Faisal Asif's Blog

The Dictionary of Human Emotions

2012-01-23T01:02:00.000+03:00

There are little things in life which really meant a lot to either one of us, humans. Miscommunication leads to many unacceptable consequences, whether it's between two people or two different parties. As per my experiences with different kinds of people through out all these years I lived, their communication medium is an important aspect. Language is a barrier if one party understands the standard communicated language very well and the opposing party lacks excellence in the same language. If both the ends are strong with the language, then comes the understanding, some people are aggressive towards their thoughts, some people know how to express their feelings and some people does not, some are more sensitive than others, some take it seriously when it's not to be a serious statement, thus it's very important to understand the next person. If you want to know someone, the first step for you is to initiate discussion on some mutual interest, once you grab their attention or once they grab your attention, definitely it will come along longer than actually expected. We humans, are not very strong, when it comes to respect, emotions, ambitions, needs and wants. And no matter how mature you are this calculation problem of wants and needs is never solved. It's not really important to act the same way as one person is acting with you, if you know them, then give them some space, they'll be realizing what went wrong (if they really care), so this is what you can expect/do with people close to you or part of your social circle. There's this other type of community or you can say, personality, which sounds very interesting to you in public but when you try to get close to them to know them more, they will make you feel that you are guilty of even trying that, at the same time they will also call you a stranger and not let you get any closer. To express my thought better, any relationship, needs understanding and proper communication from both ends, there must be some level of understanding which is mutual, 'some level' of understanding, not everything they say and everything you say, one of both has to always compromise on something the other partner likes or dislikes, so my point is, instead of being stubborn and to act as if you don't give a damn about the next person, is a total immature and wrong act. No matter if one is a complete stranger to you, you cannot and should not logically compare that one stranger to your past accidents, if you never met good people in your past, that's your fate and trust me, what goes around come around. The best way to stay neutral in this world is to stay nice to everyone you meet or talk, stranger? No problem, keep your limits but at least give them permission to knock your door, if the person knocked your door at a wrong moment, just tell them that it's not the right time. And no one's fool enough to knock your door without any valid reason. Enough said, I hope you got where all of this is heading.

The deficient in teaching techniques of educational bodies

2011-06-09T22:44:00.002+03:00

There are multiple levels of educational bodies in Riyadh which are either partnered or authorized by international universities and colleges. The educational bodies are blessing for those who are not willing to travel abroad and study, or those who are not eligible financially to do so. In fact, the activities held at university campuses cannot be held or provided by partner colleges in remote locations or partner colleges and institutes in different countries. Let’s focus on undergraduate programs, what happens is that these partner colleges and institutes hire teachers, at first who are not even eligible to teach bachelor level students, secondly they lack solid teaching techniques which a real professor from any university can offer, third, even if a student is nerdy, he/she will not gain much knowledge from the books which are provided or assigned to a specific module. From my personal experience, all the books which are provided in these institutes are either out of date or totally not related to the overall undergraduate program.
First year always passes easily because most of the modules are fundamentals with topics which students are already aware of from previous high school studies; second year becomes hectic due to large modules and very less knowledge on the topics being discussed, those students who can really survive the nervous breakdown are successful in passing the second year and those students who give up, usually leave the whole program saying that they cannot continue as it’s just waste of resources for them. Final year is the real game and main topic of this post, in final year only those students usually study who are really serious to get the program done and get the degree, but by the time they reach final year, things are harder than previous years, teachers might be there but they are not efficient enough for these students and their modules, somehow they cover the material assigned by the university but when it comes to the final year project, 99% of students don’t even know how to complete or even start that particular project which usually resides as 30 to 40% of your overall program grade, at this stage students are in great stress, they try their best to do things at their best but unfortunately no one succeeds this attempt because all these years they did not get that knowledge which is required to execute last year’s project, I’ll give you an example of well-known university here in Riyadh, final year students got a small project of developing a dynamic website and they are not studying software engineering!
Now you did not teach these students any of the web development languages whole 3 years and at the end you hire some guy who is a web developer and he teaches them the basics in 1 month and tell the university that you completed your part now it’s up to the students how they proceed. Holy Lord. Do you think students can really complete or even make that web development project? This is the great deficient in teaching techniques of regional educational bodies since many years, until today this problem is bold and administration is not bothered at all, after all it’s just business for them right? No libraries, no labs, no proper training and you expect good grades, universities keep giving authorization and partnerships to institutes because they also look at the profit part, it seems like everything is revolving only around money these days.

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Life Support System: Who Is Packing Your Parachute?

2011-03-31T02:40:00.000+03:00

Life Support System: Who Is Packing Your Parachute?: "A stone-age hunter tracked a set of paw prints through the grass lands. He eventually came upon the largest and most ferocious looking saber..."

Kingdom Announces New Web Publishing Law

2011-01-04T15:06:00.003+03:00

"Article by FATIMA SIDIYA | ARAB NEWS

Published: Jan 2, 2011 23:25 Updated: Jan 2, 2011 23:25

"JEDDAH: Online newspapers, blogs and forums will now need to register with the Ministry of Information and Culture for licenses to operate, according to new regulations that the ministry announced Saturday it is to introduce.

The new system, which will be introduced in a month’s time, has been discussed by online newspapers and bloggers who say the attempt to regulate online media in the same way that the Kingdom’s print publications are regulated is not workable.

The regulations also specify punishments in case of violations. These include the obligatory publishing of corrections, fines and bans for various time periods, including total bans. Applicants for licenses need to be Saudi, no less than 20 years of age, have high school certificates in the least and documents testifying to their good behavior. Online newspapers also need to employ editors in chief who have been approved by the Ministry of Information and Culture.

Abdul Aziz Khoja, minister of information and culture, said that the system is “in line with the development moves that the media sector is witnessing.” He added that the rules do not include any clauses restricting freedom of speech and that the ministry is eager to ensure there is transparency. He also said that the rules will be made open to improvement in the future.

Turki Al-Rougi, editor in chief of Al-Wiaam Online newspaper, said that the rules are welcome as they specify a particular government department that will be in charge of online media. He, however, added that there is fear that the regulations might be misused to restrict freedom of speech.

Al-Rougi said the Ministry of Information and Culture wants to implement the rules governing the print media on Internet websites and that this is not workable. He added that the drawbacks of the system will be discussed with the ministry at a seminar that is to be held on Monday at the Riyadh Literary Club.

“The fines could be as high as SR100,000 and SR50,000. The owners of websites simply cannot afford them as they are individuals unlike the print publications which are owned by establishments and businessmen,” said Al-Rougi, adding that the new system neglects mentioning visitors to websites.

Trad Al-Asmari, who blogs about poverty, unemployment and social justice in the Kingdom at alasmari.wordpress.com, said the system will remain “ink on paper” because it is “not applicable.”

“There are already contradictions in the system. It says that the person needs to have a license for his website and at the same time the person is actually applying for a license,” said Al-Asmari who won an award — “Reporters Without Borders, freedom of expression” — for his blog.

He added that the system would work for online newspapers but not for blogs, forums or Twitter. He also wondered whether it would be a requirement to ask the Ministry of Information and Culture for permission to post on Twitter or Facebook.

“What we hoped for is a chance for the media to obtain a self-controlled system not that of a government one,” he said.

So guys? What do you say about this new law now?

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Missing an oppurtunity

2010-10-07T17:03:00.001+03:00

Let's start with a great quote by Tom Peters, “If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade.”

When you get an oppurtunity, you don't really have to let it go, that's what every wise person will advice you. A great king always hears to what the advisors have to say but he only decides and does what his own heart agrees on. So, again, I missed an oppurtunity to grow myself professionally, it was a job offer with few advantages and few disadvantages, I'm not discussing those right now, but just wanted to throw it out that I'm really sad about it that I rejected a great offer. I always decided about my job on one principle and that is, I make a rough sketch in my mind about what I've planned for next 12 months and what are the current situation, and how things can change. I've to leave for further education and that is the reason that I've to sacrifice another great oppurtunity, I hope I'll get same oppurtunities once I'm ready to 'only' work. And definitely I can't sit on the same chair rusting my head off. It's always good to work where you learn and keep your knowledge polished through out, everyone should make sure that they learn something new each day, a day of just 24 hours, seriously if you start calculating, life really seems too short, that's why it's good to stay ultimately busy in so many things that you never get time to calculate life, but again I would say, everyone of us should learn something new each day and help people with our expertise and knowledge. Blah, this post was just a random thrust of emotions. I hope things get better.

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Discussion on: 'Working in a governmental agency: a year in review'

2010-09-17T03:04:00.001+03:00

Following is the discussion made on my friend, Lamia's blog post.

Excellent post. Well, I'm not sure what Public sector can learn from Private sector but to tell you the truth, every organization whether it's connected to multiple other organizations or an individual enterprise with set of employee units in itself, inner-political issues never decrease. It's not about just the Moroccan agency you work for, it's almost same every where around the world. I've worked in multinational firms and organizational politics is the biggest issue, if you visualize a broader view of how everything is connected to organizational politics, it is the main aspect of all the things you listed, and it gets harder and harder when the number of employees are really big. Official work environment should neither be too formal and neither me too friendly, it should lay somewhere in between.

