Oct 8, 2007
Posted by Mohammed Ali in Reviews | 5 comments
Has the Internet changed how you read the news? It certainly has changed for me, and saving me lots of time. I remember the pre-internet days when I had to wait for dinner time to watch the news, or wait for next morning, to read the headlines. The internet of course changed all that. These days all the small and big news & content providers have an online presence that provide the news that is up to date. From CNN and BBC to The Hindu and Times of India.
So how can Netvibes.com save you several hours a week? Well, instead of sitting infront of the Idiot box during dinner time waiting for the news to show up, or spending hours visiting all the websites to track the news. You can use Netvibes.com to brings the latest news from the sources you select, neatly arranged in a nice package, waiting to be read.
Below are some steps I’ll show you on how to setup your page at Netvibes, and add your favorite news source to track, with some cool tips & tricks to manage them.
1. Visit Netvibes.com and setup your account
Setting up your account is as easy as clicking on the ‘Register Now’ link and then entering your email and password.
2. Add your news sources to your netvibes page
Now comes the main part! At this point you have to select the content that you want to display on your netvibes page. To start with you will find lots of useful widgets already present on your page, but other that this you’ll also have the option to add custom news feeds to your page.
For example if you would like NDTV headlines to appear on your Netvibes page, visit www.ndtv.com and lookout for the RSS link. You can find it on top of the page:
Click on that will give you the option to select the news feed you would like to insert on your Netvibes page:
Since I’m interested in ’National News’ I copied that link, and added it to my netvibes page by clicking ‘add a feed’ and pasting the NDTV feed URL:
Once you’re done click on the finish button. You’ll now have NDTV coming to you instead of you going to NDTV :-) Neat!
3. Create Tabs
Soon you’ll find that you’ve got lots of news & blogs that you’d like to track. Netvibes’ Tab feature allows you to organize your feeds Tab-wise. Here’s how I’ve done mine:
4. Add Widgets
You would have realised by now that besides displaying news, you can add some pretty cool widgets ranging from Email to Calendars, tasks & Notes.
5. Access from Mobile
Ok, last but not the least, you can access your netvibes page from your Mobile phone! This is a really time saving feature. I no longer have to be on my PC to read the news, I can read them when I’m on the go from my Blackberry. So if you own a GPRS enabled mobile phone, then visit http://m.netvibes.com and login to your account, to read the news you want!
Oct 8, 2007
Posted by arif in Personal | 6 comments
Dad was rummaging through his old briefcases and guess what we came across? A treasure trove of memories. The oldest photographs in the history of Vakil Family. I saw pictures of my mothers School Farewell party. A really young looking picture of my grandfather attending some lecture. A kiddy picture of my Mom holding my baby aunt. I saw pictures of dad before he was married, even a picture of mum when I was in her belly.
How time flies and flies and flies. How slim dad looked, how much more handsome my uncle looked and oh how similar mum’s farewell picture looked to mine . The only difference was that her pics were in black & white but it still contained teenagers with aspiring looks yet without a care in the world. I would love to share those pics here but most of them are quite personal. But if there’s any lesson I learnt from old pictures it is that you should…
Cherish your family. Give them priority over everything else. Really they’re all that matters. You may not get your dream job, you may not get that brilliant idea of your in production, but by God, you still have your family. They’re yours. All yours. Hold, hug and squeeze them. Life is just way too short to crib or complain about anything. Just don’t forget that.
These may seem just words to you but if you’ve got old pictures in the attic go ahead, dig them out tonight. Don’t delay, And then right after dinner sit together with as many family members as you can including extended family. Peer over those. One by one. Tell me if you don’t feel the same way.
Oct 2, 2007
Posted by arif in Spirituality | 18 comments
Afterall what is it that God wants, (Sheik Arif asks)? Does He want us to bow down and prostrate even more? Offer more prayers? Go to even more pilgrimages? Well if that’s what He wanted then he could have created a thousand more Gabriels who would continually offer such worship. Who would continouly sing His praises more loudly and deeply than we ever can. Why settle for the measely bird-pecking worship that we offer?
