Sep 1, 2010 Posted by arif in Reviews | 1 comment

What’s the Right Thing to do? I’m Confused.

I had once blogged that to live a life of no-regret and to maintain a sparkling conscience, you need to follow just two steps.

1. Always do the Right thing.
2. Give your best at it.

But what is the Right thing to do? Is majority always right? Does one always follow the principle of the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number? If so, then you are justified in killing one person to take his organs to save five others who need them. If that doesn’t make moral-intutional sense because you feel individuals have rights that are greater than the majority, then you have no right to support a ban on Alcohol, Smoking or Prostitution, if certain individuals want to indulge in the same, while the majority don’t.

I’ve asked these questions to myself several times, I’ve read philosophical books on these and have even attended classes on the same.  I have finally come across the best explanation in this fabulous series of lectures by Harvard Professor Michael Sandel on What’s the Right Thing To Do.  The first few were simply riveting and am eagerly looking forward to completing the series. I am on Lecture 4, Titled: Consenting Adults. Watch or Hear the first lecture here and if you’ve ever thought about the above questions, I guarantee you’ll be hooked. Professor Michael’s practical examples of what’s the right thing make this so engaging and relevant, I wish I had learnt this stuff back in school.

Oh by the way, I bumped into this lecture, because I am subscribed to the Learn Out Loud Free Resource of the Day Email. I LOVE this Email Service. I get access to incredible wealth of Audio and Video material without searching for it. I highly recommend subscribing to it.

May 8, 2010 Posted by arif in Reviews | 0 comments

Dump Google, Adopt Aardvark

There’s a new search engine in town. It’s Called Aardvark. It trumps over Google for the following reasons:

- You may just post your question and forget about it.
- In a short while, your answer will be sent to you, instead of you peering through pages of search results for it.
- The answers are highly personalised for you.

The way Ardvark has been executed, is just beautiful. Once you register at Aardvark, simply post your question there and shortly you’ll have answers emailed to you. How it works is that it emails that question to other registered members whose interests correlate with the subject of your question. Ofcourse there’s a catch, you would be emailed questions on subjects that you have mentioned are your areas of interest. But it’s so worth it. When you start receiving great answers, you want to and feel like reciprocating and responding to others who have queries on stuff that you are good at and know the answers to.

So next time you want to search for best flight options to a place or the best deal on any product or any other search query, dump Google and give Aardvark a shot.

Here are some questions that I’ve asked and the correspondingly great answers that I’ve received.

By the way, Google has bought Aardvark.

May 6, 2010 Posted by arif in Reviews | 1 comment

Arif Vakil’s MBA Course in 3 short lines

I’ve been reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, here’s one of the several quotes that have resonated with me.

In the entrepreneur classes I teach, I constantly remind people to not focus on their product, service or widget, but to focus on developing management skills. The three most important management skills necessary to start your own business are :
1. Management of cash flow.
2. Management of people.
3. Management of personal time.

I would say, the skills to manage these three apply to anything, not just entrepreneurs. The three matter in the way you live your life as individual, or part of a family, a business, a charitable organisation.

He’s hit the nail smack on the head with that. Look around at the entrepreneurs you know. When I do, I notice that the successful ones have cracked all three of the skills listed above. And the ones who’ve not got it made yet are lacking in one or more of those skills.

Feb 25, 2010 Posted by Mohammed Ali in Reviews | 3 comments

6 Features of Manga Studio EX that make it better than Photoshop for Creating Comics

When I started drawing comics the workflow that I followed was:

* Sketching & Inking the images on paper
* Scanning the images
* Drawing Layout and lettering in Photoshop

After studying the advances made in the technology of Digital art (such as Wacom Tablets), I realized how much time is saved by drawing the comics digitally. One of the important points to consider when going digital is the software to use to draw the comics. Though photoshop/illustrator is the most common software, in this post I’d like highlight the features that make Manga Studio EX 4 a better software for creating Comics:

1. Comic Balloons

Comics are a silent art (unlike movies). Balloons are important elements to express variation in what the character is saying. Manga Studio comes with a rich library of Vector balloons that can be easily resized & edited. Each Balloon contains a text, and balloon tails can be extended from it, this makes editing very easy.

2. Perspective Ruler

This feature along is good enough to use Manga Studio for comics. At times drawing backgrounds can be a pain, especially if there’s a complex 2/3 point perspective involved. The perspective ruler makes it a breeze. 1,2,3 point perspective rulers are available that makes it easy for you to draw perspective lines for your backgrounds. With the ruler in place, as you draw on the screen, it automatically snaps your drawing to the auxiliarylines.

3. Tones

Tones in a comic help to set the mood of the story. Black and White tones are especially an important element in Manga Comics. Manga Studio comes with a large library of Tones, which can easily be added to any panel by simply dragging and dropping it in.

4. Organize Comic in Pages (Story Management)

Each Manga Studio Story file can contain several comic pages. This makes it very easy to oraganize your story and files on the hard disk.

5. Creating Panels

This is another great feature. Not only is there a library of ready panels to use. it’s easy to create your own custom panels by varying the size & thickness of the panel borders.

6. Importing 3D Materials

Manga Studio allows a user to import and rotate 3D files. This can work as a great great hack for creating backgrounds! One way is to create a background using Google Sketchup, and import the file as a 3D material. Then you can either use this background or trace over it to whatever level of detail it suits you.

Want to get the best of both worlds? (Manga Studio + Photoshop)

Use the Export feature

Though Manga Studio is better than Photoshop for drawing comics in many ways, one aspect where it falls short is when it comes to coloring. So if you want to draw your comics in Manga Studio and color them in Photoshop, Manga Studio allows you to export your black and white comic page in PSD format maintaing all layers including text!

Ever since I’ve started using Manga Studio I’ve not looked back.   If you’re a comic artist, I recommend you give it a try. A Trial version can be downloaded here for free.

Nov 26, 2009 Posted by arif in General, Reviews | 1 comment

In Praise of Slowness

I’m currently hearing this great podcast by Carl Honore on his book, In Praise of Slowness. He attacks our addiction that we have for speed and doing everything so swiftly, that even instant-gratification feels too slow. He addresses two key questions, How did we get here and what is it that we can do to slow down. Slow down not in the sense of replacing the Cult of Speed with the Cult of Slow, but more in the Cult of living life more fully and wholly. You can download the audio of the podcast here.