There's an issue in private sector I would like to highlight here; as you mentioned that every individual gets a different idea, organizational structures (administration etc.) doesn't usually allow individuals to grow and share their knowledge, creativity or ideas with their organization, reasons could be many, financial issues, political issues, personal matters so and forth. That's why every organization must have a global white board policy, let's say for instance; a big white board on which every individual can write up their ideas and at the end of the day there can be some kind of quick review of the creative ideas shared.

And regarding collaboration, collaboration platforms, intranets and all the software application, ERPs, knowledge based systems, DSSs etc. depend on few of the following aspects:

1. A specialized team who would study, audit, and then issue an official statement regarding the benefits of a particular software application, instead of blinding buying ERP solution from a cousin or a friend's friend, moral relationships should stay away in such decisions, because you work in governmental agency, I know this thing happens a lot, that if one department's manager is from family A, he will hire all the people from family A. Happens a lot. This should be completely eliminated from our systems, as long as they hire only those who are eligible for the job description.

2. Finance. If financially an organization has no issues, then everyone will think of their personal benefits as mention in point 1. Thus finance department or purchase department should outsource the inspection of selected software application to another audit firm or hire someone totally not in mutual connection with the team mentioned in point 1.

3. Knowledge workers (whom in my language I call, the end-users), the knowledge workers are the real people who would actually interact with the system being developed or bought. Thus it is solely important that they are kept on highest priority and they are being indulge in selection of the proprietary software buying or development.

4. The highest management. At the end of the day, whatever the higher management wishes, only that happens. The owners or the upper most administration authority should personally check what's going on at the lower end. And everything should be monitored properly.

Technology & time can never stop, they're increasing at the highest pace of life possible on this planet. Thus it's also important to take care of what things are beneficial and what things are not, creating a defective robot can screw up your own workshop.

Good posts Lamia! I love the way you express your thoughts. One of my favorite blogs!

P.S. I'm sorry if anyone is feeling offensive regarding this comment. These are just my way of looking at things. Cheers.

Further Discussion:

It was a pleasure, thanks for your kind words. If you analyze any random company who is on national level, you'll see there are many procedures which are totally not required but they exist due to human psychic. Transparency is a serious issue with all of us, right now we're talking about our work places, this really reflect the higher level situation of countries, when one employee is lazy and not motivated, he says, "Oh man, relax, everything is ok, I'm getting paid at the end of this month & work is all same as it used to be." Now this employee doesn't need any change in the company. I'll give you my own example, I worked in one of the biggest real estate company for an year, you know it, when I resigned, the first thing company's CEO asked me was, "What went wrong? We pay you on time, we'll pay you more, we'll provide everything you need, just don't leave the company like this." And I replied with another question, "Sir, it's been one year since I joined this company, company neither went further, neither went back, it's still in a vacuum, I can't stay in this company anymore, my brain is rusting, thus it's my personal decision that I should leave." Of course they got surprised when he had to repeat my words in the board meeting, regardless of the talk, my point is, that me and you, we think that collaboration is important as much as other things in an organization, but do others care about it equally? No. Majority doesn't care.

I would like to tell you something I always believed on Lamia; we're living in communication era, where 140 characters can speak louder than any voice on this planet, only that person is successful, who love team work, who asks for collaboration between teams, who asks for enough transparency, if I make you sit on a high position in a company where no one bothers to help you or work with you, you'll get sick of that place, even if you're getting too much money.

Regarding procedures, every company should upgrade their working procedures, procedure calls, I say it should be done every month or at least every 6 month if the organization is too big. Upgrading and polishing your work procedure is very effective. I'll give you an example here, there's a company where there are many departments, some departments work individually and some need collaboration with other departments to produce the end results. Sales guy get's interactive with the client, client defines his issues or requirements, sales guy come back to Pre-Sales Engineer and discuss the issues, Pre-Sales then place a short mock-up meeting with Division Manager and rest of the team, then they finalize their offer, after 72 hours, Pre-Sales talk to the Sales person, Sales person talks to the client. Long procedure? 72 hours is a fail?

Now this is how you enhance your procedures; instead of keeping Pre-Sales and Sales guys separate, place them in the same work space where Division Manager sits, IPT solution? CRM? Accounting? Great! Sales guy use the CRM, Pre-Sales look at the CRM in real time, Manager sees it too, Manager recommends, Pre-Sales & Sales understand the situation, offer is made at the same time in maximum 2 hours the proposal is sent to the client and a call is also made for further discussion.

See? 72 hours and 2 hours have almost 70 hours of difference. In one minute anything can happen and you're working in a 72 hours work procedure.

So, my point is, everything depends on the people! People work together and achieve better! Proper use of technology is super-effective!

- Faisal Asif

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When Your Mind Is Racing, You Can't Focus On Life.

2010-08-23T01:26:00.002+03:00

When your mind is racing with everything in the environment around you, then you can't focus on anything specific.

The problem with today's generation is that, their mind is too busy working on several things at the same time, which ultimately makes them weaker inside. Just look around you, out of hundred, only ten people will be thinking positively on any happening, rest 90% of people are busy presenting their negative thoughts and hatred. Today people are totally busy with everyday life and useless things, because everything is so mobile that no one is actually being bothered or being stressed doing all the useless stuff. Child wakes up, the first thing she’ll do is, either check her mobile phone, or start playing on her console, or do random stuff which has no meaning or benefit to life.

The way I see people today, they’re doing nothing except passing time, like, life became so uneasy to our people these days, everything is there but still one feels incomplete, that’s my point. Our minds are racing with everything around. Every one of us is busy thinking about something, and I feel sorry about us humans that we’ve become like animals to an extent, we see others in happiness, we get jealousy out of ourselves, we can’t accept anyone’s smile, we see someone with something new, and we start hating that thing if we can’t get it. It’s like totally weird about us, why can’t we sustain with things which are right for us?

We are racing with every single person around us, due to some specific object or subject. Instead of growing in one’s body, that person is busy thinking about others, and how to become like someone else. I never understood why everyone is trying to be like others they see? Why not they become what they really are? No one cares about anyone else’s feelings anymore; our world is careless, stone hearted, and completely ice-cold. A girl friend would love to tell her boyfriend that, “I think you can’t stay happy with me...”, but she’ll never see or realize the things which he does not like, instead of fixing her own self, she’ll blame-shift her thoughts on her guy, because she’s not ready to accept what is right. We are racing with our own thoughts, with our own feelings. We totally lost ourselves in today’s life, this life, which is no eternal and short, everyone leaves alone, then why to race with every negative thought we get? Time has a lot to say, today I’m saying it, and tomorrow someone else will realize and repeat it. We can bring change to ourselves and environment will change itself. Focus on what is right and avoid what is wrong, as everything you do has a reaction, it’s a universal law. And remember, time heals every wound; it’s a matter of fact that today, our thoughts control our bodies, not hearts, because our hearts are deceased of darkness and negativity in us.

Thought On The Current Technological Situation

2010-08-21T02:18:00.000+03:00

I used to call this era, "Communication Era", but now I think I've to call it "super-tech era" or "Mad-tech Era", the recent inventions and upgrades especially to hard memory 'HDDs', hard disks in other words are just unbelievable, if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you should Google "SSD", when you're done with SSDs then Google iSSD, and just look at the pace in which these people are upgrading the hard disks' world, I mean it's just amazing, on the other hand microchips are being converted to 'macro' microchips, the things we used to see in movies back in late 80s and 90s are just happening so smoothly and nobody is actually bothered you know, like I'm amazed with the technological growth of this world! I remember when I got my first computer back in 90s, computers were so damn expensive and just look at how people are buying netbooks, notebooks and iPads, iPhones etc. I can roughly say that technology is evolving us and our environment 200%, I'll talk about Riyadh, Saudi Arabia only, in Riyadh, just move roam around the city and keep your pocket pc or your smart phone on for the WiFi search, there's no damn street, I'm saying, no damn street where you'll not find at least one connection up and running (in fact they all are secured). I remember when I use to waste hours on dialing up dial-up connections and now we're arguing on the speed every other day, then came the 256k connection and everyone was after it, then 512k, then 1024k and today we can get up to 16Mb connection or may be more (just talking about the home user connections, corporate level connections are provided with private satellite connections as well as fiber optics, depends on the requirements), just amazing. Few years back there was no Twitter, life was pretty much fast due to online search engines, and today, life is so damn fast, you get to learn and updated on any aspect of life within 140 characters anywhere in the world and on any device, mobile phones, regular computers etc. It's 2:10 am and I'm surfing internet in a cafe out here, I know, I know, some of you must be laughing to the level I'm just being amazed, actually countries like where I live were too kind of low with the technologies and now Saudi is soon to become world's biggest e-government, smart isn't it? Definitely it is. You must have heard Black Berry's stories in Middle East, that they'll ban the services so and forth, but just look at it in a broader view, only Saudi Arabia had more than 75 million Black Berry users and I can bet if they stop the services today the company's sale will die at the same spot, when you visit Saudi, just look at the public, every kid has two or three phones or at least one, although mobile phone service providers are not that cheap, even then they're offering special packages for BB users and everyone is connected to the whole world, this reminds me of 'Communication Era' again, but the world right now is totally in 'Mad-tech Era', people were too happy with huge LCD screens, Sony's Bravia you must have heard, was very famous, other brands had their own stuff out in the market, and now there are 3D enabled HD LCD TVs, just amazing and funny that nobody actually notice the level of upgrades to technology everyday. And yeah, if you're a good gamer and buy lots of gaming hardware, then you must research a bit on SSD and iSSD with TERM features, you'll get amazed.