If there’s anything that God wants from us, it’s change. It’s to constantly become better and grow from within. Growth physically, mentally and spiritually. One method to attain such growth is to strive for a betterment in the quality of our worship.
Concentration in Prayer is important. Why, because it’s the one single indicator of your taqwa/piety levels. Want to know how’s your relationship with God? your level of faith? Ask yourself how much is your focus during namaaz. Afterall what does God want? It’s not more prayers, but better prayers. Not for Him, but for us.
Here are 15 tips that can help you achieve greater concentration in prayers:
1. Watch your thoughts not just during prayers but the whole day: Thoughts lead to actions. The No.1 method to improve concentration in prayers, is by improving our state of God consciousness throughout the day. Ask/Tell yourself:
- How will this activity of mine pleasing God?
- Aren’t I so fortunate to have men who obey me?
- I enjoy a pleasant life, I am privileged and honoured, and I am safe from many calamities and misfortunes.
- Sure I may have this problem at work, but that’s because I have work.
It’s because we think of God very little during the day and are more preoccupied with of worldly affairs, it’s those thoughts that still distract us when standing on the prayer mat. The mind rarely is in ‘the Now’ and is mostly in the past or future. Once you have been practicing to remain God Conscious throughout the day:
- you’ll get better at changing your focus back to prayers because you’ve been practicing it all day, every day
- even after losing your focus it’s more likely that you’ll have God in your thoughts, because that’s Whom you’ve been thinking about all day.
2. Recollect your Hajj trip: If you have been to Hajj or Umra, recall the awe when you saw the Ka’ba for the first time. How you couldn’t stop the tears rolling down your face. The peace and serenity you experienced then. When doing Sajdah bring the same deep emotions through you when doing the first Sajdah inside Masjidul Harram.
3. A Hadith: “Realise that whatever it is that your thoughts are diverted to, the One whom you are praying to has more control on it’s outcome than you do.” ~ Paraphrase of a Hadith I read, apologies for the lack of reference.
4. Wudhu: If you want to increase your focus in prayer, increase your focus during Wudhu. Download this pdf of duas to be recited when doing wudhoo. Have it laminated and with double sided scotch tape stick it over the sink where you do your wudhoo. Because it’ll always be in front of you, it will be that much easier to recite it regularly.
5. The Call to Prayer: A simple method to increase concentration immediately in your very next namaaz is just to, recite Azaan and Iqamah before beginnig prayers. Even if you are alone. Especially if you are alone. Try it. It really works.
Prophet Mohammed:
O’ Abu Dhar! Be like him, who in a deserted place (though alone),
calls Adhan and Iqamah (Call for Prayer) and says his Prayer. So your
Lord says to the angels, ‘Look at My servant! He is praying and no one
sees him but Me? Then descend 70,000 Angels and pray behind him Then descend 70,000 Angels and pray behind him and seek forgiveness for him until the next day.
~ Concentration in Prayer by Jameel Kermali
6. Know before you speak: You can focus in your prayer only if you are 100% clear on the meaning of the Surahs and the zikrs that are being recited. The best investment you can give to your spiritual life is to read the translation what’s recited and be clear on each and every zikr in namaaz. Sometimes we have an idea on what the meaning of the zikr is but don’t know it precisely. It helps to have the extra bit of clarity on the meaning and know exactly what it is we are reciting.
7. Think about it: Once you know the meaning of what’s being recited, take a pause, go through the zikr in your head. Reflect upon it. Then recite it.
8. Reciting these two verses before you begin prayer:
6:79 Surely I have turned myself, being upright, wholly to Him Who originated the heavens and the earth, and I am not of the polytheists.
6:162 Say. Surely my prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are (all) for Allah, the Lord of the worlds;
9. Qunoot: It’s said that, “reciting a longer qunoot is preferable than reciting a longer zikr because it’s during qunoot one experiences greater closeness to his Lord.” (once again I’m paraphrasing and apologies for no reference). Here’s a link to all the duas in Quran that can be recited in Qunoot. Recite a different dua than the one you are used to reciting.
