Ramadan Mubarak !

As-salaamualaykum brothers and sisters !

Here’s wishing you and your family a very happy Ramadan! Ramadan Mubarak !

May Allah enable us all to obtain loads and loads of blessings this month, allow us to cling to the Quran and Sunnah and greatly benefit from it. May Allah give us the power to refrain from everything that displeases Him and the power to perform all that which attracts His Grace and Pleasure. Ameen.

Everyone, this is a time to reflect at our state and re-establish those ties with our Creator that we have been ignoring for the past 11 months.  There’s so much barakah out now to be collected and believe me, its easy pickings so don’t be too lazy to try.

This is a time to make amends, to put forward all your wishes and desires and a time to do away with everything that is extra and needless.  This, my brothers and sisters, is a time to be forgiven and win a ticket straight to Jannah. You don’t know if you’ll be here next Ramadan. Make this shot count. All you need to do is a make the Niyah – Allah will handle the rest. So,  come on, let’s not squander this opportunity.

May Allah bless you all and grant you a superb spiritual experience this Ramadan.

As a sidenote, I’ll be a little low on updating the blog this month for obvious reasons. So, don’t worry – I’ll be back, Insha’Allah.

Keep it Halal.

Business and blogs

Ever since I’ve come across the concept of blog stats on WordPress, I’ve been intrigued with the correlation between pageviews and content. Strategizing on what to write about, keeping the best titles and composing a smooth-flowing article is a great challenge that is time-consuming but quite rewarding. The excitement after a blog post brings in a huge wave of traffic is something I really look forward to now.

The other day I was asking myself whether maintaining a succesful blog is an art or whether it an acquired skill ? I think its actually like any other business where success is a product of a great product idea, timely execution and good fortune.

Now, The more I think about, more I believe that blogs can be a great way to learn business. You can analogize so many key things between the two domains:

1. Investment in business = time in blogs

2. Revenue metrics in business = blogs stats in blogs

3. Product in business = content in blogs

4. Marketing in business = backlinks, online marketing etc. for blogs

5. Both require a fair bit of understanding about what the customers/readers want/like

I was talking to a friend a few days ago when we bumped in to an idea. I’ve heard that some universities get MBA students to participate in collaborative business games as their end-of-year activity. So, how about try out blog management as a less technical alternative ? MBA students would be required start up and manage a blog for a semester and drive traffic to it. The metric to measure success can be mutually agreed upon (could be unique hits, average views, post ratings etc.)

I believe, this task would require students to exercise their marketing skills – by spreading the word in an effective way, be it by word of mouth, facebook campaigns or good old flyers. It will also loop in a bit of product design and customer research to design and write up the blog.

We did discuss a few valid drawbacks. For example, everyone is not a great writer.  But you don’t necessarily have to write to win attention. ‘I Can Has Cheezburger’ and ‘Fail Blog’ both work their magic with engaging pictures and media. And I’m of the view that everyone is unique to have something special and interesting to share – you just need to flex those creative muscles.

Another issue was that people might fall into a rut of obsessing with technicalities like SEO. Very true. I guess that needs to be a policy point where students are encouraged not to think too much SEO – the basics should suffice.

Of course, the idea needs a few touch ups but its worth exploring I feel. Shoot me a comment if you’ve got a suggestion.

Facebook unleashes Facebook Lite

The rumors say that Facebook’s latest move to release Facebook Lite was a result of feeling pressure to respond to Twitter’s threatening boom. Facebook Lite which happens to be a trimmed down version offering the basic networking tools like status updates and the profile, is being tested in India, Russia and China for the time being.

What I think about the rumors:

Rumor: “Facebook released real-time search to compete with Twitter.”

I’d probably buy that because searching through status updates and shared content is a major attraction point for socia-holics, and Twitter was edging Fb on that. And if I’m not mistaken, FB did admit this themselves sometime in June. What’s interesting is that a really good implementation of real-time search can land Facebook nose to nose with search juggernaut, Google as well, who ,too, are swimming in the same lake.

Rumor: “Facebook Lite is Facebook’s Twitter.”