Example of a 'Phishing' Web Page

2010-07-20T23:47:00.002+03:00

Alright folks, you don't have to read a real big article to understand what 'phishing' really is; Phishing is an act done by a malicious person or a group of people who want to gain unauthorized access to your personal information which can be used against you through a fake web page. This fake web page will apparently look like a professional website of some specific brand, and if you're already indulge with such brand, then it's very easy for you to mistakenly provide all the information these malicious hackers want to gain. I'll discuss and show you images of a web page and the email I received and how the game gets started.

Usually you get an email from some brand, which in my case is HSBC bank. So, HSBC sends me an email asking me for some changes in my personal information which might be my credit cards or any online accounts I have in HSBC. And this is how the email looks like:

Alright when you read such message in your busy life, you're 90% vulnerable that you'll not even read the full email and just click the link and get into the web page which is a real looking fake page (phishing web page). And image below shows how that web page will look like:

So if you are a regular customer of HSBC, what you'll do after this page opens is, you'll straight away log-in the account, and then your log-in information goes to the malicious person or group whoever created that phishing website for their targets, and once your account information is gone, that means your money is gone.

Now such things even happen sometimes with advanced computer users too so it's really not funny, as some of you must be thinking that, come'on I'll not even open the link in the email because it looks all fake, but in real, hundreds and thousands of users 'actually' go through the process and lose their identity, personal information or something which should not be out there with these malicious people.

So be safe! Use the security add-ons for your browser which will warn you about (web forgery) such web pages if you cross the first phase (email link). To totally block such emails, you must use some proper Internet Security Suite which also cover your email client, so that such emails can be sent to spam folder or get deleted completely. All these scenarios are ignored by our community all the time, when ones get infected with a virus, trojan, spyware or when one loses an email address or a bank account, only then the pain is felt. The security professionals who work day and night to fight against these malicious people usually get a hard time because; where good party, bad comes in as an uninvited guest, and it's hard to catch these faces sometimes.

Securing your one personal computer makes a difference world-wide. It really does. More blog posts coming soon, about random stuff in life and computers these days.

Tired of Organizational Politics? When Life becomes harder, feel easy.

2010-04-12T09:53:00.001+03:00

You don't have to die sitting in one environment where you see people talking more than their work. Is your working place full of lies and fake stories? Games to get each other trapped in some official problem? Great. You're at the right place, but, only if you're new to all this. Survive in such environment for at least 6 months or 1 year if you're strong enough. Studied Management Courses? That's exactly what books try to tell you but they're not saying it clear enough! You should have experience with organizational dark side and working in totally weird isolated environment, where no one wants to help anyone or work as a team. Reasons? Reasons can be many!

I say every one should have a touch of this situation, but no one should stick himself to such environment where everything is isolated, such environment can not only effect your health but also your social circle and your personality and the most important part, your knowledge and previous experience. If you work longer in such environment, you may lose your professional state, and worst probably.

Health comes first, then all other ethical issues, then professionalism. Life is not about just earning money at your work place and later feed your family and yourself, it's more than that. So work where you feel easy, where you don't have any mental attacks by others, where at least there is a minority who is like you (the honest people).

And yes, the dark side, well, if you're an evil mastermind then for sure you will love the political part and you'll stick yourself longer and longer in that state, but trust me, you're going no where, you'll just satisfy your inner devil nothing else. You'll not grow in your field (if you have any) or anything related.

Tips to survive in Organizational politics:

Don't indulge yourself in gossips related to work or colleagues, just change the topic if you're stuck.
Document everything, get official approvals for each thing you do, picking up a screw & keeping it in your drawer? Document it and approve from your manager right away!
Make a report everyday, type in what you do as soon you're done with it. Done something partial? No worries, just type it in the same report. Your report should be managed in a way that if checked, it should show all months, and all weeks, and of course days and what you did each day.
Do you trust someone? No. That's wrong. Don't even trust your good friend when you work at the same place.
Look at everyone as company's employee, your Chairman or CEO is a person, not some super power, never freak out if higher management ask you questions.
Never lie and be straight forward. You can't work on something? Say I cannot! Instead of lying and getting stuck with it.
Keep smile on your face all the time. That scares everyone.
You can never grow yourself in a company, you can only grow financially. So be smart. Either leave the place after working for few months or ask for more financial support or services!
No one is like you. No one has experience like you. So relax, don't die if someone tell you that whatever experience you got is of no use. Of course you can give a hard punch on his nose, but ethics, just smile, agree and say, "yeah man, you know better" (that will back-fire).

Oh, well, it's raining outside. That's enough for today I guess. Questions? Need ideas? Free service. Ask me.

It's your life. Live it as you feel like living it.

2010-03-26T01:35:00.000+03:00

It's really not important that you live your life as others are living theirs. Everyone has unique thoughts about life styles, if you love watching football matches, don't worry about your age or anything else, you like something, then do it, you're doing it for yourself. Anything which makes you happy or gives you pleasure or satisfies you mentally, you should do that, don't listen to what people say. If you like to watch footballs for instance, watch all matches, you have interest in it, do it, you know that you're not earning anything watching matches, but it's worth it if just giving you happy feelings.

Cheer up. Life is short. No one knows what will happen tomorrow. So live every second of this life with grace. Happy Life!

Secure online banking or good interface designs?

2010-03-08T10:47:00.003+03:00

Microsoft's Internet Explorer has played an epic role in the Web browsers drama. It's proudly the most insecure web browser till date and still one of the most used browser around the planet (may be on other planets too, if it matters). Lately there have been so many zero-day vulnerabilities which were quite interesting to security professionals. According to the last major flaw in Internet Explorer which lead to data breach of at least 34 different companies around the world, including Google and Adobe. Microsoft was reported about this vulnerability 3 months earlier by a security researcher. Microsoft itself agreed that they had knowledge about this vulnerability already and couldn't do much about it. According to Microsoft, “An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.”

So this vulnerability was in Microsoft's knowledge back in September 2009 and they really released update patches late in January 2010, and they cover up the issue saying; “Our investigation into this responsibly reported vulnerability began early September,” Jerry Bryant, senior security program manager for Microsoft, said in a statement. “As part of this investigation we began working on an update to help protect customers. We became aware of the recent attacks in mid-January and as part of our investigation determined the vulnerability being used in these attacks was similar to the one investigated in September.”

Internet Explorer has never been a safe browser and due to combination of Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer in earlier versions of Windows such as Windows XP, it's too insecure for anyone who still uses Windows XP. This is one of the reasons that Windows always crashed and users hung up with BOD. In later versions like Windows Vista, Microsoft isolated Internet Explorer from Windows Explorer which was first step to make it a better and secure operating system.

Anyways, my point is; most of the bank websites, universities, governmental websites and portals; are still designed and developed up to IE's standards, which tend the end-user to open these websites using IE. According to a short survey of Bank websites in Saudi Arabia. There are many users who don't like to use IE at all but they use it just to log-in their online banking website. A good example is Samba Bank's website. If you try it in Mozilla Firefox or other browser than IE, the site will not function properly. Same goes with Emirates Bank's website, it never functions in Firefox but works perfect in IE.

On the other side, there are banks with excellent interfaces, but what about functionality? And are these good looking interfaces enough secure?

Developers and designers are either unaware of the vulnerabilities or the banks are not feeling the insecurities involved in this web browser. The Software giant 'Microsoft' is the industry leader but that does not mean that everyone start following their standards. I personally think that websites especially online banking websites, should be compatible with major browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Safari etc. End-users who have knowledge about IE vulnerabilities think twice before loging-in their online banking websites.

"When the vehicle is not reliable enough, how can you trust the long dark route?", you can never trust a software vendor who itself doesn't know what to do when things go wrong. Three months to cover up a zero-day vulnerability is not a joke.

