Feb 26, 2011
Posted by arif in General | 0 comments
ha ha ha ha…this guy so cracks me up!
Here we go again, another squirming dictator with dire cramps and julaabs, in Libya this time. If it were not for the bloodshed there, his rantings on TV this morning in a womanly voice would have been comical. You know, I had not heard Ghaddafy speak before and with the press terming him a ‘strongman’ I assumed he would have a deeper, manly tenor. Not so, he sounded almost feminine. Ah, well, perhaps he was just nervous with all the fatakras of gunfire going on around Libya. Nightmares, perhaps, dreaming of life in Saudi Arabia with Ali Zain el Abedeen (maybe Mubaarak and others as well?) as neighbors did not agree with his voice box. Perhaps.
What I do not understand is the US and Europeans posturing on these very interesting and exciting, I must confess, developments in the Maghreb and Middle East in general. BBC and CNN have not a clue, as usual, bringing in dubious ‘experts’ speaking awful English to explain why Ghaddafy would open fire on his own people. Duh! For corrupted power! For exactly the same reason blood was shed in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and numerous countries where dictators felt cramps of julaabs from a populace fed up with tyranny and injustice. There, I am no expert, but have simply explained why Ghaddafy did what he did. In simple, plain, snotty Queen’s English; put me on the tube!
Corrupted power supported and fed by the same governments that now go “Oh, what happened? How terrible! No bloodshed! Democracy must rule (except in Gaza and Iran where people are stupid and elect wrong people as leaders)!” The US and UK supported Mubaarak for decades while he prostituted himself in selling out the Palestinian cause and amassed a disgusting personal fortune of about 70 billion US$ – read carefully now, that is a B for billion. They welcomed him at number 10 and White House with honor, dignity, patted his fat arse with an attaboy and made him even fatter with fine food and wine. In Egypt meanwhile, where I used to frequently travel on business, poverty and crime improved every time I returned. Arbitrary arrests, confinements, torture and murders by Mubaarak’s thugs were overlooked in the name of regional stability suitable for western ‘democracy’.
In Libya, where a brilliant lunatic has been able to cunningly outfox both internal and external foes, was able to lure the EU for lucrative oil / gas deals. For money; easily forgotten were the killing of a lady cop outside the Libyan embassy in London and the downing of Pan Am 103. The very powers that were loathing of the dictator welcomed him to Italy and France; Tony Blair, tongue hanging, with that sinister, peculiar sneer on his face, landed dancing in Tripoli, praising, hugging, kissing Ghaddafy, all bhai – bhai. Why, Silvio Berlusconi even allowed Ghaddafy to set up tent right in the middle of Rome with a harem of females, a passion very much close to Berlusconi‘s heart; they have met each other 13 times in 3 years, so much their love and devotion to each other.
Now, as I see Ghaddafy fortunes crumble around him, making him squirm and as the noose tightens around his crown jewels, I can only pray and hope Libya will be saved the inevitable bloodletting that seems imminent. The saturation of Muslims in Europe that Sarkozy, Berlusconi and company most feared looks like an ever increasing possibility. Not through violent jihadist or mayhem, but exactly as Ghaddafy jokingly predicted to Berlusconi in Rome; by the influx of Maghreb Muslims. Little did Ghaddafy realize it will be his persecution, his suppression and his outstanding cruelty that will prove this prophecy true.
POSTED BY ALIYUSUFALI AT 1:20 AM
Jan 23, 2011
Posted by arif in Personal | 9 comments
This is the Most Flattering Email I’ve received.
2011 is off to a pretty good start. Alhumdulillah.
Wish me Luck!
Dear Arif,
We are looking forward to seeing you at TEDActive and are thrilled to confirm your acceptance to present at our Palm Springs TEDYou Living Desert Stage.
I wanted to communicate a few things to you about your TEDYou session and what to expect prior to your arrival.
Your TEDYou session will be at the Living Desert Stage at the Living Desert Amphitheatre and take place on MONDAY FEBRUARY 28 from 3:30pm – 5:00pm. We have allotted 9 minutes for your talk. You may not exceed the time allotted.
Firstly: There will be no formal rehearsal for this session as most presentations have minimal or no video requirements. If your presentation has onscreen visuals, please indicate this on the attached AV requirement form.
Secondly: There is a mandatory call time of 3:00 pm for all TEDYou speakers on Monday afternoon at the Living Desert Amphitheater. We will give you the order in which you will present on Monday afternoon, and walk you through the running order of the afternoon.
Finally: I have attached an AV requirements form and a speaker release form. Please be sure to indicate if your presentation is Keynote/ Mac or Power Point/PC, or if it includes video. If your presentation has no AV requirements, please still fill out the relevant information on the form. Please complete and return to me by scanned email, no later than Friday January 28, 2011.