10. Recite different surahs. If it’s Surah Ahad that you recite regularly. There are other Surahs that we’ve memorised but never recite in namaaz. For eg. majority of muslims have memorised the Four Surahs that begin with Qul. Recite those and reflect on it’s meanings.
11. Pray when it’s time. First things first. When we give God priority, He gives us His priority. Look forward to the time when it’s prayer and then drop whatever you are doing to go and pray. Make this especially true for yourself if you’re traveling. (By the way, Click here to see a wonderful Nasheed by Dawud Wharnsby titled, “All the earth is a place of worship.”)
12. Apply perfume: Purchase a small scented bottle and keep it right next to your prayer mat. Apply it on yourself before begining prayer. If possible a designated pair of clothes. It’s a way of telling God that you giving importance to your appearance hence to your prayer.
13. Location, location, location: When not traveling have a designated place to pray. Keep the place clean and clear of mirrors, pictures, anything that may cause distraction.
14. Keeping the light in the room low. It’s a different feeling altogether.
15. Practice. You’ll get there.
This post is a summary of key learnings from the book Concentration in Prayer and the lecture (part1 & part2) by Dr. Murtaza Alidina on Understanding Namaaz.
Other resources on Prayer and to help in it’s concentration:
Adabus Salaat – The Disciplines of Prayer – A Book by Imam Khomeini
Lecture by Brother Faahim Rashid – On the Importance of Prayer
Salaat for Beginners – A Guide for beginners on how to perform wudhoo and pray
Sep 28, 2007
Posted by arif in GTD and Productivity | 4 comments
What a book. It’s motivating, sparks a great number of ideas and it’s worth a buy simply for the list of resource of websites, books and companies that it has. Warning this Blog Post has spoilers of what the book has ahead, but it’s still a damn good read (the book I mean).
The book is divided into four sections, with the help of the acronym DEAL:
Definition:
The cover of the book states, “Escape 9-5, Live anywhere, and Join the New Rich”. Who are the New Rich? The New Rich, don’t only take money to be their currency, but two other essential ingredients that are necessary to be actually living the life of the wealthy, rather than merely collecting for it. i.e. Time and mobility. Without which you may have all the money you will ever need, but if you’re unable to create that time/mobility for yourself, that money may as well be in a chest buried in the jungles of Congo.
In this section, Tim goes in depth and helps you chart out your Dreamline, TMI (Target Monthly Income) and your Worth per Hour. All tools that help you join the leagues of the New Rich.
Elimination:
Now comes the challenge, how do you free up your time? Just like exercising regularly, You’ve heard it before, you know it’s good for you, do you do it? It’s the Pareto principle (commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule) and Parkinson’s Law (you know that the more time you have to do a task that much longer it will take). Tim explains with personal examples how he’s personally implemented these. Honestly speaking, these insights were not so great to make permanent habit changes, but am working at it.
Automation:
Here’s the meat. Go ahead, sink your teeth in and savour every last juicy drop. Is it really possible to automate income so much that one would need to put only 4 hours in a week? You can bet your last paycheck that it is. How do you do it? I’m not sure if I’d be giving too much away in posting this, but in summary he provides a methodology that by using the combined power of outsourcing, the internet and the intellectual knowledge that you already have, to design products that can you give steady & regular streams of income. The detail and examples for which Tim goes into is exemplary.
Liberation:
After having Eliminated unnecessary time-gobbling activities and Automating income so that you don’t have to work all day, what do you do for the remaining 6.9 days of the week, every week, for the rest of your life? How about taking a 3 month Mini-Retirement to Thailand? Or take a class in ltaly how to make chocolate truffles? I know you can’t because you’ve got responsibilities, you’ve got kids and it’s just way too expensive. Taking long vacations is not a personal goal of mine, but if it’s yours, here Tim gives loads of websites resources that can help you make that journey and also case-studies of people who have liberated themselves to achieve mobility while attending to their responsibilities.
