I’ve been doing a lot of work with Docker recently, infact this website, Remote CTO, is currently running in a Docker container, well 3, one for Nginx, one for PHP-FPM and one for MySQL. Soon there might be a fourth, for either Redis or Memcache, I haven’t decided yet!
I do a lot of cool stuff at the command line. e.g using WP-CLI to manage my WordPress installations.
root@remotecto /home/remotecto/www # docker run -it --link compose_mysql_1:mysql -v /home/remotecto/www/remotecto:/var/www/html hub.remotecto.com/wp-cli wp plugin install stops-core-theme-and-plugin-updates --activate
docker: Error response from daemon: Cannot link to /compose_mysql_1, as it does not belong to the default network.
docker: Error response from daemon: Cannot link to /compose_mysql_1, as it does not belong to the default network.
As you can see I’m manipulating a Docker container that’s being managed through docker-compose with the docker command line tool, and it’s throwing an error about not being able to talk to my MySQL instance even though I’ve linked it.
The fix for this error is really simple, basically docker supports multiple networks, and for security and manageability docker-compose like’s to run it’s containers on it’s own network rather than Docker’s default network. All we need to do is to tell docker to use docker-composer’s network instead.
Finding Docker Compose’ Network
We can list all the networks with the command docker network ls
root@remotecto /home/remotecto/www # docker network ls
NETWORK ID NAME DRIVER SCOPE
132b9df21601 bridge bridge local
e58d477d8930 compose_default bridge local
2fbd2575b5bd host host local
1d2fb0535202 none null local
In this instance, docker-compose created a nicely named network, compose_default and we can simply pass that to the docker command using the –net flags.
root@remotecto /home/remotecto/www # docker run -it --link compose_mysql_1:mysql --net compose_default -v /home/remotecto/www/remotecto:/var/www/html hub.remotecto.com/wp-cli wp plugin install stops-core-theme-and-plugin-updates --activate
Installing Easy Updates Manager (6.2.9)
Downloading install package from https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/stops-core-theme-and-plugin-updates.6.2.9.zip...
Unpacking the package...
Installing the plugin...
Plugin installed successfully.
Activating 'stops-core-theme-and-plugin-updates'...
Plugin 'stops-core-theme-and-plugin-updates' activated.
Success: Installed 1 of 1 plugins.
And that is how you solve docker: Error response from daemon: Cannot link to /compose_mysql_1, as it does not belong to the default network.
Simply specify the correct Docker network when performing the action!
Docker-Compose Network Naming Convention
When using docker-compose your network name is decided based on the docker-compose “project name”, which is based on the name of the directory it lives in. You can override the project name with either the –project-name flag or the COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable. My docker-compose.yml file lives in a directory called compose which is why docker-compose picked compose-default when creating the running container instances!
Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler was fantastic to read after Exponential Organizations and Abundance. If Exponential Organizations discussed the problems and Abundance discussed the solutions, Bold can be thought of as discussing the implementation!
The world’s biggest problems = biggest business opportunities.
Like the previous 2 books, Bold is incredibly optimistic about the future. The first section discusses the 6 ‘D’s of exponentials
Digitalisation
Deception
Disruption
Demonetisation
Dematerialisation
Democratisation
Anything that becomes digitised, e.g. biology, medicine, manufacturing can then leverage Moore’s law of exponentially increasing computational power.
The second chapter is about the democratisation of power, essentially how things that were once the forte of big governments are now attainable by companies and individuals. Where as once manufacturing plastics was a complicated process, only possible with bulk manufacture, the advent of 3D printing now offers affordable manufacture-on-demand services, anywhere in the world.
Whilst once space flight was only possible for organisations the size of NASA, now many much smaller organisations with just a handful of members/employees are putting rockets in to space whilst striving to win an X-Prize!
Section 2 then discusses mindset, opening strong with a discussion about basic income. Once everyone is paid enough so all their basic needs are met, intrinsic rewards that meet your emotional satisfactions become far more important than financial rewards.
Encouraging creative and passionate minds becomes a problem in itself.
Peter’s Laws™ The Creed of the Persistent and Passionate Mind
If anything can go wrong, fix it! (To hell with Murphy!)
When given a choice—take both!
Multiple projects lead to multiple successes.
Start at the top, then work your way up.
Do it by the book . . . but be the author!