I will be your main point of contact for any technical requirements, running order, and show logistics. Nick Weinberg will be in touch with you soon to schedule a time to chat about your presentation with Kelly. If you have any questions regarding your presentation content, please email nick@ted.com.
I look forward to meeting you in Palm Springs. It is going to be an amazing event. We are excited you have chosen to be a part of it.
Katie Schaeffers | Manager, TEDActive
TED Conferences LLC
#206 – 930 West 1st Street
North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V7P 3N4
T. 778 340 8872 ext. 124 F. 778 340 8873
Jan 6, 2011
Posted by arif in GTD and Productivity, Reviews | 0 comments
For years I have been searching for an elegant solution to sync my task list between my blackberry and Mac. But nothing would cut it. There are so many clumsy attempts out there that at one point I’d thought to have the blackberry and Mac synced is an impossible riddle to crack . A real pity because the market for blackberry and Mac users out there is huge. Finally now there is the awesome app, that not only ensures that my tasks are synced between my Mac and Blackberry, but even on my iPad, infact I can access my tasks anywhere as long as I’m connected to the web.
Why Blackberry and not an iPhone
Simply because nothing tops the speed that one can get on typing on the blackberry. The iPhone keyboard sucks. Well for me it does. For the life of me I can’t type on it. Certainly not with the speed and accuracy I can on the blackberry keyboard. So it when it comes to sending SMSes, typing quick emails, jotting down tasks, with speed and accuracy, the iPhone is yet to conquer the Blackberry in my book.
First the problems with the existing setups possible:
1. The default setup: Syncing the native tasks application on Blackberry with Microsoft Outlook.
This is the second-best option that I had been running till date. I have blackberry server installed at my office. Thereby ensuring that wirelessly all my Tasks, Calendar items, Notes are wirelessly synced to my desktop. They sync is tight. Rarely or no errors. And fast. However the problems are as follows:
- Microsoft Outlook is clunky, heavy software. Operating Microsoft Outlook is like manoeuvring a truck on a crowded street.
- Microsoft Outlook has to run on Windows, which has to run on Parallel Desktop. So I’m constantly running two operating systems. That takes a lot of resources, RAM, speed and battery power out from my Macbook.
- When I’m away from the office and want to process the tasks on the go, my Outlook cannot connect to the Blackberry Server without VPN. And VPN isn’t also reliable. Sometimes it connects well, othertimes it doesn’t.
- The native Task App in the blackberry although great has limitations. The most irritating one is that I can’t see all tasks that are Overdue on a single page. I have the habit of marking tasks to be due on a certain date. But life happens that I can’t attend to the task on that date. And I’d like to see all tasks that are Overdue together. The tasks app in blackberry doesn’t show that.
2. Sync the Native Tasks Application with Remember the Milk.
- Remember the Milk is one of the most popular online tasks applications out there. And for good reason too. It is indeed an elegant solution to managing your to-dos. Clean interface. Reliable. Very fast. Online hence accessible from virtually anywhere. Anywhere except your blackberry. There is an app to sync the Blackberry Tasks with Remember the Milk. It’s Great, when it works. Which it rarely does. Each time I try to sync I get error message after error message.
3. Other attempts that have crashed.
The other applications that I’ve used to sync my Blackberry tasks with my Mac or any online app are:
- ToDo Matrix. This may work. However I’ve briefly tried this, and for reasons I can’t remember I couldn’t continue using it.
- Blackberry’s official sync software for the Mac. This is the worst of them all. Don’t even think about it.
The Solution: Behold Upvise. Enter the Pearly Gates of Task Management Heaven.
Literally after years of searching I found one stray reference of Upvise in some forum post somewhere. The homepage didn’t look promising (it’s better now), but I gave it a shot anyway and installed the Blackberry app.
Why Upvise Rocks:
1. They Sync is really Tight. Upvise doesn’t try to sync the native Tasks app of Blackberry. That’s where the other developers were going wrong. Instead it installs an app of it’s on in Blackberry, which automatically syncs really well with the web-app.
2. It’s Fast! Not as fast with the native app. Yet I have been using it for a couple of months now and a picky Power User like me is satisfied with it.
3. The developers seem committed. They are constantly upgrading the blackberry app and web app with new features, without making it heavy.
4. Awesome Customer Service. Whenever I have a problem with Blackberry Tasks or Microsoft Outlook sync. Who can I call? Nobody. But with upvise, I shoot them a mail and mostly receive a reply within 24 hours.
5. They’ve got a super-duper iPad App. I no longer have to squint in my blackberry to process my tasks. I can do it from my ipad and in style.