I don’t think that was the purpose behind Facebook Lite. Sure, Facebook Lite crops down the site to its very core of status updates and profile features but I feel the real incentive was to ‘nab the fringe’. The fact that Lite has been released in population-dense areas like India and China means that Facebook’s out to expand its horizon and create channels of accessibility for people who liked the Facebook world but found it it either too intimidating to understand or found it too heavy to perform well because of all that AJAX goo. Plus, mobile users might prefer Facebook Lite in any case. Also note that Orkut still has a stronghold in India and with time, Facebook might want to usurp that piece of the pie.

FriendFeed - Facebook's move to stifle twitter ?

Rumor: “FriendFeed was acquired to compete with Twitter.”

Frankly, Twitter or no Twitter, FriendFeed was a no-brainer buy for a variety of reasons. First, the team. The FriendFeed crew are pretty much the pioneers of real-time web having worked on Google products like Maps and Mail. And since FriendFeed was still young in its game, the 50 million figure that FB paid for it was a relatively cheap price to dish out for such a scoop of golden intellect. Plus, Facebook had its eye on FriendFeed since 2007 anyways and its so evident that it had been using its ideas as shown by the ‘Comment’ & ‘Like’ features and the ‘news aggregator’ layout that Fb has adopted. What FriendFeed will do now is provide a unifying platform that will bring friend updates from different social media sites thus reducing the need for people to open tabs after tabs to track people’s activities. In other words, Facebook will be able to create a social dashboard of sorts on its site making itself more ’sticky’.

Secondly the real-time aspect is totally awesome. Share something and you’ll see real-time interaction of people with that shared content – now that’s exciting. Like I could imagine uploading a super artistic photo and then indulging in some popcorn while I see the all the action (like comments and like) happening on my shared content.

Having said all that,  lets not  make the cardinal sin of forgetting about crafty little Google. They have a big release set for later this year by the name of Google Wave, which supposedly will become the next-gen online collaboration tool. It would be interesting to see whether this beast will cause ripples in the social sphere and people’s web behavior in general.

I sure am glad that I attended this great lecture in the East Zone conference that was held in Philadelphia this April. It was based on the wondrous text of the Holy Quran and how to think of Ayahs in a totally different light. The speakers were not only extremely eloquent but gave fascinating perspectives on the Quran that opened the mind and reinforced the faith in our hearts.

I’ll just share a bit of what I learnt in a particularly intense session. The speaker was explaining to us how the text of the Holy Quran was beautiful in all dimensions. To explain his point, he asked the audience to refer to Surah Anbiya Ayah 33 (21:33). In the Ayah, the following phrase is mentioned : “kullu fee falak” (كل فى فلك) which is translated by Yusuf Ali as “ALL (THE CELESTIAL BODIES) swim along, each in its rounded course”.

You must be thinking – “So?”. Well, lets take a closer look.

First, break up “kullu fee falak” into its individual letters (huruf). We get the following: Kaf , Lam, Fa , Ya, Fa, Lam, Kaf  (ك ل ف ى ف ل ك)

Now, notice how the phrase is actually a palindrome i.e. reads the same backward and forward.

But much more fascinating than this phrase being a palindrome is how it visually depicts its own meaning. Notice how ‘Ya’ is in the “centre” and all the other letters (huruf) form an orbit around it just like how our planets act in the solar system ! Have a look:

And as we already know, that the sun itself (centre celestial body) is moving about in an orbit so everything about the statement is consistent with modern science

When the speaker explained his point, I just stared at the screen not understanding what had happened. But then the the visual image clicked in my mind and my eyebrows were leaping out of my face.Needless to say, this little token of insight brought a wide smile to my face and also a sudden renewed wave of love for the Holy Quran. Absolutely beautiful.

EVO is PTCL’s wireless broadband solution for high speed internet access. Its available as a USB or PCMCIA card and thus is a plug-n-play portable connection which allows users to remain connected on-the-go. It runs on a 3G network and can offer an average of 300-500 Kbps download speeds. PTCL is offering unlimited downloads on this package.

As a benefit to humankind (:P) I thought I’d do a quick review on this item. Here’s my take -

Pros
1. Great portability:
If you do a lot of intra-city traveling AND you own a laptop, you’ll reap from the benefits of perpetual connectivity.