When forced to compromise, ask for more.
If you can’t win, change the rules.
If you can’t change the rules, then ignore them.
Perfection is not optional.
When faced without a challenge—make one.
No simply means begin one level higher.
Don’t walk when you can run.
When in doubt: THINK!
Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.
The squeaky wheel gets replaced.
The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live.
The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!
The ratio of something to nothing is infinite.
You get what you incentivize.
If you think it is impossible, then it is for you.
An expert is someone who can tell you exactly how something can’t be done.
The day before something is a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.
If it was easy, it would have been done already.
Without a target you’ll miss it every time.
Fail early, fail often, fail forward!
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
The world’s most precious resource is the persistent and passionate human mind.
Bureaucracy is an obstacle to be conquered with persistence, confidence, and a bulldozer when necessary.
The 3rd and final section is about implementation using the crowd! i.e. the billions of people across the world looking for things to do! This was quite nice to read as it’s how I personally run my businesses and solve my problems.
By leveraging services like Upwork it’s possible to find affordable, talented people to solve problems all over the world. Other services like 99Designs or Tongal can be used to run competitions to source creative works.
If you genuinely have that one great idea, but are struggling to take it to the next level, crowdfunding can be an option, if you have the right pitch for the right audience. Whether it’s donation based, microlending, equity sales or even prepurchase, sites like Kiva, GlobalGiving and CrowdFunder can help people raise money.
This book is a must read for anyone, if you’re already leveraging the Internet to run your online business you are probably implementing a lot of these techniques and practices anyway so it’s good to be reassured by the inventor of Paypal that you’re doing the right thing! If you’re just starting out (and even if you’re an old hand) you will get great exposure to new ideas that can help you get moving.
Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamandis is a fantastic, tackling the world’s largest and most important problems such as overpopulation, food, water, energy, education, health care and freedom.
This is probably the most optimistic book I’ve ever read.
In today’s hyperlinked world, solving problems anywhere, solves problems everywhere.
Abundance is a great follow up to Exponential Organizations as a lot of the techniques covered to solve the worlds largest problems involve exponential thinking as the human race is growing exponentially.
if you can’t be yourself, it’s hard to know yourself, and if you don’t now yourself, how can you ever tap into your true potential?
Essentially the book applies exponential principles to the different exponential problems we face throughout the world and how they will be used to create a world of abundance for everyone.
Using networks and sensors to plot, track and co-ordinate everything can lead to increased efficiency and much less waste making more resources of every type readily available.
Robotics is automating manual processes, driving costs down whilst creating more at a higher quality with less defects.
Technology is shrinking in size and cost exponentially, just look at how mobile phones have changed in the last 10 years and see how that is effecting medical equipment. I already have a small blood sugar monitor that fits in my pocket, with a tiny pool of blood I can immediately tell my blood glucose levels, extrapolate that out and soon we’ll have ubiquitous devices that can detect viruses, cancers and all manner of diseases for the cost of a cup of coffee. Solving logistical problems with drones will then be able to get this technology to anyone in the world who will need it.
The exponential solutions to these big problems are also massive business opportunities so trying to solve them could be a massive economic opportunity.
I love reading as it exposes me to new ideas and the ideas in this book are incredible, ambitious, optimistic and inspiring, so I definitely recommend it.
Salim Ismail – Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, cheaper than yours (and what to do about it) is the first of 3 books I’ve read recently, all stemming from Singularity University, and was full of big thinking around what exponential organisations are and case studies of how some were formed, how they scaled and problems that they went on to solve.
I don’t have an MBA in business, I’m a computer nerd who’s worked with successful startups and large enterprise companies, so I still have a lot to learn and this book filled a few gaps with solid explanations. e.g. obviously I’ve been exposed to the waterfall model of software development (since 1997..) but wasn’t aware of the formal New Product Development process, or NPD, which includes the following steps:
Idea generation
Idea screening
Concept development and testing
Business analysis
Beta and market testing
Technical implementation
Commercialisation
New product pricing
Whilst basically being the waterfall approach I learned a long time ago, it’s nice to experience formalised positive reinforcement and see it written down and discussed in an interesting manner.
Entrepreneurial success rarely comes from the idea. Instead, it comes from the founding team’s never-say-due attitude and relentless execution. Those who really want something will find options.