My Upvise wishlist:
As great as Upvise is, here are a couple of things that I wish they’d implement to make it better:
1. Shortucts. The webapp doesn’t have shortucuts to create new tasks, mark them complete etc. Their customer support says that they should be upgrading it with shortcuts in a weeks time.
2. Option to select multiple tasks to process them. This is a killer feature of Remember the Milk. Meaning I can selelct multiple tasks and then either mark them complete, postpone them etc. Hope Upvise implements this soon too.
3. Option to modify the default due date. When creating a new task, the system automatically sets the default due date to the next day. I’d prefer the option to modify that.
4. When creating a new task, a quick box drops down. I’d like the option to select the task list in that drop box. Right now I have to go to the main task edit screen to do that.
Overall I’m very satisfied with Upvise. The free version of Upvise you get some free apps. The tasks app cost $50 per annum. Well worth the price. I would strongly recommend it. Hope more Blackberry and Mac users read this post and give Upvise a try.
Jan 5, 2011
Posted by arif in GTD and Productivity, Reviews | 3 comments
It’s the best Rs.48,000 I have spent. The iPad. What an amazing invention. Telecommunication, the computer and the internet finally come to a full circle in this outstanding device.
I had been debating for months whether to shell-out almost half-a-lakh for this screen. Afterall it was just a big iPod Touch and I just couldn’t use that because of it’s damn keyboard. However I kept observing myself away from my laptop for longer parts of the day and yet felt the need to either check something on the web, clear a couple of my emails and misc tasks such as those. Tasks that my Blackberry couldn’t yet cut it. Thanks to motivation two friends (Rahul and Saira, thanks guys :-), I said what the hell and ordered it off from ebay. And boy, has it worked out for me.
What do I use my iPad for:
1. News and Wikipeida
The iPad wouldn’t be such a great device, if it weren’t for 3G. Thanks to 3G being out in India, I am now online, all the time. A rarely have the time or motivation to read the traditional newspaper. Furthermore when I am at my desk, a plethora of tasks and interruptions jump out at me, that I can’t check out the Top Stories of the day. Thanks to the iPad the little pockets of time I get before, after or even during meetings, I can scan headlines of the BBC and Times of India website and I am done with my critical News reading.
I am a huge Wikipedia fan. I often check out wikipedia articles several times a day. Whenever I come across a term, word, an event, that I want to know more about when reading a book, in the middle of a conversation, while hearing a podcast, even while watching TV, I snap out my ipad and do a lightening wikipedia search and bam I get to know, what I want to know in a matter of minutes. At times it so fast that I’ve even used it from my car in between traffic signals!
2. Processing my Email
Today, the Blackberry is not enough to process one’s email. These days my emails comes with loads of recommendations to visit certain sites or watch Youtube videos. I can’t do those on my blackberry alone. But I can do that on my iPad and in style.
3. Processing my Tasks/To-dos (GTD Style)
Thanks to Upvise, the best web-app I’ve found for managing tasks, I now often use my iPad to process my To-Do lists. More about Upvise in an upcoming post.
4. YouTube!
Need I say more. I can watch YouTube videos anywhere and everywhere. I now use it to keep my daughter entertained, or just myself entertained. Whenever I am on my Mac and come across a YouTube video I need to watch, I file it under a ToWatch playlist. Then when I’m away from my Mac, but have the time and access to my iPad, I open that playlist and watch that same video then and there.
5. Reading
The iPad is an amazing reading device. I often would choose to read books on my iPad than a physical book. You’ve got to try it to believe it. I can highlight passages, see what passages others have highlighted, search across the book in seconds, the dictionary is just a tap away and best of all I’m always carrying an entire library with me.
Other than books, it’s fantastic for reading RSS Feeds too. Just yesterday Ali discovered Flipboard. A brilliant app for reading one’s Rss Feeds from Google Reader.
6. Other stuff
I am not much of a gamer, but there is a game or two that I really enjoying dabbling in. A couple of days ago I found that the ipad has a prayer compass as well, very useful for me as I’ve often need to know the Qibla (prayer) direction when travelling. Furthermore, I also realised I don’t need to carry my Quran with my at my Weekly Quran Class, just the iPad would do. The uses of the iPad just keep growing.
Conclusion:
The iPad or any tablet is a device, that you buy presupposing certain uses for it. But then you start discovering new ways to use it. You begin to ask yourself, “hmm I wonder if it will do this too”. For those of you considering the Samsung Galaxy, I’ve tried that and have found that to be acceptably good too. If you’re set your heart upon the iPad and since it’s not released in India, you can pickup your iPad from Ebay (thank you Rahul for this tip). Make sure you pick the official apple carry case with the iPad, because without it, it’s not practical to carry it around.
If you do decide to buy an iPad, do let me know. If you already have an ipad and have an app to recommend do post it in the comment below.