Another day, waking up with dust & thinking about Windows Server 2008

2010-03-02T08:53:00.007+03:00

Good Morning to self. Colleagues say that it's a lovely weather, but I'm sick of this dust. All I can breath is dust particles (with some oxygen). Having my morning coffee at work right now. I'm listening to my new colleague's gossip, he's telling me about 'Abha', another beautiful city in Saudi Arabia, where you can see greenery and flowers blooming everywhere; telling me about his village at the top of a mountain, small one he said, but you sleep without AC's at night. How beautiful it would be if Riyadh turns out to be that nice. Ah, anyways, it's calm this morning, cool weather but dust is everywhere in the air. Waiting for one Microsoft Gold Partner's response this morning. I get best deals with dealers and resellers here but they never respond on time. Now I'm having a scenario here; my client needs Windows Server 2008 Standard OLP before 10:00am this morning, and he confirmed me last night at 12:00am, it's 9:00am now, and I'm not sure if I can fulfill his requirement.

The local Philosophy:
As far I've been working in several IT projects with different IT teams here in Riyadh, I really noticed few things, I've seen Great Planes failing here, I've heard about SAP going back home because user requirements couldn't be fulfilled. And a lot more big brands you cannot imagine being failure here. The reason is typical. We were working for one foreign company few months back; after surveys and analysis of their requirements we proposed them a solution which would connect all of their branches, first within the city and then cities and so on. The management spent 400,000 on palm trees and decoration of few branches happily, whereas when it comes to IT, the quote was not even 100,000 and the management rejected. That shows how much looks are valued here rather than work.

Philosophy #1: No matter how things work, but the looks of the building or place where you work, must look like luxuries suite.

Another project, where the owner said, "I will sign the final documents only if my company logo is at the right side.." So, this leads us to next philosophy.

Philosophy #2: I don't care what international standards are, I pay only if things work as I want them to work, I don't need any industry standards, I have my own standards.

Again I've been in one office, pretty big company, where every employee uses a computer, and after the survey I found that, there's nothing licensed except the anti-virus solution; of course I was happy that at least my field part is licensed, but again, I was shocked. Talked to the management and told them that they're screwed up if they don't use licensed operating systems, all they replied was, "No, no, no, we don't want to spend too much for this, this is all same, look it's working, one CD comes for 10 riyals and you're telling me one license will cost 550 riyals?, no, no, we're OK! with the existing situation..", now what would you say after this? Anyways, we made our way telling them the disadvantages and gradually we're buying licenses for servers for them and so on. This scenario takes us to next philosophy.

Philosophy #3: Why to spend thousands on stupid CDs or DVDs when you get the same pirated ones for few bucks, oh, and they work great!

Alright guys, enough of philosophies for today. I'll write more afterward. By the way, I feel like I have no life anymore, all I'm doing is working from morning till night. Oh no, I'm done with my coffee, no more typing. Later.

Review: Firefox Security Add-ons

2010-02-14T10:02:00.003+03:00

I've been trying few Firefox Add-ons recently, all of these provide an extra layer of security while you're open in the wild, browsing online.

Ever wondered where does your communication actually go? What peers your data is being crossed to reach the final one? You click a button & then what happens next? Firefox has this add-on which tells you how this process undergo throughout the end; "PrivacyChoice TrackerWatcher", is a perfect add-on for this activity. When you're done installing it, it provides an icon on the top, when you're browsing a web page and you feel like to view how the back-end flow works, all you've to do is click that TrackerWatcher's icon & it opens a new tab displaying the results. Pretty cool add-on I would say. Give it a try.

The next add-on is 'WOT' which stands for Web of trust. What a brilliant add-on I would say. I really liked it. You can rate any web page as you like, and share with the WOT community, which is actually everyone on the web who is using WOT. WOT will also warn you for any malicious web page you're browsing if it's rated malicious by some WOT users. This is really a great add-on to have a safer browsing online. You must use it. The only disadvantage I noticed in WOT community is that, some people have rated good websites bad, like I've seen an IT services provider's website rated bad, in fact there was nothing wrong with it. But, this add-on provides a good security layer again.

Another add-on for Phishing website check, known as 'PhishTank SiteChecker' quite fishy name they kept for this add-on but it really makes sure that you're safe from any phishing web page, according to it's phishing records. You must have this add-on, it's very light, keeps you safe and will run along the other add-ons without any problems.

You must have heard about Adobe's zero day security flaws, the vulnerabilities in flash cookies? No problem as long you're using 'BetterPrivacy' Firefox add-on. You can configure it your way. It takes your permission and deletes all flash related cookies when you complete a browsing session (or when you close your browser). Must to have add-on.

'AdBlock Plus' an add-on which keeps those malicious and annoying ads away from your screen, which pop-up and impress some users to click on them, and then the story goes bad at the end. Must to have add-on.

And now, the industry's best add-on ever, which makes Firefox an extra safe browser! 'NoScript' Ta-da! That's how they do in circus, anyways. 'NoScript' is the best ever add-on ever created for maximum protection from online scripts, java, or any kind of script which runs without your notice, it is very flexible, you can manage it your way, and it protects you 99% I would say. You'll feel very much secured when you start using it. The default settings may annoy you in the beginning, but if you really care about security, then it's not a problem.

I talked about 6 Firefox add-ons, which work great on Firefox 3. You must try them, I'm sure you'll like all of these. More reviews to come. Stay tuned.

Google Buzz & Wave? Where is it all going?

2010-02-14T09:09:00.006+03:00

According to few articles recently and by regular Gmail users, Google has been quite unimpressive. I logged in to my Gmail the other day, and suddenly "Google Buzz" came into existence. I mean, what is this? A month back same thing happened and Google Wave came in to being. Where is this all going anyways? I don't really see a good future for all what Google has been doing. I see frustration in Google teams, they launched Google Buzz, which they think, will work as Twitter, which it does not (what an epic fail), "Google isn't wasting any time in responding to user criticism about Buzz." this is how TechCrunch.com people quote in one of their articles, what is this showing actually? Google never cared for users, as far Gmail is concerned, they have the worst user support if you compare it to Live(hotmail) and other Email service providers, it's not going positive at all, even if we take it positive, when Google is not taking any care of their end-users, why would anyone take serious about what they're inventing (cheating, I would say).

As a normal user, I think, Google Wave and Buzz are just useless. They launched Buzz, and made major changes to it in just first 5 days? There were privacy issues, there were more issues, and you'll see other bugs coming up too, OK! I mean it's fine with the small bugs when something is new, but were not they already testing it internally? I feel like some script kiddies are developing things on Google's behalf and publishing them online (no offense, but they way they're doing it, is not professional at all). I would like to quote my friend here: "I’m sure Google thought that integrating it to Gmail would ensure it being at everyone’s reach; I still think that it was a Strategic Epic Fail."

Oh, by the way, they never tell people what their thing actually does. Majority of my friends have no idea if there is anything called "Google Wave" or "Google Buzz", and wait, they all are at the tech side! When you're not even introducing your product in a proper way, how can you even think it will be of any good.

Companies have their competitors in scope, but Google tries things (Chrome, Buzz, etc.) to have more competitors. How funny.

2010-02-11T18:28:00.001+03:00

Meet the world's best browser Firefox 3.6! http://bit.ly/2mjWeS [download link] Internet Mozilla Firefox FF3

2010-02-09T00:52:00.001+03:00

"All my friends are pissed at facebook's new layout, how come businesses with ads would succeed if facebook keep changing?"

Logical Comparison of Kaspersky Internet Security & Avast Internet Security

2010-01-26T14:40:00.002+03:00

Two major security solution providers achieved great name in the security industry since number of malicious activities has been rapidly doubled. Kaspersky Internet Security Suite has been one of my favorite Internet Security Suites of all time. I've used it and always recommended to my colleagues, families and friends who ever was interested in buying a license. And I always recommended Avast's Home Edition Anti-Virus for users who wanted something great at NO cost, it's totally free and 99.9% reliable and trustworthy.

Lately, there were some immense changes in the scenario. Kaspersky increased the prices of their Internet Security Suites with not much improvement to their product (No matter it is one of the best suites), but unfortunately, instead of lowering the prices they just moved them up a bit. Where as Avast, launched a new Internet Security package which is providing all kinds of security, and the plus point is that; you can buy three licenses for just $59.95, that means three PCs get secured ultimately at that cost for 1 year, where as Kaspersky's Internet Security's one license costs; $59.95, which is definitely a great difference.

Now of course, in this era of recessions and high expenses, everyone would go for Avast's Internet Security because they won number of awards + they always kept their Anti-virus program totally free for home users + they're technically selling better faster solution for price of one (if compared to Kaspersky's Internet Security), now that makes me think.

But there's no point of thinking on it anymore, I trust Avast as much I trust Kaspersky, but price counts, and Avast has better speed and lighter effect on computers.