One of the biggest takeaways from the book covered something I’ve always been curious about for a while, how to build business models around products that are given away for free. I registered https://www.idimmu.net November 2005 and every time I had to use the Internet to solve a work related problem, I blogged about it. Over the years I engaged with other Linux bloggers and we all faced a similar problem, how to monetise a blog based around freely available information? Everyone in the industry who is good is self taught based on other people’s blogs and white papers, you don’t generally want to hire someone with an RHCE.. This book covers how to build an exponential organisation around free information.
Immediacy: Immediacy is the reason people order in advance on Amazon or attend the theatre on opening night. Being the first to know about or experience something has intrinsic cultural, social and even commercial value. In short: time confers privilege.
Personalisation: Having a product or service customised just for you not only gives added value in terms of quality of experience and ease-of-use or functionality, it also creates “stickiness”, as both parties are invested in the process.
Interpretation: Even if the product or service is free, there is still considerable added value to any service that can help shorten the learning curve to using it.
Authenticity: Added value comes from a guarantee that the product or service is real and safe.
Accessibility: Ownership requires management and maintenance. In an era where we own hundreds of apps on several platforms, any service that helps us organise everything and improve our ability to find what we need quickly is of particular value.
Embodiment: Digital information has no “body”, no physical form, until we give it one – high definition, 3D, a movie screen, a smartphone. In 1997 I paid for RedHat CDs even though it was free to download as it was more convenient than my 33.6kbps modem 😉
Patronage: Some fans want to pay and will if given an easy way to do so and the amount is reasonable. I personally will buy limited edition vinyl of an album if I love it, despite services like Youtube or Spotify offering virtual, and often cheaper, alternatives.
Findability: Creative works have no value if no one can access them, so putting yourself out there on effective channels and digital platforms so your great content can be found has considerable value in itself. Some of the amazing photographers in Asia who just use Facebook for marketing need to understand this as it took me 9 months to find them and that was only through word of mouth.
I find blogging about books I have read helps the reflection and understanding, and if I could sit here listing all the takeaways I got from Exponential Organizations I’d just end up writing another book.
A few people have recently mentioned to me that they don’t understand the usefulness of tools like Amazooka or AMZ Tracker for tracking their products, after all tracking a products BSR or rankings for a particular keyword doesn’t lead to more sales, so I’m going to describe how I use them and why I find them to be important for my business.
Really I should have written this 3 months ago as a lot of people have also been asking about sales drops the last few months due to being in Q3. If these same people had graphs of their BSR and keyword rankings, and knew how to read them, they wouldn’t be asking these questions.
Amazon KPIs
Out of the many Amazon Key Performance Indicators, two that are most important and easiest to track are:
Amazon Product’s Best Seller Ranking, or BSR. The ranking of your product in a specific amazon category, e.g. Health & Beauty.
Amazon Keyword Ranking. The ranking of your product for a specific search keyword on Amazon
For some organisations, the process of measuring data can be a complete waste of time, measuring data and KPIs for the sake of it, without using the measurements to reach strategic goals. When used correctly however, KPIs become an important part of a company’s strategy. For the small business owner, measuring the right KPIs, understanding the data and then creating actionable items from the data can elevate a company above the competition.
I’m going to take one of my products as an example and discuss it’s BSR history and it’s keyword history as well as what the graphs tell us about it’s sales performance.
Amazon BSR Graph
This is the Best Seller Rank graph for one of my products, since it’s launch, you can see a very jumpy first few months during the product launch, followed by an ascent towards March then followed by a slow descent. By looking at this graph, at this scale, with this one single graph, all you can really deduce is that the product had growth until March then the rankings started to slow down after March.
Amazon Keyword Graphs
Keyword Alpha
This keyword is the main product keyword, the heavy weight. It is the one people are most likely to search for and is the most competitive. For this product there is a lot of entrenched competition.
Keyword Bravo
This is one of our slightly longer tail keywords, it has less searches and less competition but is still product relevant.
Keyword Charlie
This is our long tail that keeps us where we are, we identified it during the product research phase, new that it applies specifically to our product and that there was room for us in the market then went all out to target it.
Understanding Amazon KPIs
Right, so we’ve been graphing our BSRs and our keywords and Amazon already does unit and sales KPI reporting for us, now it’s time to tie it all together to understand what is happening in our business.
