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.

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:

[...read the full post →]

All marketers are liars.

Well not really. Even an average marketer will never lie. Why? Because it is bad for business, that is why. So what do they do? They bend the truth. Put another way, they present the truth in digestible forms. I also believe that is the best way forward; to present the truth and nothing but, in a way that helps you sell your client’s (or your own) stuff.

The below-average marketer

The below average marketer will bend the truth in a way that borders towards a lie. That is easily catch-able.

Somewhere in the middle are these folks:

List of top blog hosts, really? (click to enlarge)

Now, they have a list of top blog hosts, with the number one offering everything unlimited for USD 3.88 per month. That not just cheap, that’s cheap cheap, three times over. So the best blog host will set you back a measly 3.88 per month. Nice, right? Well, in the text of the above screenshot-ed table, they say, and I quote:

Note from the Editor: The Blog Hosting plans displayed are rated by the best value for the price. Overall value is determined by price, uptime reliability, quality of customer service, and user feedback found on forums.

I have bold-ed the ‘overall value’ bit, because that is where the straight out lie (of the list being the Top Blog Hosts) becomes a bended truth (only if you are considering the price).

The point where truth doesn’t bend but breaks into a lie

Now, anyone who has a pusle will tell you that the one offering the lowest price in many cases, is not the best option. I have been in web hosting and design for almost a decade (I actually feel old in this), and I can say without flexing a muscle, that in web hosting specially, cheap means bad. If you are a techie or a web developer, you can get raw storage for as low as USD 0.5 per month, thanks to cloud computing/hosting services from the likes of Amazon and Mosso. But that is not what web hosting is, it is not raw space. It involves highly crucial variables like:

• Bandwidth
• Uptime
• The all-too-important after-sales customer service
• the features on offer as compared to your requirements

And that is just for starters. A good host will not necessarily cost you that much (anywhere between USD 6 to USD 35 per month flat), but any list of good hosts has to take into account at leas tthe above four variables. If someone says, ‘here is the list of the cheapest blog hosts’, then that is fine. But it does not have the same punch as ‘list of the best blog hosts’, now does it?

How many of us bend the truth that actually gets broken into a lie? Not only in business but in daily life? Something to watch out for, for sure.

Blogging for a living is nothing new and a lot of people are doing it full time to support themselves and their families. Some bloggers do make it big. And It is nothing different than writing for a living. Whosoever have tried to make a living as a writer will vouch for the fact that it is not at all easy. Same goes for blogging.

The media for writing and blogging are sometimes worlds apart. But they are essentially connected being the creative expression that they both use. If one can find success in, say, writing for print, then that person has a higher chance of finding glory (and money) in blogging as well. Why? Well, because whosoever is proactive enough to make writing work for him or her, can do the same for blogging as well.

This brings me to the point that being proactive is essential. Taking action is what separates the ones that made it from the ones that ‘had a good run’. Take action, step back and evaluate, adjust and take action again. Rinse and repeat. Heck, just repeat.

Some resources (read: inspiration) from the bloggers who made it (read: are loaded! )

• Rich Bloggers - a cool post by Darren of Problogger
• Can Bloggers strike it rich? A simple look at the money in blogging by Wired Magazine

Are you a person who would like to earn money with blogging? Do you blog at all? Let me know in the comments section

As I write this, a small focused company is being born that caters to the blogging needs of to-be-bloggers and writers. Offering highly robust and reliable hosting combined with some nifty design services, the service will be officially launched on the first of December, God willing. For the unravelling of Levi’s of the Blogging gold-rush, subscribe.

In an attempt to find out if I am not a bot and am a human, they want to make sure that I am also super human. (courtesy Yahoo Games).

