It’s been quite a while since I talked about Search Engine Optimization. Well, if you have been paying attention to the industry, you would realize that Google’s PageRank has been overwhelmingly devalued and it seems that PR has very little to do with how well you rank anymore. In fact, it has been devalued for over a year already. The reason why a lot of people is taking note that the PR devaluation is because of the recent public PR update by Google - a lot of webpages had their PR cut. Some webpages dropped from a PR7 to a PR4 in just one little update. Probably a lot of webmasters are cursing and swearing at their recent drop. I am pretty sure their revenue from selling high PageRank links has dropped a lot as well.

So I am sure what you are interested to know is what now? What’s Google’s great plan for the future of Search Engines? Sadly, it’s the same old thing - links. Links are still the most important aspect of Search Engine Optimization. Although PR has everything to do with links, the value of the link and the anchor text is still very important. And the content of the site which has the link is also important. Related sites will probably carry more weight in the eyes of Google. It tells Google what that link and the site it is pointing to is all about. And it is off-site, less easy to manipulate than on-site factors. And just when you expect big changes from Google! To tell you the truth, Search Engine Technology have become stagnant. You can see all these by just looking at Google and what it has been doing for the past few months - buying up some companies which are not directly related to Search Engine technologies. The most famous purchase is YouTube, and we know that it’s just a popular video hosting site. Nothing to do with Search Engines. I would expect more of the same from Google in the coming months (and years).

If you have been using Search Engines recently, I am sure you didn’t find much of an improvement in your results, right? What more can I say? Big companies often grow too big for their own good and now, we are the ones who has to suffer.

<Do not follow these instructions as they are my first attempt and I made a lot of mistakes!> 

It finally came! Cost me about S$300 bucks in total. I had bought a few additional stuff like the foam cool box, malt and yeast. The beer kit is about S$175. The foam box is about S$80. The owner of iBrew delivered it to my house last night  and I was so excited. Well, I wanted to brew right then but the time just wasn’t right. Anyway, I got up early today and make myself a nice little wort (that’s unfermented beer goo). Took me about 3 hours or so, but in the end everything seems alright. Sure I faced several problems in the beginning, but hey I did it! I made myself 23 litres of beer. Wait, that’s not correct. I have to wait a few more weeks to confirm that I have beer and not some weird tasting vinegar or something vile.

Anyways, I have taken a few photos of my beer kit and what I did. I got so excited that I forgot to take the photos at the beginning, so the beer kit ingredients and the yeast package I don’t have any photos. Luckily I suddenly remembered to take them photos at the middle of my brew. So here you go:

Coopers Beer Kit (sorry about the quality) plus a Pale Ale ingredient kit (not shown).

Coopers Beer Kit (doubly sorry about the blur photos)

Coopers Beer Kit - What’s included inside the package.

I bought an additional Light Malt 500g. But I didn’t use it. I actually wanted to use Enhancer 2 (a mix of brewing sugar, malto-dextrin and light malt) to replace the brewing sugar that came with the kit but it was out of stock.

The amber bottle that came with the kit. It’s 740ml per bottle and there are like 30 bottles. Wooopeee! Time to get really drunk at home. Again, I apologize for the poor quality shot. However if you look carefully, you can see my arm image on the bottle. Yes, I am that skinny.

I also bought Cascade hops, Nottingham Ale Yeast, Straight ‘A’ Sanitizer and some other accessories. Too bad, the Safale Yeast was out of stock. Shows the iBrew is making good business! Blink blink for the drink drink.

Well, here are the pictures for the “Little” Bottler, Airlock and Bung

Coopers Fermenter. Feels very firm and stable. The workmanship and quality is superb! And it has two hidden handles, makes carrying the heavy fermenter easy. Maybe I will do a review on the kit in the future.

Now with the cover on. Doesn’t it look just dandy? The hole in the cover is for you to put your airlock to let the carbon dioxide escape from the fermenter. The airlock will only let air escape but not let air in so that your wort won’t get infected.

My Wort is boiling! I like. But the smell of the wort isn’t really that nice, isn’t it? Seems a bit like those China rice syrup and if you boil it, it smells sour. Oh, I added some bread yeast into the wort during boiling to act as Yeast Nutrients.

My wort is boiling more aggressively! Too bad I didn’t take any shots of the near boilover. Damn near gave me a heart attack. It came up all of a sudden and whooosh, the wort exploded like a volcano. Luckily, I was still stirring the wort and I managed to switch off the heat in time. Happened a few times. I wonder what kind of boilover will I get if I make an all-malt wort?

The foam coolbox made by iBrew

That’s the one big hole where you place your fermenter. The temperature sensor is located at the bottom in the middle of the coolbox to measure the temperature of the fermenter. Not very sure about the accuracy though, since it is covered by tape and the thick bottom of the fermenter.

This is where you can read the reading of the thermometer. No need to open the foam box to get the temperature, you can view it from the outside. Cool, in more ways than one.

That’s the hydrometer. It is supposed to measure something important. Looks a bit like an anal probe.

The other end of the hydrometer.

