orange team!!

Since prosperity among Exabees had been ‘guaranteed’, we were ready to get down to serious business. The official opening ceremony was then carried out by Jin Wee the OC, followed by the official speech by CEO Chan Kee Siak or more fondly known as ‘Ah Chan’. Chan then touched on the introduction of Exabytes’ investors who were also present at this year’s Annual Dinner. Dato Tan, Exabytes’ very first investor took over by giving us a friendly and warming intro on his fellow investor friends.

CEO Chan giving his welcome speech

Dato Tan, Exabytes’ VIP cum investor

Next, it was the sensational showcase of MAGIC MUGS and ‘Try Your Luck in 2011′ – the 4D voting game! Before you get too excited reading this, our 4D voting game was nothing like the 4D number prediction game such as Sports Toto or Magnum. Instead, we were to guess which faces of the investors would appear on which MAGIC MUGS when hot water was poured into them. (The magic mugs appear solid black when no hot water is poured into it) As the magic mugs were placed in a random sequence in a straight line, and our 4 investors are represented by letter A, B,C and D, we were to guess their faces on the magic mugs by placing our ‘bets’ like BDCA / DABC / DCBA.

Each investor was represented by an alphabet letter

Solid black mugs turned to the faces of our investors when hot water was poured into them

The ‘Transformation’ process of the magic mugs

Ms Ooi, Siew Hoon, TL Guan, KY Chan and Jackie at the same table emerged as the winners! Guys, we really envy you for being so lucky even at the beginning of the year.

Winners Ms Ooi at second left, followed by Siew Hoon, TL Guan and KY Chan receiving the Good Luck Ang Pows from CEO Chan at first left

And so, it’s dinner time! Standing before the great variety of food prepared by Tanjung Bungah Beach Resort, many of us started to show our true colors / gluttonous faces.

Having satisfied our discerning palate, it’s the exciting and long awaited lucky draw which saw more than 25 prizes being given away. However, our eyes were still glued to the grand and second prizes – the iPad and 32″ LCD TV.

Representatives from the winning table were invited to the stage to sing a song together

Cheering for our ‘professional’ singers

To put the excitement brought by the grand and second prizes on hold and save us the suspense, the OC decided to take this opportunity to announce Exabytes’ 5-year Honorable Service Award. We are excited and proud to present to you the very loyal and dedicated staff members who have in the past 5 years stayed with Exabytes through thick and thin – TL Guan, Gaveen, Annie Ong and David Ch’ng.

The auspicious and must-have Yam Seng session

Next, was to announce the very fashion savvy male and female who wore the most awesome dress of the night. And Yeah! Yeah! Yeah…! Many of us had guessed it right earlier, it’s May Fong and Gaveen! Each of them received an Ang Pow and a big round of applause for being the best dressed male and female.

Gaveen and May Fong, our best dressed male and female of the night

Finally, it’s the moment of truth. With CEO Ah Chan holding in his hand the names of the much envied grand and second prize winners, we held our hands together, praying that our names would be called. And the lucky winner was……. Mrs. Dato Tan!!

Without any hesitation, the very gracious and generous Mrs. Dato decided to donate the iPad she had just won so that Exabees could have another chance to win it! OMG, this got us extremely excited again. And when the winner was announced once again, out hearts skipped a beat. It’s……. our system engineer, HP Beng!!

Ah Beng with his ‘evil’ face and smile saying “It’s now mine!”

Sau Hun with her second prize – 32″ LCD TV

While we were happy for both of them, some still couldn’t hide the envy and disappointment on their faces. Once again, Dato Tan, Exabytes’ VIP cum investor stepped in by offering to buy an extra iPad so that we could have another lucky draw! My gosh, this sent another wave of hope, but we knew that we would be content with the second chance even if we didn’t win this time. In the midst of cheering and commotion, Mrs. David Ch’ng emerged as the lucky winner of the 2nd iPad!

Mrs. David Ch’ng, the lucky winner of the second iPad

We thank Dato Tan and his fellow investor friends for their generosity and kind-heartedness.

Prizes of the night

25 prizes in total were given away on this memorable night, or shall I say the first gathering of Exabees in 2011. To freeze this important moment, we took group photos one after another, shaking hands with each other before bidding farewell.

Good bye 2010, and hello 2011! Last but not least, a thousand thanks to our OC for all the hard work they have put in in organizing this sweet and unforgettable event.

Announcement

2011 is just 36 hours away, have you our beloved customers already had your New Year wishes and resolutions in minds? For us at Exabytes, we do have our wishes and resolutions as well. In 2011, we wish to see the online business of our clients flourish and achieve new heights by providing them with more and more value-added products and services. What about yourself? Mind telling us your New Year wishes and resolutions?

Before we say hello to 2011, Exabytes would like to take this precious opportunity to wish everybody a promising, auspicious and enjoyable year ahead!

While you are enjoying this wonderful holiday on 1st January 2011, please don’t forget that our professional technical team will still be working 24 x 7 to assist you in case of any technical issue. Even it’s a public holiday, please do not hesitate to contact us via our ticketing system.

Once again, Happy New Year and Happy Holiday to everybody!!!

Announcement

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer

had a very shiny nose.

And if you ever saw him,

you would even say it glows.

All of the other reindeer…

What is Christmas without reindeer, Christmas trees, Christmas stockings, mistletoes and most importantly, Christmas songs?

In this lovely and snowy Christmas season, Exabytes wishes YOU our beloved customers a Merry and Enjoyable Christmas. May you have Santa and Christmas gifts dropping from your house’s chimney, may you meet with carol singers everywhere you go, and may you meet your gorgeous wonderful dream girl/guy under the mistletoe. Remember, it’s tradition to give your loved one a kiss under the mistletoe.

To celebrate this special occasion, our office will be closed on 25 December 2010 and resume operation on 27 December 2010. However, please do not hesitate to contact us for any technical assistance as our professional technical team will still be working 24×7 to assist you day and night.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday!

Announcement