2. Swift browsing:
Depending on how far you are from a PTCL Booster tower, you can get quite decent speeds around 250 – 320 Kbps with occasional bursts up to 500 Kbps. Browsing pages and downloading small files (upto 10 MB) work really well with EVO.

3. Aggregated Billing:
No need to worry about separate bills. You can merge the billing with your default PTCL line.

4. Unlimited Downloads:
A flat rate of 2K means no to worry about how much you use the device either.

5. Compatibility:
Works on Windows + OS X (and Linux too if you’re that savvy), so you’re pretty much covered.

6. Electricity-Free:
Now, you’re connected during load shedding as well (provided you have a laptop) !

7. Form Factor:
Pocket-size make it a ‘No hassle’ solution.

Cons:

1. Mediocre Streaming:
Contrary to what PTCL claims to be a great streaming experience, the EVO doesn’t seem to exhibit great QoS and streaming can be a pain. Smaller vids work better but longer ones stall a lot for buffering.

2. Expensive:
2000 rupees for an average speed of 300K is a little steep. WorldCall and PTCL both offer great DSL packages that are cheaper than this so you will need to evaluate how much value for money you assign to the portability and ease of use factors of EVO. I’ve heard Wi-Tribe is even cheaper (around 850/- for a 512K connection).

3. No Refund policy:
You lose the USB, you’re pretty much back to square one. You need to cough up another 6K and get another one.

4. Heats up a lot:
Although I haven’t yet seen a major deterioration in performance, but the USB heats up to boiling point pretty fast.It hasn’t died on me yet but so much exothermic emission can’t really mean eveything’s dandy.

Final Take:
Buy this only if
- you have a laptop
- you browse a lot and don’t stream vids too much
- you like to be connected when you’re in coffee shops
- you live close to PTCL Booster Tower (call their services to find out how far you are)
- you like remaining connected through load shedding periods
- you like pocket-size solutions

For the longest time I wondered what Orkut had done wrong. Initially, I thought maybe it was Facebook’s college

For the longest time I wondered what Orkut had done wrong. Initially, I thought maybe it was Facebook’s college affiliations that won over credibility and stole the crowds. Then I mused on how the difference could be Facebook Apps, a definite unique selling point over Orkut in 2006. But now I have a completely different view. I beleive the global shift to Facebook (barring Indians and Brazilians who seemingly are the only inhabitants of Orkut left) was because of Orkut’s inability to scale in its baby days. The frequent “no donut for you” message may have been an expression of Google’s typical sense of humour but it certainly didn’t leave much to laugh about as Facebook gave everyone their..umm..donuts.

The explosion of social community websites has completely flipped the web paradigm. Where in the nineties, we had elite companies spoon-feeding us content, we now have a concept of generating content on our own through massive collaboration, individual creativity and social experiences. People themselves are the central content. People want to know other people are doing, what pictures they are taking and what videos they are getting embarassed in.

With this ongoing battle from friendster to MySpace to what not, I stand at this point wondering how the race track looks like in the world of socialy community websites.

So, I picked five of my favorite social sites that I had accounts on and compared the number of unique visitors that they attracted per month. I used compete.com to get the stats and found out that the leaderboard looks like this:

For June 2009

1. Facebook – 122 Million

2. Twitter – 22 Million

3. LinkedIn – 12 Million

4. Hi5 – 2.3 Million

5. Orkut – 0.5 Million

Well, no surprises there except for the fact that Orkut’s approval ratings seem to be waning even when compared to Hi5 – which I don’t believe to be a showstopper app thats caused many waves in the market. In fact, Hi5 trounces Orkut’s visitor count by nearly 5 times so either Orkut’s completely lost out or Hi5 is smartly marketing their product to a loyal niche. And the more recent Twitter phenomenon has truly made a ground-breaking entrance to the market, sweeping millions into its tweeting influence.

Also, Facebook’s undisputed and gargantuous kingship is reinforced by the gaping hole between Facebook’s trend line and the cluster of ‘others’ beneath it. This is what I call extreme pwnage. And it looks like Zuckerberg’s precious is not going stop there – the line’s getting steeper !