1) Product Plateau
Sales: No change
BSR: No change
Keyword: No change
This is the easiest case to look at, your sales are constant, your BSR is constant and your keywords is constant. In short, nothing is happening dealing with your product. Some might consider this acceptable but there is a business philosophy you might want to consider
If you’re not growing, you’re dying.
So you might want to have a look at seeing if you can grow the product now rather than worry about clawing it back later.
2) Product Category Slump
Sales: Sales are slowing
BSR: No change
Keyword: No change
If your sales are slowing but your BSR is constant and your keywords are constant then this will be due to a variation in your product category. Simply, for whatever reason, people are buying less products in your category so it’s not that different really to the product plateau case. This is a perfect example for what happens during Q3, which is the slowest time for commerce, so if sales are down but your products meet these KPI criteria, it’s not too much to worry about, but try to focus on growing it some how.
3) Product Niche Slump
Sales: Sales are slowing
BSR: BSR is dropping
Keyword: No change
If your sales are slowing and your BSR is dropping but your keyword rankings have no change, then this means there is a variation in your product niche. Perhaps you are selling Christmas hats during the summer, even if you’re ranked #1 for all your keywords you’re still going to make less sales than you would on the run up to Christmas.
4) Product Slump
Sales: Sales are slowing
BSR: BSR is dropping
Keyword: Keyword is dropping
IF your sales are slowing and your BSR is dropping make sure to check all your keyword graphs because if it isn’t a seasonal or niche slump then it might be because your product is losing keyword rankings which is effecting your BSR and sales volume. This could be your rankings for just one keyword has changed or it could be your rankings for several keywords.
5) Product Category Boost
Sales: Sales are increasing
BSR: No change
Keyword: No change
When sales are increasing but there is no change in your Amazon BSR or keyword rankings then the opposite of #2 is happening, sales in your product category are picking up and taking you along for the ride.
6) Product Niche Boost
Sales: Sales are increasing
BSR: BSR is increasing
Keyword: No change
When sales are increasing and your BSR is increasing but there is no change in your keyword rankings then the opposite of #3 is happening. Sales for your particular niche are picking up again.
7) Product Boost
Sales: Sales are increasing
BSR: BSR is increasing
Keyword: Keyword is increasing
When sales are increasing and your BSR is increasing you again also want to check your keyword rankings as if one or more keyword ranking is increasing that could also be driving more sales for you, again this is the opposite of #4. It could be a single keyword or all of them.
Keyword Observations
Changes In One Keyword
If just one of your keyword rankings is changing, it is more than likely something in your copy has changed that is fundamental to that keyword. It could be a search term has been added or removed.
Changes Across All Keywords
If the majority, or all, of your keywords are seeing change than it is more than likely an issue relating to the conversion rate of your product page. With out going in to too much detail, this could be due to a change in your title, images, review average, number of reviews, quality of the latest reviews or copy.
Graph Observations
So with these case studies in mind I’m going to reflect on several events relating to my product and what the graphs tell us.
July 2015 – August 2015
BSR: BSR is all over the place
Keyword Alpha: Massive ranking improvement
Keyword Bravo: Massive ranking improvement
Keyword Charlie: Massive ranking improvement
July to August was the initial product launch so the BSR was all over the place. Keywords Alpha and Bravo were jumpy then found there place whilst our long tail, Charlie, came straight in at 4th due to a properly optimised sales page then move us to 2nd place. This is my launch and product strategy in a nut shell, get a product to rank for a long tail that makes sales, leverage the position over time to grow rankings for other, harder keywords. This is a classic case of #7, a product boost.
September 2015
BSR: BSR is dropping
Keyword Alpha: Rankings are dropping
Keyword Bravo: Rankings are dropping
Keyword Charlie: Rankings are dropping
September we had a ‘good problem to have’, we ran out of inventory so sales slowed whilst we got everything back together, as such all our rankings dropped. This is a classic case of #4, a product slump.
October 2015 – November 2015
BSR: BSR is increasing
Keyword Alpha: Rankings plateau
Keyword Bravo: Rankings are increasing
Keyword Charlie: Rankings plateau
October to November was great, We saw steady BSR growth whilst keyword Alpha and keyword Charlie plateaued. We can see keyword Bravo steadily increase driving that growth however. This is another case of #7, a product boost, but driven by a single keyword, Charlie.