Bionic people need try only

A few updates at Car Advice:

• A post about the new Honda Accord 2009
• The post on Suzuki Mehran has gotten some comments that just makes me want to keep writing
• The CarAdvice car blog has now reached the first milestone, by God’s Grace. (milestone of 100 unique visitors a day). Now moving on to the next target: 1000 a day. (guys, it’s just another 0, tsk)
• I am looking for some guest bloggers to help me with content creation for Car Advice (If you think you can help out, let me know). Google seems to love the website e.g. eight people searching for ‘who is momekh’ ended up at CarAdvice, thanks to Google’s attention it is giving to that blog/website. (At first, anything ‘momekh’ has this blog as the first link; been like that for years and years).
• Very amused that eight people were searching online for about me. Aiyyo wussup, I am right here

Some updates in life:

• My daughter turned two on 11th of Nov.
• I have now decided that God willing, I will be going to ’some’ European country to start ’some’ business. I will be staying there for 5 to 8 months and ‘exploring’ that country/region, blogging about it along the way. (I am sure my planning prowess is laid bare here when I plan to goto some country to start some business)
• My early morning routine (been at it for about a month) has been hit hard, for no obvious reason apart from the old ones relating to a lazy, high-on-procast* me.
• Working from home must now be replaced with working from anywhere (as per decision to be as mobile as possible without hindering any other pre-set equations)
• I am again enjoying the whole computer metaphor such as updating on life, default settings of one’s character, some country installing someone as president, formating someone’s face out of one’s drive, some peolpe’s inability to use firewire, some people having port conflict and some people just being unable to align thier cartridges.
• I need to play more soccer and get more exersice.
• I need to come up with better titles for my posts

I always, almost as a rule, never let loose. Never let my guard down. At least that is what I try. There are some chinks in my armor, surely, but it is an armor nonetheless. Given that I know I will probably not be a loud mouth, I try to make sure that I don’t come off as a tight-ass dude. (For example: My mind tells me not to write ‘tight-ass’ as it includes the word ‘ass’, but I have actually forced myself to write it, in an attempt to do what I have been thinking of doing for some time now).

Mona Lisa

You see, I like to plan. A lot. I am the king at analysis paralysis and therefore, this king never leaves the building. (I just think about leaving the building). I bought my second guitar, a Yamaha semi-acoustic (my dream guitar) I think five years ago. Almost immediately after I bought the stringed thing of beauty, I read some seemingly convincing articles on why music is prohibbited in Islam. The articles made sense. The only problem was that those articles were penned down by the same folks who consider that drawing (of pretty much any nautre; cartoons, figures, people) and photography is also not allowed in Islam. Now, I totally disagreed with the logic presented by these fine folks that the Almighty dissallows drawing. After some serious research to further back my off-the-top-of-my-head (OTTOMH) and from-the-bottom-of-my-heart (FTBOMH) conclusion, I did some pretty extensive research and was (and am) convinced that there is nothing at all wrong with drawing or photography or movies etc. (given of course, that they are not lewd or unjustifiably offensive; basically the same rules that apply to what you say, or write etc). With music, I was not so sure. The arguments presented against music were too subjective (as usually is the case) to begin with but I for one, did not have convincing arguments to confidently say that music is allowed in my religion. Because of this indicision, I did not play the guitar or listened to much music for mmm, I think for about 3 years. And I was the guy enjoying BeeGees and deliberating on their complex chord structure, meanwhile rapping Eminem songs at college (with the semicircle of folks standing to listen and everything) and finding interesting patterns and rythems not only in sounds but in lyrics. I think I am still the only one I have met or have known who listens to Eminem and Abrar-ul-Haq with exactly the same passion (There was a time I knew all of the songs of both of these artists). Atif Aslam and Gohar, being my buds at college, used to jam at my house with me providing the beat on my second-hand congos. In fact, if I remember correctly, I talked to a certain owner of Domingo’s Cafe and got these two (singing as Atif & Gohar) performing their first-ever concert (I think it was their first concert). Again, I tell you this to convey how mmm, how deep a connection I had with music. But I am quite good at removing and introducing things in my life that are non consquential (meaning that they don’t amount to shit ).

The above monologue was just to convey that I am quite careful (at least try to be) in the habits that I have yet to pick up. That is my only luxury, so to speak. I do have a bunch of habits that I can not remove from my life even upon repeated trying (smoking being numero uno). But why am I saying all of this?

It is time, I think, to again wear the adventurer cap. To discover. To do things that would make people call you crazy. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ should be the most asked question. ‘You dont ever know it will work out, so why do it in the first place?’ should be the most asked rhetorical question. Unfortunately, not many people would ask ‘why are you doing this or that?’. The ‘why’ usually implies that the asker actually wants to know the reason in an attempt to understand and then perhaps advice or criticize. But people usually do not have the time to bring you in their lives for that long.