In conclusion, sure I admit to achieve a 4-Hour work week, may be a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe some of the ideas may not be immediately implementable. But as Tim puts it even if you can reduce your working time to 5 days a week or even 4 days a week, that would still add up to years to your life to pursue that one excitement that you always wanted to do but never had the time.
To get more of a flavour of the 4 Hour Work Week without buying the book, download an hour long presentation delivered by Tim by clicking here or what’s even better is this You Tube video of another talk he gave at Google. Well, that’s about it. Once you’ve successfully implemented the 4 Hour Work Week, I’ll see you at the Bahamahs :-) .
Sep 19, 2007
Posted by arif in General | 1 comment
I saw it myself, I swear. It was right there next to the sting ray. And it’s retailing at Rs. 100/Kg at Metro.
I don’t know about you, but this picure makes me sad.
Sep 16, 2007
Posted by arif in General | 2 comments
Do you feel a novelist in you scraping to come out? Want to start a blog but don’t think you’re writing is good enough? Are you going through the draft of your email again and again before hitting Send? Always dreamt of starting a Journal, but still haven’t?
Here are 6 little ammunition packs, in which I have found inspiration, motivation, guidance, tips & tricks that has got me banging away on my keyboard like never before:
1. Copyblogger.com
This is one terrific blog. Why?
- It’s vast. Covers a wide range of writing topics be it making headlines, opening statements or creative writing or how to find writing time.
- The blog is updated regularly. There’s a new resource to look forward to everyday.
- The posts are so simplified, it’s a matter just following the steps presented in a, b c, format which make your writing better instantaneously.
Here are a few posts that got me hooked:
- 5 simple ways to open your blog post with a bang.
- How to write Magnetic Headlines
- The David Ogilvy Playbook for Business Blogging
- How to write remarkably creative content
2. Writing Well by William Zinsser
Writing Well, a guide for non-fiction writing, boldly states on it’s cover, “More than one million copies sold”. One doesn’t need to turn too many pages to see why.
Zinsser implies that once you take his four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity to the extreme, you’ll have a piece of writing that will pack a wallop! Key word here is extreme. Hence your writing has to be extremely clear, extremely simple, extremely brief while being human. Truly, if your writing is so easy to understand and it just cannot be made more clear, cannot be made more simple, having no verbiage and using words that bring amount a warm fuzzy human touch, you will certainly have a knockout article every time.
This philosophy is explained nicely, in depth, with many examples of good as well as poor writing throughout the book. And similar to Copyblogger, the ideas are presented so simply that not only is it quick and easy to implement, but they provide instant gratification too when you experience your writing improve immediately.
3. Bird by Bird, Anne Lamont
This is a lovely read. With unrestrained wit Anne journeys through her life; what made her a novelist and what does it take to become a writer. Although a specific guide for fiction writers, the chapters titled, Shitty First Drafts (in her words not mine), Perfectionism, Writer’s Block inspire and motivate greatly to make this a worthy buy for all writers.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Very few writers know what they’re doing until they’ve done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and find themselves bounding along like huskies in the snow. One writer I know tells me that he sits down every morning and tells himself nicely, “It’s not like you don’t have choice, because you do – you can either type or kill yourself.” We all feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose end up most natural and fluid.” ☺
4. Gotham Writers Workshop
There’s only so much guidance that a book can give. Sometimes it’s sufficient and other times you need someone to hold your hand gently guide you all the way through. Gotham Writers Workshop offers classes on all types of writing from Poetry, to novel writing, to screen writing for movies. Although these classes are conducted in New York there’s an online version of this class too. What’s also great is that Gotham limits the number of participants to each online class too, hence making it easier for the teacher to focus on individual students.
Just like in regular classes, you will get out from it, how much you put in. I have taken a couple of courses from Gotham Writers Workshop. The material is good, but it’s the discipline training and tough-attitude building what was really valuable. When presented with a deadline, I let go of all excuses, I’m no longer tired, to hell with the muse, I have to finish this piece and somehow scrape the time and do it.
