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Paya, near Shogran, Pakistan

Archive for the ‘Life etc’ Category

Life online

Filed under: Business, Life etc — Tags: , , , — Momekh @ 4:22 pm on January 1, 2009

My computer packed up again, thanks to continous fluctuation of my PC. Windows OS can not take so many restarts it seems. 

With two UPS’s back-to-back, I only wonder how people without UPS’s can think of doing business online; yes, UPS was and is a requirement, a cost that must be incurred. Still, I got to the stage of fluctuations taking out my main PC. 

But one thing very interesting happened:

I have been using Google Apps for most of my documentation work, most of my pictures were either uploaded to Picasa, Facebook, Flickr. A blue-screened PC sets me back a few weeks at least, but it seems, not this time around. 

Thanks to putting a lot more online, using dependable companies like Google and Mosso to manage my data, the transition has been less painful. 

Yes, there is this bitch problem of installing a total of 23 programs or so that I have a list for (note, I have had to install them quite a few times in the last couple of months!). Being clever, I installed Adobe apps like Photoshop on a separate partition.

Not so clever after all.

When I reinstalled WinXP SP3, I saw the data along with the Program Files folder lying calmly in the other partition. Happy I was. Only to find out that Photoshop is not running; it opens but is not entertaining my requests to open a single file even. 

I tried to re-install Adobe Creative suite, but got the following error:

The application failed to initialize properly - (0xc0000006)

I am getting fond of sqaure one, it is so empty and cold and nice. Akkhh. :@

Be gone, fool

Filed under: Life etc, self — Tags: — Momekh @ 6:37 pm on December 22, 2008

Hate this to the core.

Focus.

It makes life so easy.

Hey Mister, yeah you sir, with the muffler hanging low on your shoulder, how about a little bit of this and little bit of that for a little bit of gain?

No friend, not now. I have focus. There is a charm in wandering around. That is pretty much all that wandering has to offer; charm. Focus makes you useful.

Your resolve looks like intimidation, sir and your cold, steely eyes have learnt this new stare. What is it that you hold in your heart and store in your soul, sir that makes you so stay so close to the One and the ones that matter, sir?

Be gone, fool.

So many things on your plate, my oh my, what a big plate you have sir. What are you trying to prove sir? What is it that you need when you claim to have all that you ever need sir?

Be gone, fool.

Is not life to be lived in Technicolor sir? Your clear lines of black and white make me nervous and your grays seem so peaceful. Is this a new trick or some voodoo that you won’t teach sir?

Color helps me separate the white, black and grays. It helps me waste my time. It helps me live a bit more everyday. Is rainbow only as useful as the pot of gold that it leads to?

Something Silly

Filed under: Life etc, People, Politics, Society — Tags: , , , , , — Momekh @ 9:23 pm on December 21, 2008

It has been playing up in my mind for quite a long time, and as of yet there is no connection that I can make. It leaves this uncomfortable feeling and I don’t like it. Maybe someone here can help me?

There is a TV personality here in Pakistan, Faisal Qureshi. In fact, there are three well known TV personalities by that very name! (So I have included the picture)

His shows that have ‘done time’ on Business Plus, a small stint at Dawn and now at Samaa TV. Personally, I have always enjoyed his shows and have actually showed up at ‘LooseEnds’ meetup in Lahore a few years back. I have had the pleasure of having dinner with him after that meet up (along with the rest of the odd 20 to 25 people that showed up). All in all, Mr. Qureshi is a well-rounded individual who wants to make a difference. That is something that is to be appreciated and not taken lightly, this passion for change. The people with this kind of an undying ‘need’ to improve (automatically forcing your to ‘change’ your current self) are far and few in between.

Now, my confusion has a lot to with what Mr. Qureshi has been doing. I believe that active participation in promoting and adapting positive change is what makes for a good activist. Mr Qureshi, as far as this definition is concerned, plays that part well. Very well indeed! I like that. What I don’t understand is his refusal to entertain any sort of political tones - even political undertones - to anything he and his sizeable group of friends and followers do. Politics to him is like Kryptonite to superman. I do not like that.

I have always believed in the positive nature of pretty much everything. There is always the flip side blah blah (we all know the drill). Yes, being called a politician is not next to being cursed, it is EXACTLY like being cursed. Yes, I know that. That just does not mean that politics - and an active participation in it - has no room for positive change. In fact, I will go ahead and claim that politics holds the most promise to induce positivity all around on both large and small scales. What I do not understand, and I want to pose this as a question to Mr Qureshi himself as well, is why is not politics included as a route to improving one’s self. And secondly, why is politics considered a separate beast from the umbrella of activism?