That’s me cooling the wort. Stupidly done I know. But I had realized too late that my sink doesn’t have a choke! Is that the cold break forming? I hope so. But I doubt it. The water surrounding the brewing pot isn’t cold enough.

Hahaha. Everything done. Added the airlock and said a little prayer. Now waiting for the bottling day. Couldn’t get the temperature to 24 Degrees Celsius in time. Took over 12/16 hours to get it down to 24 Degrees. Hmmm….not very sure why. I think it has something to do with the fermenter, with it’s plastic container being rather thick (which means it is very strong by the way and it can maintain a constant temperature). But after 6 hours, there is a lot of white foam forming in the fermenter. I wonder whether it is a good sign?

Mistakes I made -

1. Made the Yeast starter with the Notthingham Yeast and brewing sugar and let it rest on the kitchen table. Ants came and I had to throw away the starter. Too bad. Did another one with Cooper’s own Ale Yeast and let it rest on a saucer with water.

2. Forgot to sanitize the fermenter cover (hope nothing bad will happen from this). I did wash it though.

3. Forgot the stupid sink had no choke! Couldn’t properly cool down the wort. Not sure whether the cold break has occurred or not. This is really stupid to the extreme.

4. Can opener not sharp enough. Had to do use the can opener to cut the can cover a few times before the cover could come off. Worried about possible contamination + metal shavings. Yuck.

5. Forgot to boil water (for the fermenter) the night before, thus had to boil the water on the same morning. Didn’t have enough time to cool the water before dumping it into the fermenter. The temperature of the water for the fermenter is rather high. Around 36 degrees. Worry about possible oxidation of the water and off flavours. Plus I pitched the yeast at the same temperature! Oh this is real bad.

6. Added too much hops in my single tea bag. Didn’t know it expanded so much in hot water.

7. Carrying the full 23 litre fermenter is a bitch. No kidding. I carried it from the kitchen to my study, which is upstairs! My muscles were ripping I tell you! They were just like what you see on TV.

That’s it folks. Will update you guys when I do the bottling!

Oh if you guys would like to make your very own homebrew beer, you need to get a license from the Singapore government. It’s just a 10 dollar piece of paper.

I bet a lot of us make use of our emails to send important attachments to our friends, relatives and especially to our bosses, right? Well, if you DO send such emails, you will realize that there is a very serious flaw in this - the attachment size. Yes, how many times have you send a huge file across but only to have it rejected by the other side? Just imagine the time wasted when you send the file and the time wasted again when you need to figure out how to solve it. Don’t you just hate it when there are problems with your email? However, it’s not the fault of the ISPs or your email host. Why? Because the design of email in the beginning. Email was designed to send text messages across the network and it is just not meant to be send and receive huge files.

I may have the solution for you, it’s called Civil Netizen. It’s like those file sharing software or maybe like MSN’s file sharing feature. The difference is that it can send and receive huge files (that’s up to 4GB!), unlike most other software. You can transfer a large number of files with just a few clicks. They have something called a “parcel” and all the files are contained inside these parcels. It also allows you to preserve the file structure of your folders. The most important of all is that it is very secure. And you do it privately. You can share those company files with your co-worker in another laptop using Civil Netizens and find very secure. And transferring files is as easy as clicking a few links. If you are worried about transferring of huge files, you needn’t be. This software allows you to resume interrupted transfers like those FTP Clients. It will keep on trying till your files are delivered. Oh, did I mention it is free?

Civil Netizen feels a lot like those P2P software like those P2P software you see on the Internet. However, this is not a P2P software. It is meant for people to transfer files securely.

Of course I would like to have Ang Baos. Plenty of it please. If you have no idea what Ang Bao means, it is actually “Red Packets“. That red packet has money in it. Usually even digitals of currency like 10, 20 or 40 dollars. This is a Chinese tradition whereby the parents give their children Ang Baos for the Chinese New Year. You know, red means luck for the Chinese. This also applies to the children of relatives and friends who visit your house during the Chinese New Year period. I can just imagine how much money these people have to fork out if they have a lot of friends and family coming to their house. Some of these families can be very big and can have a lot of children coming as well! Wuhahaha, what a nightmare!

Anyway, it’s not just for children, but for anyone not married, like me. So if I goto someone’s house, the elders there will have to give me red packets too. So I will usually join the kids at the little children’s table playing with Lego or those blocks and then get some dough. A bit humiliating, but hey, I got to live somehow right? Eat the humble pie, they say. If only they say, eat the humble Bak Kwa. Okay, now I am eating it. Whoever is the smart ass who added the “humble” as the main ingredient in pie is pretty stupid. It doesn’t taste nice at all, but the benefits can be oh so good.

I used to visit to everyone I know to get those Ang Baos, but nowadays with the transport fares so high, I don’t do that anymore. Not really worth it. What I do now is to visit those who live nearby. I have several friends who live very near, those are my first targets. After getting the Ang Baos from their parents, I will then proceed to those living near my workplace. So after work, I go visit them and again get some Ang Baos. This way, I don’t have to spend extra on transport. Yes, you can call me a cheapskate or a miser, but what can I do after all these price/fare/tax increases you see everyday occuring in Singapore? And I still want my Ang Baos!!