5. A Collins thesaurus
A Thesaurus is a writer’s best friend. I’ve tried Rogets, Oxfords, Mac OS X’s inbuilt Thesaurus and the online www.thesaurus.com too. None of them have the depth and breadth that Collins does. It has come to my rescue many a times to help me say just the thing I wanted to, when other Thesaurus’s have failed me.
6. Scrivener
Despite of having all the wonderful resources above, I don’t think I’d be writing regularly if it weren’t for this magical writing software. Sadly only available for the Macintosh. It’s as if the through the keyboard this software connects to your writing soul and knows just the feature that you would want. Merlin Mann from 43 folders has done a terrific review of it. Here are the key features that have me in love with this software:
- It’s so much easier to keep my writing organised:
Unlike traditional word processing softwares, like MS Word (yeech!), A single file is not a single word document, which you have to keep organised within folders. Each Scrivener document is a project, within which you can have multiple folders and again within which multiple documents. Therefore I have opened a Scrivener project called Blog posts and here I’ve created 3 folders 1. Drafts, 2. Posted on Blog, 3. Archive and with which I have created separate documents for each. And now it’s so easy for me to navigate from one document to another. While writing this blog post, suppose if I feel the need to see something I wrote in a earlier draft I just click on to that document in the binder and I’m there.
- There’s a shortcut for everything.
Anything I want to do is only a couple of keystrokes away. If I want to move to another document in the same binder, I don’t really need to use the mouse to do it. I hit Crtl+Option+Cmd+B to go to the binder. Use the arrow key to move to the document and ta da, I’m there! And it’s not just moving between documents, there’s truly a shortcut for almost everything as you can see from the screenshot below. If you really spend as much time on the keyboard as I do, that’s a huge time saving. And for what’s there’s no shortcut there’s Quicksilver Menu command.
- The full screen option has to be tried to be savoured. This one option, really make you feel like wanting to write. It just screams, “Nobody bother me, can’t you see I’m writing!”
There’s the corkboard view, outline view, snapshot feature, it goes on and on, like I said…it’s just magical.
Well, that’s about it. In conclusion, here’s the single one post that has had the greatest impact from Copyblogger on my writing.
Sep 12, 2007
Posted by arif in Personal | 2 comments
It started with a newsletter that I fondly called “Your weekly dose of inspiration.” Which over time metamorphisized into the Vakil Housing Blog. And now say hello to the Arif & Ali Blog. Why this change? You see, whenever we would want to post on the Vakil Housing blog, it would rarely be on Vakil Housing itself. So one lazy Sunday, our fingers were getting itchy and what started as a chat over breakfast on “what would be the best way to stay in touch with friends” led to the total redecoration of our Blog, complete with the change of the name too. Well, what do you think? You like?
Besides staying in touch there’s a tremendous amount of terrific material out there that me and Ali come across and look forward to share. Hence this blog became the perfect platform to do that. So, once a month, we shall dutifully ensure that all subscribed to our blog, shall receive the best of our posts packaged in nice little email with a pretty pink ribbon tied around it. :-)
Update on our life since my last newsletter: Generally we have been busy with work; God and life have been very kind to us. As most of you know we did go for Hajj last year but haven’t done any traveling since then and nothing really that new to report. We’d love to hear from you though, it’s been ages since we’ve even said hello. Please do drop a line or an email.
Take care, warm wishes and keep smiling,
Arif & Ali
Sep 11, 2007
Posted by arif in Reviews | 3 comments
You’ve got to hear it to believe it. I might say that it’s the best audio entertainment I have heard. Listen to the enchanting stories of Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde and others in The Classic Tales Podcast. Although some fables have been written over a hundred years ago they still carry hard-hitting lessons and be not surprised if you see yourself in some of these stories.
The production quality is excellent. The voices that B J Harrison performs with is life-like. Be it a fair Italian damsel or a Scottish middle-aged gentleman or a bratty American kid, BJ carries these performances with impeccable class.
I’ve heard quite a few tales from the podcast, my favourites have been: The Tell Tale Heart, The Mortal Immortal and Ransom of Red Chief. I secretly hope that B J soon performs The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde.
Ps. If you feel you’ll enjoy this, Have a look at other podcasts that I recommend too.