Depression

2010-01-24T09:29:00.000+03:00

Since few days, I’m being depressed due to random occurrences in life. I actually don’t know what’s making me too sad. It’s like out of the blue I start getting these sad kinds of feelings and extreme depressions. I feel like my heart has slowed down and I start feeling my blood spinning all around my brain. I can hear silence screaming in my ears. I am very disturbed from something which I don’t even know, I’m always having this feeling that something is missing or something is wrong around me but I don’t have any knowledge about what it can be. I get angry and upset on small issues. I don’t feel like talking to anyone or listen to anyone’s crap, I feel good when I’m all isolated from the environment, I miss my friends but now things are changing at a very rapid pace, I really don’t understand what’s going on but, I’m in depression. I feel like I’m back in 90’s when I was a kid, I used to get angry on everything in life. I have patience but these I’m losing it, all because of these weird and random feelings, it’s like an attack on my brain or soul. Environment has a great effect on us but I’m not doing anything unusual. Waking up early morning, going to work, coming back from work in the evening, then just stay awake for an hour or two then back to bed and the routine keeps on going whole week, weeks keep passing and so does years have passed, but I’m having a new feeling every day. At times I ask myself that; what the hell is wrong with me, and why am I getting all depressed and angry so random, I really couldn’t get any reason. I make up reasons and analyze happenings around me but I don’t see anything which should be taken too serious or anything that could make me either angry or put me in depression. I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, it’s not good. It hurts my inside.

Pre-Order Jennifer Grassman's 3rd full length CD

2010-01-21T02:22:00.003+03:00

Click here to Pre-Order Now!

2010-01-19T11:33:00.001+03:00

"What's the point of these crystal LCD displays? They really hurt my eyes, I don't know if it's with me only.."

2010-01-18T10:18:00.001+03:00

“There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

2010-01-14T03:30:00.001+03:00

"UPS is shipping anything under 50lbs to Haiti for FREE!" - SPREAD THE WORD

2010-01-14T03:22:00.003+03:00

"Q: Why would a blonde wear green lipstick? A: Because red means Stop."

2010-01-14T03:22:00.001+03:00

"What grows on the World Wide Web and stings? Internettles."

2010-01-11T22:35:00.001+03:00

"having ultimate kinda fun with friends, roamed all over the city tonight, shopping!"

2010-01-11T16:22:00.001+03:00

"He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done." -Leonardo da Vinci

2010-01-11T16:17:00.001+03:00

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." -Albert Einstein

2010-01-11T15:08:00.001+03:00

"we're in age of cloud computing, something which I've never even thought about years back.."

2010-01-11T14:24:00.001+03:00

".. I really want to sleep after work.."

2010-01-11T12:46:00.001+03:00

"I'm changing my IM nick to Joseph Goebbels today, what do you say about it?"

2010-01-11T12:18:00.001+03:00

"Having a tiring day at work.."

We're Humans, from one Father & one Mother

2010-01-06T11:33:00.006+03:00

I'll not talk about any political issue or any country's internal matters, I don't think anyone should talk about such aspects, because they're of no use. But, when your rights are taken away or you're just not allowed to say what you like, of course things can go wild, as you can see what's happening around the world. Everyone should be positive about problems and their solutions, but those who turn too much extreme does the bad, not only for themselves but for everyone else too. A leader should know what things and tools are required for his team to be more effective towards productivity and what aspects can make their lives better while being productive, same goes for any country and it's government. Just think for a while, aren't we all from one father and one mother? Aren't we one family? We all are humans. But what went wrong with us, we hate each other, we fight, we snatch away rights, we close routes to life, we're cruel to ourselves. Of course there must be ordinances, rules and regulations on which one should live his/her life, but when ordinances become sign of cruelty then there's no other way than to plea for independence. There are all kinds of people in this world, we should care, share and spread love, regardless of religion and cultures, we should think positive. Really, just our positiveness can bring peace to our lives.

Join us all for the sake of bloggers' and writers' rights on internet. Sign the pledge for those who are not extremists but who express their feelings. Join http://www.irrepressible.info/ and http://www.amnesty.org/ today.

Humans, one family.

Help required in South Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

2009-11-29T18:24:00.003+03:00

The situation in South Jeddah is worse than any one can imagine. We need any and every thing that you can help with; home supplies, food, school supplies, clothing, home appliers, and /or money. Please call Miss Rasha Hifzi to deliver at (0541639486). If you have a 4 wheel drive, please help us with delivering the material. For helping with the delivery, please call Sumaya at (050 5517277) Jazakum allah Khair.

Please Forward

Cricket - Event in Riyadh

2009-11-04T11:22:00.002+03:00

WATCH T20I CRICKET MATCH 09

LIVE TELECAST FROM DUBAI STADIUM
ON 12TH NOVEMBER 2009 AT 6:00 PM

LIVE ON BIG CINEMA PROJECTION SCREEN!
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VENUE: RAIBON ISTARAH - AZIZIYAH EXIT 20,
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For more details call: 0562383593 - 0596980450

SCAM : Someone calling you at home to help you clean off a virus!

2009-10-29T20:42:00.001+03:00

SCAM : Someone calling you at home to help you clean off a virus

by Terry Cutler (www.terrycutler.com)

Hi Everyone, I try hard not to send so many emails but this is an important one too.

It was reported to me from an executive co-worker who's source was from a gentleman during a CNET podcast.

I literally heard about this latest scam today. A gentleman was sitting at home when the telephone rang and a person identified as having an Indian accent informed the person that a virus had been detected on his computer and that he was calling to help clear it off. The recipient was security aware and asked the caller how they had determined his computer had a virus. The caller advised him that his company had learned this by scanning his router. The recipient said thank you very much and asked what IP address they had found. The caller said that he would need to transfer the call to technical support but to help properly the call recipient would need to go to his computer and click the start button and select the remote control function and enable external access.

The recipient of the call very fortunately understood what was going on, that the caller was trying to get him to open his PC to the Internet and allow the caller direct access to his machine. He hung up.

Windows Remote Control can be extremely powerful in a support capacity but unless you are very careful and know who is connecting to you, it opens your machine wide. If you are a reader of this site, I'm guessing you are smart enough to know better so please do take a moment to share this latest scam with your friends and family. Once an intruder has access to your system, he or she has near godlike power, particularly since over 99% of Windows users have administrator authority.

Points to keep in mind regarding Privacy & Security

2009-09-17T15:44:00.000+03:00

Some points to always keep in mind regarding your privacy & security;

- Always use Genuine Operating Systems

Reason: Malicious hackers who decode & crack OS always keep a back door in that copy of OS, which looks & feel normal to the end-user of that pirated version but is vulnerable to all kinds of attacks anytime or whenever desired by any malicious hacker. The “zombie” computers, which are used by malicious hackers are such pirated versions which can be controlled whenever desired.

“Zombie” in security language, is a vulnerable computer which is used by a malicious hacker for DoS & DDoS attack.

- Always keep your Firewall on

People often turn off their computer’s firewall without keeping in mind the risk factors involved in it. Firewall helps filter In-going & Out-going internet traffic of your computer, it blocks all kinds of unknown & malicious connections to your system. Thus it should be kept on all the time. MS Windows Vista users often complain that they don’t like the firewall pop-ups, note that you can turn of those pop-ups from advanced settings, but it’s always recommended that you keep it on so that you know what thing is being run & what applications are being connected to internet, vice versa.

- Do not use pirated Software & Applications

I’ve researched and I saw people even using pirated Anti-Virus & Internet Security Suites which are available for download at torrents’ websites. These pirated versions are totally NOT RECOMMENDED & are too dangerous for your privacy. Novice users don’t care about what back-doors their PC have or what tasks are being run in stealth mode. If you cannot afford a paid version, you can still have best ever awarded solutions such as Avast Home Edition from Avast.com.

Cracked versions of applications usually don’t update which makes them more & more vulnerable to attacks. Attack can be of any type. You never know what’s going on in stealth or cryptographic way, thus keep it clean & safe for yourself. Use open source apps. if you cannot afford the others.

- Stay away from Web Browser tool bars

These toolbars are high vulnerability to your system, all contents based upon ActiveX technology are always at great risks. Microsoft itself has announced the dangers involved in using ActiveX based tools. They quoted it as, “..one of the most insecure technology ever created..”

I’ll be sharing more with time.

While using computer at work...

2009-09-09T12:45:00.000+03:00

Well, businesses these days but LCD monitors as they take less space & look good as well, but it’s too boring if you’re looking at the same screen everyday. The best way is to customize your desktop in a way that it looks different than usual. If you’re a windows user, try changing colors, themes, and yeah especially the wallpaper. A cool wallpaper can really change your mood. There are a lot of resources from where you can get really awesome wallpapers, for instance; wallpaperstock.net, and many more, just google it.

All that end users care is the User Interface. IT departments never bother about it. But what ever place I worked, I really cared about user interface for every pc. Of course it makes people happy!

Earlier posted at: http://fdilbar.tumblr.com/

Little about Yoono - The Firefox Add-on

2009-08-29T04:54:00.004+03:00

Since last February when I just joined Twitter.com, which that time was totally a weird thing to me, but with time like every other twitter addict, I felt that it's the best social network ever created in this era, "The Communication Era".

Well now I'm tweeting everyday regularly, twitter not only connected me to all the major brands directly but so many professionals which I would never hear or talk in next 5 years without twitter. It's just a click of a button & there you go!