If you really want to know how rampant Facebook’s popularity is, then the following will give you an idea:

I compared other popular websites with FB including myspace, flickr, Digg and the search Giant Google.com. The rankings came out like this:

1. Google

2. Facebook

3. MySpace

4. Digg

5. Flickr

Notice how Facebook was trailing behind MySpace till late last year but then it kick started its jet pack and simply took off like an airplane to a point that it now has twice the amount of users i.e. it doubled its count in just 5 months ! Moreover, FB s just 30 thousand visitors behind Google and their trend lines are well on their way to converge. That speaks volumes. Never knew that virtual socializing could surpass the universal need to find information.

So, whats’ next ? Will Facebook evenutally monopolize ? Will Twitter catch up ? Will Google throw out a curve ball to unsettle things in the social sphere ? Is there something else out there that will turn the tables around ?

I guess time will tell.

in an offshoot called TweetCrunch . In any case, the viral commotion surrounding Twitter has prompted me to

This post comes after observing how my favorite weblog, TechCrunch, has been lately hijacked by ‘Twitter-related’ posts.

In fact, I performed a search to find how many times the word ‘Tweet’ was used on the TechCrunch landing page and it came out to be 28! I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to see if they decide to cover Twitter separately altogether in an offshoot called TweetCrunch . In any case, the viral commotion surrounding Twitter has prompted me to finally shed my indifference towards it and give it a go.

Twitter Mania has gripped the world

So, yes, I’ve started…twittering. And since I’m not used to it yet, I’m forced to fabricate contrived messages currently. I guess i’m so used to writing verbose blogs that typing just 140 characters sort of puts a cap on my bubbling expression engine.

Twitter, to me, is simply the Facebook share panel along with a whole dictionary of ‘Tweet’ish terms and other bells and whistles. In fact, another instance of the Twitter essence can be experienced at cricinfo’s live ball-by-ball coverage where you get frequent status updates on what’s happening in the game. But even though the concept may not be outright novel, the Twitter folks have certainly nailed it.  Its easy to understand why its causing a craze across the planet- its quick, to-the-point and effective. You don’t need to invest the time to read/write blog posts and at the same time you can be more expressive than you can ever be with status/mood msgs on IM apps. What matters is it works. Although the fad still hasn’t fully blazed across Pakistan as yet, but as Younis Khan said ’we’re slow starters’. Its only a matter of time before the Twitter infection spreads like wild fire in the Land of the Pure as well.

Anyways, I don’t intend to ramble on and do a full review on Twitter because its already been done and overdone. Inspired from the multitude of spin off applications that Twitter has been able to generate, I, too wish to catch a short ride on the bandwagon by offering my own ideas. But coming up with a unique twitter variation and naming it is HARD. After a prolific Googling session, it almost seems that every possible combination with the word ‘Twitter’, ‘Tweet’ and ‘Twit’ has been used up which makes me think that I might be putting down ideas here already out ‘there’. If you think so, please do leave a comment with info on where I could find the apps. And also feel free to add to the Twitter wishlist:

List of what I’d like to see:

1. Tweeviewz

Classified websites like e-Bay could have an option on the detail page of a product to tune into a Twitter stream related to the product and allow users to see what people are saying in relation to it. I’ve always felt that comments and reviews that are submitted to web sites usually have some bias attached to it. However, you’re bound to get more accurate views in a natural setting like Twitter.

2. TweetStory

This is a concept inspired from Ficly. It basically revolves around the idea of collaborative story making where writers can tweet one line of a story at a time and a controller bot stiches the pieces together for spectators to read and enjoy in real time.

3. TweetDumps/TweekNotes

Surveys are just one way of getting feedback about a particular product that your firm has released. To do more effective post-mortems of campaigns and to get ideas for improving your product line, I believe analyzing a huge collection of Tweets with your Product name can give you some cool ideas. Of course, with the sheer volume of tweets, a lot of sifting and filtering will have to be performed.

4. Twickr

Since there a lot of pictures uploaded surrounding a particular topic, it would be nice to have an app aggregate and tag pictures from public streams, for others to tap into and use as an alternative to Google Images.

5. SCRUMTweets

As a developer, I know that project managers are always hungry for little status updates on what the devs are upto, what kind of exceptions QAs are getting, when & what files are committed to the SVN etc. So if there was a way to integrate your dev environment with Twitter and have all major actions Tweeted (especially if the PM is remote) he might have a better chance of staying well-informed with how his/her crew are faring.