December 2016 – March 2016
BSR: BSR is increasing
Keyword Alpha: Rankings are increasing
Keyword Bravo: Rankings are increasing
Keyword Charlie: Rankings plateauing
December to March was great, everything showed growth, our BSR and our keyword rankings, we made the big time, this is another case of #7 product boost but was driven by all our keywords. You can see the knock on effect take place, our long tail Charlie helped us grow so we could start ranking for the shorter tail Bravo which then got us on to the first page for our actual target keyword Alpha. It has to be said, Charlie was plateauing because we were already at the top, there wasn’t really anywhere for that keyword to grow!
March 2016 – June 2016
BSR: BSR is dropping
Keyword Alpha: Rankings are dropping
Keyword Bravo: Rankings are dropping
Keyword Charlie: Rankings plateau
One of the problems with success is Amazon start to take notice and after our period of growth March came and with it so did our page 1 ranking, then from March to June we entered a period of slow decline, so what happened? The first 2 pages or so of most product categories contain very boring product titles Brand Name – Product Name. I’ve seen a lot of people talk about Amazon using short product names as a ranking factor due to this observation to the point of fact some experts recommend going with short titles due to this observation bias. The truth of the matter is the opposite. Amazon have a product listings clean up crew!
I had a slightly longer title that included more description as well as some benefits to our product, Amazon nerfed it in favour of Brand Name – Product Name to make the search indexes more pleasant. This did three things
Kill click throughs
Kill sales
Kill rankings
There are some fundamental problems with what Amazon did to our listing, e.g. consider the effect of the Amazon sales team renaming Acme – Wooden Baby Spoon to Acme – Spoon. Now people searching for a spoon for their baby, or a wooden spoon, or a wooden spoon for their baby, won’t choose our product, but this isn’t the time to go in to the ramifications of that.
In short, due to the title change, our clickthrough rate decreased which caused the product to lose sales and keyword rankings. A classic case of #4, product slump. Our keyword Charlie is still holding on strong.
June 2016 – July 2016
BSR: BSR is dropping
Keyword Alpha: Rankings are dropping
Keyword Bravo: Rankings are dropping
Keyword Charlie: Rankings plateau
The big difference between June/July and the previous period stems from just one keyword, keyword Bravo. Because of the title change it removed a descriptive word directly relating to this keyword and we are seeing the ramifications of that clearly now. The solution to this problem is to try and get that keyword back in to the title or in the page to help increase rankings for it. This is the first obvious action item that the graphs have given us. We need to get our rankings back for keyword Bravo asap!
August 2016
BSR: BSR is dropping fast
Keyword Alpha: Rankings are dropping fast
Keyword Bravo: Rankings are dropping fast
Keyword Charlie: Rankings plateau
August has been interesting, we still haven’t got keyword Bravo back in yet but we did get something else going on. I’ve been trying for 2 years to join the Amazon subscribe & Save program under the assumption that the subscriptions will drive more sales and I’ll make more money! The truth of the matter is that it’s killed our conversion rate so our BSR and keywords Alpha and Bravo are plummeting faster than ever whilst we are seeing sales decline and no subscriptions occur.
My first action task after this is to get rid of Subscribe & Save.
Summary
Whilst tracking Amazon BSR and keyword positions for your products won’t in themselves lead to more sales, they are very important KPIs to monitor and shouldn’t be ignored as they can let you fully understand what is happening with your business and empower you to make intelligent decisions accordingly.
Whilst most people are already using tools like Amazooka or AMZ Tracker for their product giveaways, the importance of tracking KPIs is often understated as they don’t in themselves have an obvious ROI whilst an auto responder or a product giveaway has an obvious and visible impact on your bottom line.
From observing my graphs I am now going to turn things round by improving my keyword rankings for Bravo and removing Subscribe & Save to improve my on page conversion rate.
Anyone doing any kind of marketing should read this book, period. Covering 6 key principles of influence, Robert Cialdini is a committed genius who not only uses scientific case studies to back up the principles he describes, but also real world experience, having ‘gone under cover’ working in restaurants, etc. to observe influence in action! Not only do you see how the principles play out but Robert goes in to detail about how your mindset can help you not fall for them when used as a marketing tactic.
Reciprocity – People tend to return a favor, thus the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing. In his conferences, he often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. The good cop/bad cop strategy is also based on this principle.