I've been testing beta versions for a lot of tools, software & applications officially with several companies & as an end-user too. Last week was great working out with specifically Twitter desktop clients, browser add-ons & so on.

I've been using TweetDeck, Seesmic & a lot of other famous desktop clients for daily tweeting & I'm still analyzing them for later reviews. Well everyone has different views toward these twitter clients but I'll let you know some technical issues in next post soon.

So let's talk about this thing called "Yoono" as you can see in the heading of this post. In simple words Yoono turns your internet browser into a full fledged social & browsing mania! I've been testing couple of add-ons which my friends thought are really wonderful, one of them is Kunato, which I personally don't like much, because it sucks up all my system's memory (I checked it on a Quad-core & a Dual-core based system), it turns my system slow, but yeah, it provides a unique feature that you can tweet on every page in any website around the internet, good for a normal computer user, but what about the professionals who're having 50+ windows opened & they're multi-tasking immensely every day? In that case I don't recommend Konato because it still has some issues, we'll see in later versions of course. Yoono till now, is the best add-on ever made for social networking embedded in Firefox browser. It's having Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo, Gmail & much more of Widgets which we use individually every day. Few advantages I can count are:

- It saves time, you can update your status in real time in all networks.
- It's fast, light add-on, your system won't die, if you're using it.
- It does not really conflict with other applications.
- Provides an eye-catching beautiful interface (with different color schemes).
- Let you share media on all networks in real time.
- Let you comment, reply, chat & everything you really need!

All I can say is that, Yoono is totally AWESOME! Try it. Don't say you hate it just because you can't use it. But you're free to share any draw backs. Cheers!

Links: Download Firefox - Download Yoono

Security Tip - Toolbars & IE

2009-07-23T11:32:00.001+03:00

Toolbars & IE (Tips for Novice computer users):

Never install ActiveX based Internet Explorer or any other browser compatible TOOLBARS, these toolbars are one of the biggest Vulnerabilities & main cause of littering most of the Windows based Operating Systems which exist until now. Download & install toolbars from trustworthy sources only. Microsoft themselves agreed & warned Windows users about ActiveX, ActiveX was one of the most insecure technology ever created.

This was one of the reasons that Microsoft split Internet Explorer from Windows Explorer in Windows Vista, Windows 7 & other future Windows versions, which makes these OS more secure than previous OS versions.

Keep your IE (Internet Explorer) up-to-date, if you're using a pirated version of OS you better start saving & get yourself a genuine licensed OS. Every pirated OS has a backdoor which helps malicious hackers to steal your PC's processing speed (at least) or steal your data.

Note: Even MAC based systems are not secure from web vulnerabilities, thus think before you download or click a link.

- Faisal Mohammad

Comments sent by me to Zawya.com Members

2009-07-03T08:00:00.004+03:00

ABOUT DELL & RELATED SERVICES IN RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA

Well, as far dell is concerned, I've a good experience with Dell, I'm an IT consultant and worked in many Saudi organizations until now in the IT sector itself, where ever I placed dell desktops I never heard any complains, even for my own use I prefer dell computers, as far the cost is concerned, I think it's a lot cheaper and affordable if you compare to competitive brands. The problem we sometimes face in Saudi (especially in Riyadh) is that, if something goes wrong, for instance, if a notebook's charger is damaged and not working we've to spin ourselves in whole city in all major computer related sites and if we get a charger we'll be in doubt that whether it's original or second quality, there is a huge impact of brands like Dell in the market, until now I didn't find any specified and dedicated maintenance center or some kind of regional show case with maintenance opportunities in Riyadh from Dell's side, if you see HP, you'll find too many authorized maintenance center right in the city center with other computer shops, consumers are smarter than before, people buy that product which has the best service available (regional). Now technical people always recommend Dell notebooks, desktops, servers for enterprises but a normal user always thinks that HP support is available easily so let's buy HP it looks better than Dell. So the impact of service centers and regional centers on the consumers is too much, especially in Saudi community, users like the product which is marketed more often. As Dell is one of the oldest and major computer manufacturer they must think and get out of the eBusiness world, they should open centers in public places where majority of computer consumers lies.

COMPARISON BETWEEN APPLE'S MAC & WINDOWS BASED PCs

There's one more thing I would like to say is that, I don't understand why people compare Apple Mac and a Windows based PC, whatever Mac is and whatever Windows is today, no one should compare it. Let's talk in a way too advance level prospectus. The future of computer world is Web based applications and centralized virtualization servers to provide services to all end-user peers. Now the point is, would an asp.net developer buy a Mac? would IIS server run on Apple computers? would a security analyst use a Mac for security measures? Windows is way too advanced, two-way sync. in different versions of Windows? Unicode support? Built-in powerful firewalls? Okay lets keep it precise, before 2 years, I was a great fan of Apple when it comes to designing, but now when I'm running a Quad-core with 64bit Windows with up to 16GBs of RAM, do you think me as a developer or programmer would to switch to a Mac for designing? Real example; I use designing applications, MS Visual Studio, word processing software, browsing on multiple browsers, e-mail client, chatting clients, and so forth at a same time! with superb speed! I can run other operating systems virtually on this Windows machine how about that?... My point to all this long discussion is that, there is no comparison of Apple's Mac with any of the MS Windows based machines, Mac has it's own value in Media, and Windows has it's own Value in a lot of other stuff than just Media. And Apple's theory; the more you get richer, the more our products get cheaper to you. Where as Microsoft say, Okay? are you a student? verify your university I'll give you up to 90% discount!! How's that?...

No offense, I'm a Mac & a Windows user. Cheers!

In love with Apple's Mac? Living in Saudi?

2009-06-25T05:14:00.010+03:00

Well guys, if this is the scenario and your wish list is full of Apple's products or at least one of Apple's product, and you think it's too expensive to buy it from a reseller you should sign this petition which few of my friends and true Apple fans just made! More than 300 signed! Be one of them to bring Apple in Saudi Arabia!

All of you who thinks that Apple should open a Regional Outlet and they must open showrooms please sign a petition in the following links!

This will help us get Apple products much cheaper and available at high scale to all Saudi Community!

English page: http://www.wewantapplesaudi.com/

Arabic page: http://www.saudimac.net/

Friends please sign the petition, it not only help Apple fans, but also local companies and organizations who like to have Apple machines but are too expensive!

I'm Thankful to all of you for your cooperation.

Regards,
Faisal Mohammad (Admin Fdilbar.com)

2009 T20 World Cup & Pakistan's Victory!

2009-06-22T01:42:00.007+03:00

"Fan's Celebrated Victory in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia"

All eyes were on Pakistan's National Cricket team when they successfully reached to the finals, Sri lanka's Cricket team was known to be one of the strongest team of the era, unfortunately the results were totally different. With amazing performance and smooth pressure less game played by Pakistani team left a mark in the cricket history once again. Pakistanis all over the world had celebrated this achievement. I would like to share some of the snaps taken by us after the match, young Pakistanis in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, showing the proud and happiness over T20 World Cup Achievement! More over, videos will be posted on facebook, youtube and our official website too. I'll be posting the link in while. Thanks to Abeer Abbas Zaidi, Hassan Shahid, Sulaiman Khan, Mohsin Khan, Agha Zain and all those brothers who cheered up the silent streets of Riyadh! Pakistan Zindabaad!
- Faisal Asif

Few captured videos;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGmvle05JhI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40G2t0mYgbM

(Part from News)LONDON: Pakistan won their first major title in 17 years when they stunned Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the World Twenty20 final at a sell-out Lord's here on Sunday.

Seamer Abdur Razzaq claimed three wickets as Pakistan bowled and fielded aggressively to restrict Sri Lanka to 138-6, then coasted home easily with eight deliveries to spare.

Shahid Afridi hit an unbeaten 54 off 40 balls, his second consecutive half-century, and former captain Shoaib Malik made 24 not out during a match-winning partnership of 76 for the undefeated third wicket.

Pakistan, runners-up to India in the final of the inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa two years ago, ended Sri Lanka's unbeaten run in the tournament with style.

Pakistan last won an offical multi-nation tournament in 1992 when Imran Khan's team lifted the World Cup by beating England in the final at the Melbourne cricket ground in Australia.

The win by Younus Khan's team gave Pakistanis back home reason to cheer as the cricket-mad nation has been deprived of international tours due to security concerns in the volatile nation.

