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. :@

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?

Via ijafri

Just saw this website, offering email addresses at the domain taleban.org. WTH? They also ‘remove all doubts’ by telling you that this is done for fun. Some fun.

You want an email address? How about yourname@taleban.org? Sounds nice, no? I am sure you can have a lot of fun this way,

Hello friends, now you can contact me at friend@taleban.org

Or you can do a lot of business this way as well, especially with your western clients.

Hi, I am flaan-flaan and I do this-that, you can contact me at projects@taleban.org.

I’d be damned if people don’t flood your email with friend requests and business proposals. And no one would want to piss you off. And your lifetime guarantee would have a certain ring to it, wouldn’t it?

P.S. Apart from the fact that agencies from around the world would be on your case from day friggin’ one!

When something’s named Intrepid Ibex, it probably is interesting, y’know.

I am already pleasantly surprised; LUMS (Lahore, Pakistan) hosts a mirror site to download Ubuntu’s latest release (Intrepid Ibex).

I am downloading the OS. Wish me luck.

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.

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:

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).

We Pakistanis have our own brand of English, of course. Very recognizable indeed. I tend to believe that all of us enjoy the unique accent we possess, some of us are just mean to actually laugh with an air of superiority at say, Inzamam going ‘the buoys played very well’. This leads me to the point that I am trying to make :/ i.e. there is no need to be shameful of one’s accent. The accent (literally meaning “Distinctive manner of oral expression”) is there for a reason, it is supposedly who we are. Check out the Oye Blaagar badges!

P.S. In the case of English, writing gramatically incorrect English is something to work on and is not the same as talking in a poor accent. Yes, there is such a thing as poor accent. Obama went to the extent of changing his pronouciation of Pakistan to prove this very point. But generally speaking, accent is not something to be afraid of for sure, only to be improved upon. Just like writing.

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.