Let me know what you guys think and feel free to throw me a comment.

I finally took a byte of the Mac World

After years of denying the Mac a chance, I finally ventured a bite of the apple.

At my new job, I was given the choice to opt for a Windows machine or “a Mac”. I decided on the latter. Despite the fact that I was risking productivity because I had no experience with the Mac whatsoever, I, for some odd reason, still wanted to take a walk outside the Windows world for a change. Just a stroll. I had heard so much about OS X and what not from Mac Lovers and even felt immense peer pressure to own a Mac at U Penn where they were so common. So, I guess I decided that it was finally time to see what kind of air these so-called ‘User Experience’ gurus breathe and what makes Apple the king of design.

Needless to say, the shift to the Mac was frustrating at first. The thing that threw me off the most was that the file menu came on the top of the screen and not on the window itself. I also didn’t fancy the fact that the ‘close’, ‘maximize’ and ‘minimize’ buttons were placed on the left of the window and not on the right.  I was forced  to retrain my brain to use the command key to “copy-paste” instead of the Ctrl key and struggled for so long to discover my favorite ‘Show Desktop’ shortcut (its Command + F3 btw).  I was completely disgusted by the fact that my MacBook touchpad didn’t have two buttons.There wasn’t even a  ’Home’ and  ’End’ key which made things tedious. And now, I had an added worry while downloading freeware – does it support the Mac ? Plus don’t get me started on the fact that  the OS didn’t come with its own “Paint” program. I was quite disappointed.

But what I failed to realize was that the Mac had its own personality. I was trying so hard to take the Mac and somehow map it to Windows somehow that I overlooked that this machine actually had its own way of living.  Once I opened my mind then, slowly and steadily, the Mac started opening up to me as well.

For example, installing things was as simple as two clicks and ejecting a dmg file. The process was quick, clean and simple without many rude prompts.  The spotlight feature (Alt + Space) sort of drowned Vista’s search in terms of speed and accuracy. I learned that a Mac user doesn’t need to know where his files are. In fact, he doesn’t need the desktop stuff either. Spotlight will do. I fell in love with the file preview shortcut (hit space while hovering over a file) – made browsing over files much easier. And common operations proved to be much faster too. So, with time, yea…the Mac started to grow on me.

So, should you consider me as a convert ? Not exactly. My brain’s still structured  like a Windows machine and I still find Microsoft’s creation very natural for me. Its like asking a hardcore stick-shift driver to drive an automatic – he can drive it , he might even enjoy it but he won’t feel ‘right at home’. Finding my way through the control panel, playing with network configs, enjoying a universe of software etc. are actions that pull me back to my Windows machine at home.

In any case, I’m loving the experience.  Yes, my first bite of the Apple was bitter-sweet but I’m looking forward to discovering more in the Mac world. And something tells me that I’m in for a ride. Time will tell.

It almost seems as if life is shuffling events in a salad bowl and then throwing it at us with ninja-like deception.

Like only this year a Black Senator makes his way to the American throne to rupture the stereotypes and become the first Black President under the Red, White and Blue.

Then, Pakistan swallows some magic potion to defy all odds to lift the Twenty20 World Cup.

Now, a global music icon who the whole planet knew of abruptly passes away producing such immense shockwaves that it nearly took “the internet” down.

I wonder whats next.

The images were nothing short of stellar.

Shahid Afridi standing with his arms raised high in the middle of Lord’s. Younis Khan lifting the gleaming trophy with pure and pristine joy. Abdul Razzak marching around with the cup held high above his head. Umer Gul being greeted with a stunning roar to collect his medal.

It really is a moment of pride for Pakistan and a rare occassion for the torn nation to smile about something. Having said that,  I still feel a little out of place.

Happiness is the obvious emotion that I share with the millions of other Pakistani cricket-crazy fans. But there is something else, something uncomfortable, thats filling the void as well. For quite a few days, I tried to figure out what was disconcerting about this great win of ours – why isn’t it sinking in with me ? And I think that its because I’m feeling this twisted amalgam of unpreparedness and embarassment along with my happiness.

Why, you may ask ?