Some Memories - I do care

2009-05-23T02:43:00.004+03:00

Girl, I still remember the day I first talked to you, and how can I forget those moments when I recognized you as a different person. Don't you think it was just a small gift from God that you came to my web site just to read my poetry? You never thought that one day you'll be missing me this much, neither did I thought that someone would care for me so much. It's just hard to describe my feelings in words. I remember when we used to talk for hours and hours, it was so different, so pleasant, so beautiful. I used to call you 'toothpick', awe, how beautiful life was, but everything is different in reality. Some times life show us dreams and inspire us to acheive every goal with an unpredictable spirit, we try hard and reach our destiny, but sometimes even if we try our best we don't get what we like and we're hurt. It's our history, human is born crying and leaves this world crying, we never care about what good happened in our lives, we just remember the sad moments, the hurts, the cries and the weak moments. I've been thinking about this all damn day. And I think it's great to leave you a message forever, I always cared for you, and I will care for you, no matter where this life takes me, no matter how far I go, no matter how high I fly, I'll never forget anything you said. Sometime it's too hard to tell our feelings to each other but it's not difficult to understand someone you love. I broke your heart, I hurt you, and whatever I did to disturb your feelings, I never did it intentionally. I always care, even if I don't show it. We had best moments, we had laughters, we shared happiness, we shared our feelings with eachother, we lived together, but whatever happened was through this technology, and whatever is happening is through this technology again. Sometimes we say something while smiling, but at the other end, it ends up with an upset face. Life is just complicated. A post...just to tell you...that I do care, "They tell me they love me, when they don't like my Happiness", that's too interesting..

100 years back, life was better..

2009-04-15T10:44:00.000+03:00

It never ends at my head though; I don’t really know why people act so weird in front of me these days. It’s just bad, I don’t understand people, and brain doesn’t accept their acts anymore. Everyone is racing in this fast track of life, but why? And after all I feel like blowing someone’s head when my girl acts like a wild bull. I just don’t get it why the hell everything is so lame these days, where ever I go, on road or at work or at institutes or any other place, it’s just weird, weird enough to make someone completely mad. I planned to have a break from this life, I should leave this country for a while, to get some rest, but that’s impossible, where ever I’ll go there are issues with people and their lives, and I don’t know why the hell I’m so social, I just help everyone which I really don’t like but I always do it. Life was easy 100 years back, you never heard about any weird diseases, there were no cars, everyone was strong, no chatting, no facebook, aaaah it just feels good when I think about a small hut, little bone fire, fish being cooked, you got nothing but a banana tree leaf to wear, just awesome, you feel dirty, you go and take bath at the waterfall, everything natural, you eat fruits and vegetables, you hunt animals down and later roast them, it’s like peace of mind. Seriously, life is too hard these days, same shit every day, you wake up early, then you find out that there’s no water, then you’ve to suffer and curse the local authorities, use distilled water for bath etc. I just don’t want to write more, life just sucks these days, especially here in Saudi. Culprits everywhere.

Heartrending Feelings

2009-03-02T12:37:00.000+03:00

My philosophy: A man is incomplete without pain and sorrows.

Alright this statement seems too much heartrending to some of you, but life treats us like that. Nature has given us feelings that we can sometimes hide from outside world but sometimes cannot control them. A moment or two you’re happy with everything, and it feels like you own the world around you, and there is nothing you can get sad about. I don’t understand how it works but at times we give up ourselves, we think that the one we love is everything for us, we try our best to be loyal to that person, and what we get in response is nothing, not even the love and trust we had put in this unnamed relation. If we analyze our daily lives, mostly we get sad because of people around us. The reason could be anything. The way of communication, the way of understanding each others' opinions, the way of thinking, basically it could be anything you don’t appreciate.

Now there is a solution to this situation, or you can take it as my suggestion. Just ask yourself for a while who do you exactly live for? Why are you in this world? Would your actions hurt anyone’s feeling? Is there anyone who really cares for you, and how is your behavior towards that person? How do you know that you’re right if you’re not listening? What makes you think about the person you love? What is making you sad and why?

Couple of questions, but you’ll solve a lot of daily problems by answering them. You don’t have to love the one who don’t care about you. You should try loving the one who really cares about you and your feelings, who can understand you. It’s not important that the person you love must be with you physically, this is which makes us weaker with time, especially when you’re in some long-distance relationship. Sincerity is everything, but these days you’ve to show your partner that you really are sincere, and sometimes when you’re trying to show your sincerity the argument gets on which leads to other unexpected issues.

You don’t have to just sit and wait for the right time. You’ve to struggle for everything. You’ve to work hard till you achieve your life’s goal. Giving up yourself to someone you barely know is stupidity. True friends never hurt each other, and it’s better to have friends rather than diving in some deep love shit. (I might sound insane, but this is how it works, beware before experiencing it, because it hurts like hell...) And as I just said in the commencement, “A man is incomplete without pain and sorrows.” We are humans, we do mistakes, but regretting past makes no difference, so live happily, life has much more to give...

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T17:34:00.005+03:00

Well people, as you know, Valentine's Day comes every February every year, and is being celebrated in almost all countries. If we look at the history of this day, its totally concerned to ancient Christians and Romans in some extend. History tells us about three different types of Valentine's happenings after which people are celebrating this day. Here is what history.com tells about it, "So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death."

You can read it more at history.com, well, as far I think, youngsters of today who really wait eagerly for valentine's day don't really care about what history says, all they care is about their beloved ones, as gifts are exchanged, love poetry is being pushed, and all. Valentine's day now, is a pure LOVE day, young lovers around the world share their thoughts and feelings towards their beloved ones. And I don't think its a bad thing to give presents and dedicating one day out of your 365's just for Love. But countries like Saudi Arabia, still ban such celebrations (but trust me its of no use, no one cares about the history, the way we celebrate it now, is different..)

Anyways, Happy Valentine's Day to all my friends and their beloved ones! Wish you a happy life ahead!

Survival in the craziest ever traffic!

2009-02-04T11:03:00.005+03:00

Wednesdays: Survive the craziest driving and traffic in Riyadh.

Good morning people! As you know I always write blog whenever I’m feeling lazy or too much sleepy. Honestly, this morning was very hard for me. I woke up early in the morning around 7 am, but when I realized that it’s Wednesday again, I was kind of depressed. Well most of you must be thinking why the hell this guy is in depression as Wednesday is the last working day of the week here in Saudi, so here goes the journey. I feel lazier on Wednesdays as compared to rest of the working week days; the main reason is TRAFFIC in Riyadh!

People are so energetic on Wednesdays, they’re so happy to work and to act quick in everything, I see them almost fighting with each other while driving, I don’t know but may be some of local pilots have seen the real traffic scenario from the eagle eye view, they can really understand how worst roads are on the weekends.

Engine started, fastened the seat belt with a mission to reach office safely with some peaceful drive. It’s been long living here, and I know how things work out, all I see is more number of cars on the road (almost tripled), exhausted drivers (driving like everyone is in the fire department), random movement (why care about others? Drive like shit!). Now in such driving environment, you have no other choice than shifting to the ‘devil mode’ and turning on loud music (probably hard rock) and drive like crazy, apply all the traditional Saudi driving rules such as; No breaks! (Only if it’s a real serious case), No use of side mirrors or the back mirror! (Don’t have to care about others!), Race with every next car (whoever is in the front just over take at any cost!), act like you’re ready to drive over anyone! (Extremely reckless driving), drive faster in the slowest lane, flash headlights to the next car (especially in the morning), if an ambulance or some other police car went by in the fast lane just dig your car behind it and go as fast as possible (never give a chance to other lane invaders, you’re the king!) and in some circumstances show finger (or fingers in extreme cases).

Now if you live in Saudi, you know what I’m exactly talking about. Now this was a brief on how a guy like me survives; what about an innocent family driver who never over speeds than 60km/h and driving a BMW 7 Series or some Audi A8 or some other expensive piece (better stay at home on weekends!!). I’ve interviewed few of them, they feel like crying!

Drive safe, Drive wise!
Here is the official website for Riyadh's Traffic Police http://www.rt.gov.sa/ You may find a lot of spelling mistakes in it!

Help for GAZA in UAE

2009-01-08T15:19:00.000+03:00

Life is just a paper boat...

2008-12-04T18:04:00.003+03:00

Life is just a paper boat in the river, as long water flows, it keeps on going, till the water fall comes and it goes away deep in water’s coffer. Thoughts come, and go. Sometimes one shows a new world to you, a world of special feelings, a view of happiness, and many things you can never see alone. It depends how much you mix yourself in people, how much you tend to understand things going on, sometimes there is no one to understand you and you get hurt of your own feelings, until someone different emerges in your life. In these frustrated moments your heart is ready to accept anyone who is sweet to you without thinking about the future or the scenes behind the curtain, but soon you get to know things you never wanted to know, and again all you get, is pain. Most of the times it’s too late to go back when you really realize that you’re with a wrong person. Either you don’t want to think wrong about your beloved ones or either your love is just too blind to recognize the real face. There is one thing I’ve believe on, whatever you do, however you do, right or wrong, stay confident about it, because whatever you do is for your own good, no shadows and no reflections. It’s hard to find honesty these days. Do as much good you can for this world but there is no way you can ever get anything back, whenever you do something don’t think you’ll get something back, because there is nothing this world can ever give you, they cannot even give you respect which you deserve, not even the honor to which you stand by. You do infinite, you help a lot, and all you seek is a word of respect. There will be a list of questions I’ve to answer one day, there would be records of sins and deeds. There would be a reward or punishment. This world is just a chance to win, I’m struggling everyday and every night as much I can, but still there is no sign of success anywhere. May be I’m just lost in the dark or on the wrong highway, no light, no hopes. Smokes and ashes, betrayals and aches, defacing and trailing, its different everyday – I cannot control myself, these scars are deep, not just on my heart, but everywhere I touch. There is time but yet no time. It’s me who get hurt every moment not just these people around me.