Of course, Mr Qureshi is not the only one I know of who holds politics as away from himself as possible (for reasons that I’d like to know). While reading Fasi Zaka’s piece in The News, I found out that the Samad Khurram :) also holds this attitude of excluding politics in any agenda of social change. Perhaps it is the ’social’ element that gets separated from the ‘politics’, social representing the society and politics representing the politicians of course. This type of exlusion seems silly to me, for the very, very obvious reason that I do not understand it! My question goes typically to Mr Faisal Qureshi, Mr Fasi Zaka and Mr Samad Khurram, and anyone else who’d care to answer and opinionate. Why a big no to politics? I don’t know, but would love to.

Where the hell is Matt?

Filed under: Life etc, Society, Travel, Videography — Tags: , , , — Momekh @ 8:48 pm on November 29, 2008

One of the coolest videos I have ever seen.

Where the hell is Matt?

Via ijafri

Learning Linux

Filed under: Business, Life etc, Technology — Tags: , , , — Momekh @ 2:32 am on November 27, 2008

Why would you want to learn Linux?

What is Linux anyways? I am not going to get into a history lesson here, but Linux is an operating system, just like Windows is an operating system.

Windows is the world’s most popular operating system, ensuring that Microsoft and Bill Gates remain wealthy. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Linux on the other hand, is the eternal underdog. It is the fastest growing operating sytem in the world, and there is a reason for that; there are not many OS’s around to begin with.

But Linux has definitely come a long, hard way. And as I start to get comfortable in a call center that employs an opensource (I am a die-hard fan of opensource) solution that is invariably based on a Linux server, I have reconsidered some of my decisions. One of that was to ‘go easy on the tech bit’ for a while.

On Linux’s main website, it is stated that,

…Linux opens up a whole new world of computing. This means that a Linux user is not just a passive subject reacting to what the OS allows him/her to do but he/she is an active “developer” with complete control over the operating system.

I did not and do not want control when it comes to computers, I want consistency. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a business demand. But I will let myself loose so-to-speak, and explore. It is still not ‘control’ that I am interested in, it is more to do with, ‘what is so different about linux anyways?’ that I want an answer to. For myself.

It will be a sight to behold, I am told.

Lahore Bloggers Meetup

The Lahore Bloggers Meetup was held on the 23rd of Nov, 08. Organized by Google Pakistan and CIO Pakistan, the event was able to pull upto 100 people from Lahore, and as mentioned by ‘the Google guy’, all through one Facebook page and three days worth of effort.

A well attended event no doubt. I enjoyed every bit of it, although I was an hour late :/

My Blogstarta initiative can perhaps take some ‘advisors’ on board. Anyways, here are the pictures:

Oye Blogger

Filed under: Life etc — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — Momekh @ 10:00 am on November 22, 2008

I just love accents.

Accents to me, show character. Pride even. I love the ‘implications’ of accent. Nobody in his right mind will not enjoy the Jamaican accent, for example, just like you have to be very patient to understand a Scotsman (or an Irish) talking in English (I recall ManUtd manager Sir Alex Ferguson and his TV interviews, I swear the guy needs to have subtitles in English).

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Smoking Trees

Filed under: Life etc — Tags: , , , — Momekh @ 6:08 am on November 21, 2008

Thanks to the discussion happening in the post below, the first name for a title that came to mind was ’smoking trees’. I found that amusing.

And I definitely have the designer cap on for quite some days now.

Artists

Filed under: Art, Life etc — Tags: , , , , — Momekh @ 12:11 am on

You are an artist.

You like technology very much, not because it has code in it, but because it is the design of it that appeals to you.

Doesn’t mean that artists can not or do not write code (Any Wordpress fan would know that code is poetry). The design of technology is quite intriguing in fact, and not just from an ergonomics point of view. Algorithms are designed, then coded. It requires creativity, which in turn requires lateral thinking i.e. artisitc.

Scientists are artists as well, obviously. They imagine and pursue and adjust and adapt, all traits of an artist. In the end, they create. Again, artistic.

I have a very simple definition for Art

Anything that can be reproduced is science, everything else is art

I don’t intend to defend the above statement. :)

Hosting and the whole truth and nothing but!

Filed under: Business, Life etc, Reviews, The Net — Tags: , , , , , , , — Momekh @ 8:39 pm on November 16, 2008

I already pay through my nose for the Mosso master hosting account (USD 100 per month) that I use as a part of package deals for my website and blogging clients. I decided to check out Bluehost not because I wanted to change my host, but in an effort to get more information so I can present more options to my clients (current and prospective). I was looking to sign up for their affiliate program (I eventually did).

One oddity that I found while signing up for the affiliate program was that although the account will be sold for USD 6.95 per month, the affiliate on making a sale would get somewhere in the range of 8 to 9 times more. What the? And then I read that they have one of the best affiliate programs on the web! No shit! You pay 6.95 to Bluehost through me, and I get 9 times more than that? I was obviously missing something here, so I opened up thier live sales chat window, and the conversation went something like this:

(…more →)

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