First, noone expected the Pak squad to clinch a win when the tournament started. With calculated unpredicatability and a surprise element that would make Copperfield look lame, the Greenshirts  gradually clawed their way out of the throat of death and clinched the prized trophy…and all of a sudden we realize there’s nothing more to wish for. It almost seems too good to be true.

The fact that Pakistan is so used to losing out on multi-nation tournaments  had hardwired reactions of regret and heartbreak inside me, such that other emotions like elation were completely lost when they were being called for. We’re champions now, no doubt, but I feel I have to consciously remind myself of that fact. Its like I want to savor this unparalleled moment without restraint but that ’sweet feeling’ of pride  remains elusive,  for some odd reason. It slips through my hands like an eel. In other words, I was not prepared for a Pakistan win – if that makes any sense.

I’m also embarassed because of what I had reduced my own national team to be during the start. I never gave them a chance. I never stood behind them. I even thought they would lose against the Netherlands. But they managed to land a ferocious slap on my face by stitching a legendary story with twists and turns, eventually leading to a remarkable triumph. And nobody knows how they did it. Their story doesn’t even make any sense. The only good thing is that it doesn’t really have to.

Dominance is the last word to describe their achievements in this World Cup – they struggled and strived for success. One moment they looked like a team playing the wrong sport, the next they were beating the hell out of New Zealand. And I agree with the analysts. I strongly believe that it was Afridi’s magestic catch against NZ that sent energizing shockwaves throughout the team,  magnetizing them towards a common goal powered by an rigid adamancy to win every match from thereon.

Coming back to my uneasiness. Distrust towards the team is a nationwide issue at times too. During this World Cup, there was a disturbing tendency (in cricket forums and debates over the lunch table) to switch to a mode of pessimism, the intensity of which would simply flatline all  rays of hope and faith. After losing the initial warm-up matches and the game against England, the word in the air was prematurely dismissive. Conspiracy theories starting erupting about rifts in the team and political intervention. Abdul Qadir’s blow out didn’t help things either. Everyone thought we’d be seeing the lads back home soon enough and well to be fair, this wasn’t just blind conjecture. Things on the field were pretty much in disarray. In fact, the administration was asking the players when they wanted their flights booked for back home after the disappointing game against Sri Lanka !

The fact the team was underplayed and lacked match practice were reasons thrown out of the window. I asked myself: if I was on the team, how would I feel if the nation I’m playing for is turning me to face the music. It’s only when the team reached the semis that the allegations turned into prayers.

What you have to give to the guys is that despite all the disparaging comments, they rose above the noise and won back hearts of many. The question is are these hearts worth winning over in the first place ? Hearts that oscillate from love to hatred in a heartbeat. Are we even true fans ? Like , look at us now. Everyone is not just expressing their joy but have the nerve to claim to have seen this coming and chanting ‘Boom Boom Afridi’ – the same Afridi that people had written off as junk pile of aggression a few years ago. Where are all our conspiracy theories now ? Where are Younis Khan’s critics now ? Where are those who rated our bowling unit as third class? Why have we changed colors now ?

Everytime the Pakistani team fails, the captain has to muster up the courage to come to the mike and reluctantly say that they tried their best but they apologize for the loss. I think this time we should shelve our ‘know it all’ attitudes and for once tell the guys: “We’re sorry we doubted you”. Let’s now cherish this sweet victory for a long time and PLEASE let’s be very very slow in forgetting it.

Anyways, my 10 pointers after this World Cup:

1. Pakistan’s biggest game plan is that they have no game plan. Caprice is scary enough.

2. Afridi knows how to bat sensibly. He knows how to take singles. So be Afridi. Very Afridi.

3. Umer Gul is a 2-in-1 brand: he’s as aggressive as Akhtar and as nagging as Asif.

4. Saeed Ajmal is our next Saqlain Mushtaq.

5. Younis Khan’s dismissal of Twenty20 cricket as ‘fun’…worked.

6. The ICL took in Abdul Razzaq, gave him a good polish and returned him back to us.

7. Misbah Ul Haq’s heartbreaking shot in the last final against India…just slipped my mind for good.

8. Intikhab Alam seems to be a lucky charm for Pakistan.

9. Now that Younis is retired, we need to put up a classified to recruit another Khan to fill in his boots.

10. Forgetting this WC will be like forgetting my name.

Pakistan Zindabad!