In 1998, on my eighteenth birthday, I bungee jumped off the Zambezi river bridge only to find out that:

1. some things are fun only after you have done them
2. most decisions, once made, should be carried out without ever going back to the drawing board
3. attacking one’s fear head on doesn’t necessarily decrease or eliminate that fear (I am still scared shitless of being anywhere that is 30 feet or above ground level)

I think I need to tie them ropes around my ankles once more. Not do something crazy just because it is crazy, but do something crazy to find out if it is really that crazy. I am not talking about dare-develling my life to come, I am talking about doing something - anything - that I have not done before. All within the confines set by my God as I understand them, God willing. I know I want to continue to write. I know I have to earn now in dollars (or euros or pounds). I know I have to listen to God more, I know I have to travel more, I know I have to take responsibility of others more often now (given that I am a father of the cutest thing that walked planet Earth, mashAllah ).

Well, I only wish I had my four year old posts here on this blog. The comparisons to what was then and what is now would have been interesting. But God willing, things should be getting interesting.

First and foremost, I think I need to get a ‘following’ of this blog, so it can be monitized and hence the effort justified from all angles (currently, my blogging habit that I am working with is justified from all angles except the financial one). Let’s see. God guide me and us all.

I really do not know if the title is written in correct English. I also don’t care.

And therein lies the problem; I, like you, do not care. Not about my grammatical prowess, but about pretty much anything. Yes, we complain and bitch about things that annoy and frustrate us and this may pass off as an ‘I-care’ attitude. But it’s not.

Giving-a-damn means more than giving just a damn. Take, for example, the state of our piece of land. The country of Pakistan suffers daily and there is nothing you can do about it. Sure, you sometimes feel that something ’should’ be done about it and in comes the complaining and the bitching.

“Zardari has ruined us further”

“I can’t work with 12 hours a day load-shedding”

And my favorite:

“We were better off with Musharraf”

Wishful thinkers, all of us. Complainers and bitchers, all of us.

Here’s what I reckon: one loses the right to complain, even opinionate about something if he or she does it him or herself. For example, you bitch endlessly about the bribes our police force takes and the moment you are caught at a random check post with no papers on you, out comes Jinaah saab to the rescue. You are pathetic. You have no right to complain. The only right you have, as the last resort, is that of ‘advice’. You smoke, stop blabbing about second-hand smoke, but do advice your friend or cousin to not start. Advice, yes; Opinions and rants, shut the hell up.

People complain about Pakistan, they say emotionally knotted things, they blame the ‘typical Pakistani’ for corruption, cheating and you name it. Those same losers, given the chance given half a chance would jump with arms friggin’ wide open to corrupt and cheat.

Ha, you are all the same.

How can there be a difference? Do you really believe that all the shit that has been constantly hitting the fan in these past 8 years or so is George Bush’s doings? Seriously, you believe that?

Musharraf was ‘planted’ by Bush, and now is replaced by Zardari, or orders of Bush. Hence ended the simplified guide to the universe.

Think about it for a moment now, Bush? Who finds it hard to form a coherent sentence with full concentration and both hands, that guy caused all of this? Yes, it was under Mr. Bush that we saw Americans carry out attacks that were merciless (merciless not because a lot of people died, merciless because till this day, there is no justification for it at all), we saw America lose more than just face in the international community, we saw the American economy nose dive like a dead bird, we saw a sharp rise in terrorism, especially in Pakistan, yes we saw it all when America was under Bush. But was he, this single man, the cause of all of this?

No.

The forces at play are much stronger, [...read the full post →]

I have been neglecting a sizeable part of my life for quite some time now.

The Net.

Oh I have been on the damn thing for ages. Given that I like to write, I am naturally drawn towards the whole blogging thing. (Blogstarta being the newest addition).

I am currently creating and revamping websites that I control as a jaalamaster (Jaala is Urdu for ‘web’). As I have hardly been a webmaster for my clients (I have been an online service provider of sorts), the 15 or so websites that I own are creating bit of a problem. And given that I treat all other businesses as exactly that, businesses, I need to treat my ‘online presence’ as a business as well, which I must confess, I have not been doing so lately (read: for the last 8 years :/ ). And that in itself, I feel, is the lamest thing I have done in a while.

Now, I hope, this will change. For the unfolding of this saga (oye hoeyyy), stay tuned. (zzZzzzZzz)