Commitment and Consistency – If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment because of establishing that idea or goal as being congruent with their self-image. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honor the agreement. Cialdini notes Chinese brainwashing on American prisoners of war to rewrite their self-image and gain automatic unenforced compliance. See cognitive dissonance.
Social Proof – People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic. See conformity, and the Asch conformity experiments.
Authority – People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents such as the Milgram experiments in the early 1960s and the My Lai massacre.
Liking – People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. Some of the many biases favoring more attractive people are discussed. See physical attractiveness stereotype.
Scarcity – Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are available for a “limited time only” encourages sales.
Zero To One is a great book that pulls no punches, the basic premise of it is, when creating a startup, to really make a difference:
Be first
Be 10 times better than the competition
Obviously it’s up to you what you do, some business models are just about scratching some of the existing market rather than creating a new one and that’s fine, but this definitely echoes a recent project I was late to market for, which definitely wasn’t first and was only objectively 3-4 times better than the competition 😉
It was a fun read and a great way of thinking about things, I definitely recommend this for anyone entrepreneurial!
I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t drink, or because I stayed in the completely wrong area of Hong Kong, but my week here was not as fun as I had expected and super expensive. A lot of my friends completely love Hong Kong, I’ve friends that were born and raised here then moved to the UK, friends from the UK that moved out to Hong Kong to live for a few years and then I know other nomads that love travelling here. So there must be something about it that’s awesome. I was hoping for a super fun, sexy, James Bond Bottoms Up club vibe, but what I found was basically a super corporate, concrete city reminiscent of 80s London with the price tag twice that of 21st Century London!
Kowloon Park
One (two really..) of the awesome things about Hong Kong is the parks, it’s super cool to be walking around a beautiful woodland scene to see massive skyscrapers poking out from behind the trees, a hybrid of metropolitan city life and artificial countryside. There’s also lots of interesting things to find, like the teapot museum and a massive aviary that was definitely modelled after Jurassic Park 3’s Pterodactyl pen!
Hong Kong Park
Hong Kong Park has a kick ass Olympic village thing in it, as well as more plants and wildlife, and of course more skyscrapers to see!
Hong Kong’s Dirty Little Secret
Most people in Hong Kong seem to have live in nannys that work Sunday evening through to Sunday morning, living in their employees home, this work force is mainly formed of Filipino and Indonesian girls making about $300 a month. On Sunday’s they have nothing to do and no where to go, so they take to the streets to chill out, eat and have fun during their time off, as such a lot of Hong Kong’s roads close down to accommodate them whilst they practice modelling, learn dance routines or play on their phones. They seem quite happy, and arguably are doing better than my friends back in the UK, the girl I met saved pretty much her entire pay check, which was posted back home to Indonesia. I don’t know many people in the UK saving $300 a month, most are juggling debt.
Hong Kong Harbour
Hong Kong’s biggest feature is it’s harbour, which is pretty awesome! There are old school Junks taking tourist trips around it, really cheap ferries that will take you from one side to the other and light shows across all the buildings!
Man Mo Temple
Because no trip to any country is complete with out a trip to a place of worship, I visited the Man Mo Temple! It was pretty cool, full of lots of smoke and incense with a great vibe.
Food In Hong Kong
I made a huge mistake over January, which was to do a bulking cycle at the gym, this meant I got to eat lots of meat in Hong Kong, which was great, but put on a bit of weight I’m now back to cutting. After this last 6 months of weight lifting I’ve now learned as a type 2 diabetic I should never bulk, I should recomp or cut until I’m shredded. Bulking isn’t good for my health!
Just before Christmas I needed to leave Thailand on a visa run as I’d done my 30 day VOA + Extension so after much humming and harring, as I didn’t really want to leave, the day before I booked a weekend in Singapore! It was pretty awesome.
The first thing I noticed though, getting a taxi was impossible. Very few taxi ranks and even when there were, the taxis came and immediately picked up someone who used Grab Taxi, then departed. This actually resulted in quite a few heated arguments between people in the taxi queues and the Grab Taxi users! Fortunately I’m smart and worked it out! Unfortunately I cheaped out and bought a data only SIM card on arrival so couldn’t activate Grab Taxi as I didn’t have an actual Singapore number. Idiot.
Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum
The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum was undoubtedly the highlight of Singapore. There’s always something interesting about visiting old places of worship, especially ones still in use. The air of reverence they carry is intriguing.
Full of incense and awesome statues, it spanned several floors including one with the Buddha Tooth relic.
Chinatown
Chinatown was suitably awesome. Even more so because I accidentally left my iPhone 6s+ on the table at a street restaurant and when I went back to get it, 30 minutes later, the waiter had rescued it for me!
Clarke Quay
I know, that shirt, awesome isn’t it! Clarke Quay was nice, I like walking so got to walk along the river and around the harbour.
Gardens By The Bay
The Gardens By The Bay was amazeballs. But we went there too late at night so all the inside stuff was closed, leaving us just the outdoor stuff. Which was still amazing. I want to go back next Christmas because I didn’t see any otters!!
Orchard Road
Orchard Road is the shopping street, so I decided to get myself a Playstation 4 as it’s a bit more traveller friendly than the XBox One. The Christmas lights were a lot of fun and the food was epic. Singapore is expensive but it’s a fun weekend getaway!
Ready to get your WordPress site up and running in minutes? Even if you don’t have a business plan, even if you don’t have a professional UK web design & development firm on payroll, it’s better to start sooner rather than later. You can increase your income by having more value and now is the time to learn WordPress and kickstart your online life.
Set Up Your Hosting Account
Your hosting account is where your websites will live, so before we get started with WordPress we need to get you up and running with a host!
The host I personally use is Bluehost and I will walk you creating your hosting account and then building your first WordPress site. Hold on tight for the ride.
Bluehost is a proven company, trusted by millions of customers, they have been around for years and are here to stay.
Fanatical customer service. Bluehost are located in the US and offer 24/7 support with real people, they will answer the phone to solve your problem fast.
You can host up to 100 WordPress sites and domains on your account!
As a trusted VIP partner of Bluehost, I can pass on my great rates to you.
Bluehost have are one of the highest performing hosts in the industry, guaranteeing your site will he available and fast!
Automated backups! Forget everything else, the peace of mind knowing there is a backup of your site is worth a fortune! Most hosts do not have this.
CLICK HERE to claim your free domain and signup for hosting with Bluehost, and then follow the steps below and the video! Lets start your business today, together.
Bluehost Step 1
Click here to visit Bluehost, then Click the green ‘get started now‘ button.
Bluehost Step 2
Choose your hosting plan. I recommend the most popular ‘plus‘ plan as it means you can host unlimited websites.
Bluehost Step 3
When you sign up to Bluehost you get a free domain for your first website, pick the domain you want to go with here! If you can’t think of one, don’t worry, just choose anything, at this stage if you don’t already have a plan just getting the experience will open up new doors to having your own online business. Now is the time to start!
Bluehost Step 4
Account creation time, enter your name, address, choose your package information (I recommend the backup plan!) Then enter your credit card details for payment.
Bluehost Step 5
Boom, Congratulations taking action. We’ve done it together. You now have signed up for your Bluehost hosting plan.
Bluehost Step 6
Now choose a secure password for your Bluehost hosting account. Watch out for the rules though, it will need a lowercase letter, an uppercase letter, a number and a special character, e.g. Hunter36! (but don’t use that one, that’s mine! 😉 After you have set your password you can log in to your Bluehost account using the domain name you chose earlier as your username!
Bluehost Step 6
Ok, this is where the magic happens. Find the ‘Install WordPress’ button like I’ve highlighted in red below and click it!
On this page simply choose the free option, the green button that says ‘Install‘. Then choose the domain you want to install WordPress with. You’ve probably only got one domain at this stage, so that part is easy!
Bluehost Step 7
Now we need to configure the site. Expand the advanced options tab and choose a site title, a username and a password, then wait a minute or so for WordPress to be installed.
Bluehost Step 8
Wowee, ok we have WordPress installed, running and available on your new domain, and this probably took less than 5 minutes! You’re up and running and this is the start of your new online business. From small acorns grow tall oak trees after all! Now you have a website it is time to log in via the Admin Login button and start writing posts, pages and choosing your theme!
I’ve been doing a lot of work with Docker recently, infact this website, Remote CTO, is currently running in a Docker container, well 3, one for Nginx, one for PHP-FPM and one for MySQL. Soon there might be a fourth, for either Redis or Memcache, I haven’t decided yet!