I need your Suggestions!

2008-10-31T06:23:00.003+03:00

Hello Everyone!
I've been thinking about looping up fdilbar.com since long. As it has been an informative website for my clients and people in need for online web solutions, it also became popular among our community for many other things such as articles, stories, other general knowledge aspects, jokes, poetry and ofcourse a part of arts. Its been a while I've not been with my website for newer activities but now plan is ready, and soon I'll be launching a huge informative portal within fdilbar.com, probably I'll change the domain name but keep this one as well. It would basically provide regional information to everyone, especially such information which no other website or portal is providing throughout the internet. Later on after a smooth run I'll be expanding this informative portal to service providing portal, which will also help the people who are looking for best service providers near them, and ofcourse it will help you all. Now I need your suggestions that what do you think I should include in this upcoming portal of yours (which would be a shining star soon!), I'm waiting for your suggestions now! keep rocking! and stay tuned at fdilbar.com!

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna - Dedication to Everyone

2008-10-30T15:39:00.001+03:00

Tum ko bhi hai khabar
Mujhko bhi hai pata
Ho raha hai judaa
Dono ka raasta
Dur jaake bhi mujhse tum meri yaadon main rehna
Kabhi alvida na kehna
Kabhi alvida na kehna

Tum ko bhi hai khabar
Mujhko bhi hai pata
Ho raha hai judaa
Dono ka raasta
Dur jaake bhi mujhse tum meri yaadon main rehna
Kabhi alvida na kehna
Kabhi alvida na kehna

Jitni thi khushiyaa
Sab kho chuki hai
Bas ek gham hai ki jaata nahi
Samjha ke dekha behla ke dekha
Dil hai ki chain isko aata nahi
Aarzoo hai ki hai angarai
Aag hai kab aankhon se behna
Kabhi alvida na kehna
Kabhi alvida na kehna

Rut aa rahi hai Rut jaa rahi hai
Dard ka mausam badla nahi
Rang yeh halka itna hai gehra
Sadiyon main hoga halka nahi
Halka nahi
Kaun jaane kya hona hai
Hum ko hai ab kya kya sehna

Kabhi alvida na kehna
Kabhi alvida na kehna

Tum ko bhi hai khabar
Mujhko bhi hai pata
Ho raha hai judaa
Dono ka raasta
Dur jaake bhi mujhse tum meri yaadon main rehna
Kabhi alvida na kehna
kabhi alvida na kehna

Retarded...

2008-10-27T23:12:00.002+03:00

As usual...
Another new personality to instruct databases design & development came into our knowledge this evening. We expected something about databases but all we heard with the speed of light was about management sciences & its classifications. Well, I'm not sharing my sorrows with you, I'm enjoying my buddies & living the life as I should. One comes , the other leaves, life is just a fiction. Its great to have sheesha together & ofcourse how can I forget the traditional arabic sarookh. Yeah I know I'm too random.
Just had grape flavored sheesha, feeling good, now going back home in few minutes, oh man, I miss my car..& night will just pass as usaul, still looking forward for somethin good, may be if I see my lovely beautiful friends & my girl though...want you more every day.. No matter if we have an end together or not...just live the present happily...rock 'n' roll..

The Question

2008-10-23T05:39:00.003+03:00

It was around 1 am, we left cafe, listening Tupac all the way to Jade's place. As it was weekend so as usual we eat somewhere out together. We first stopped at the restaurant where we planned to have our meal, Shado called Jade and he was like busy in something so we planned instantly to just pick him up, as it was just a minute or two drive to his place. We reached his place in like 5 minutes or something, it was around 1:25 am. We waited for sometime, and then Jade came with something real serious. As Shado & me were listening music and talking random so didn't notice any noise around. Jade came wished us both, and told us something really weird about the recent happening across the road. Our Aunt just saw a car stopping off the road, in the dark, there were two guys in the car, one just came out and took two garbage bags from their car's trunk and threw those in the ditch. And then they left. After couple of minutes all wild dogs in that area started barking and all dogs gathered at the same ditch spot where that guy threw those bags. Now the question in our minds is, what was in those bags? its been more than 3 hours, dogs are still barking, what could be that weird?...It was far and too dark to see what could that be...

Random Discussions

2008-10-07T17:31:00.000+03:00

Hey there people, how is life treating you these days? So, Holy month of Ramadan just passed quickly, Eid festival went really awesome, I enjoyed with friends & families simultaneously. Had family gatherings as every year, went to family picnics, spent most of the time with relatives. It's always great to gather up after long time. Few things where unusual on this Eid, like hanging around with friends to fun places. Everyone say that Riyadh sucks bad, theres nothing to do here, but in these vacations I really felt that its totally upto you how you make your way out of loneliness & boredom, all you ever need is, a small group of cool friends around you.

We planned some hangout, the first night was crowdy & we really enjoyed playing pool at the famous Tahliya street, it was good to see date trees brighten up with lights, having fun on road is always a great entertainment everywhere. The second day just passed real cool & we planned a visit to the famous Thumamah dunes & the buggies. The next day we were there in our casuals & got one buggy each on rent, we had open space & nothing else than enjoyment. We had too much fun spinning around the buggies & few unexpected stunts. And yeah its real fun when your front wheel sedan gets stuck in the dune sand! Thanks to my buddies for making this Eid real wonderful & Thanks to Almighty Who has blessed us with such sweet relationships. Oh & this was my first blog using my mobile phone, it was cool experience. Thanks for reading my post, try spending two minutes to post a comment..

[Happy Birthday to Beloved Sobi...]

Ramadan Mubarak to All Muslim Brothers & Sisters

2008-09-01T02:16:00.000+03:00

By the Grace of Almighty we got another chance to seek forgiveness for our worldly sins. The month of Ramadan is the month of peace and affection. As Holy Quran tells about this Month; "The month of Ramadan in which was revealed the Quran, a guidance for mankind and clear proofs for the guidance and the criterion (between right and wrong). So whoever of you sights (the crescent on the first night of) the month (of Ramadan), he must fast that month, and whoever is ill or on a journey, the same number (of days which one did not fast must be made up) from other days. Allah intends for you ease, and He does not want to make things difficult for you. (He wants that you) must complete the same number (of days), and that you must magnify Allah for having guided you so that you may be grateful to Him" (2: 185). For your convenience, below are the prayer timings for this Month, calculated according to Um al Qura system;

Day	Ramadan	Gregorian	Fajr	Sunrise	Dhuhr	Asr	Maghrib	Isha
Mon	1	1/9	4:13	5:34	11:54	3:22	6:12	8:12
Tue	2	2/9	4:13	5:34	11:53	3:22	6:11	8:11
Wed	3	3/9	4:14	5:35	11:53	3:22	6:10	8:10
Thu	4	4/9	4:14	5:35	11:53	3:21	6:09	8:09
Fri	5	5/9	4:15	5:35	11:52	3:21	6:08	8:08
Sat	6	6/9	4:15	5:36	11:52	3:20	6:07	8:07
Sun	7	7/9	4:15	5:36	11:52	3:20	6:07	8:07
Mon	8	8/9	4:16	5:36	11:51	3:20	6:05	8:05
Tue	9	9/9	4:17	5:37	11:51	3:19	6:04	8:04
Wed	10	10/9	4:17	5:37	11:51	3:19	6:03	8:03
Thu	11	11/9	4:18	5:37	11:50	3:18	6:02	8:02
Fri	12	12/9	4:18	5:38	11:50	3:18	6:01	8:01
Sat	13	13/9	4:19	5:38	11:50	3:17	6:00	8:00
Sun	14	14/9	4:19	5:39	11:49	3:17	5:59	7:59
Mon	15	15/9	4:20	5:39	11:49	3:16	5:57	7:57
Tue	16	16/9	4:20	5:39	11:48	3:16	5:56	7:56
Wed	17	17/9	4:20	5:40	11:48	3:15	5:55	7:55
Thu	18	18/9	4:21	5:40	11:48	3:15	5:54	7:54
Fri	19	19/9	4:21	5:40	11:47	3:14	5:53	7:53
Sat	20	20/9	4:22	5:41	11:47	3:14	5:52	7:52
Sun	21	21/9	4:22	5:41	11:47	3:13	5:51	7:51
Mon	22	22/9	4:22	5:41	11:47	3:13	5:51	7:51
Tue	23	23/9	4:23	5:42	11:46	3:12	5:49	7:49
Wed	24	24/9	4:23	5:42	11:46	3:11	5:48	7:48
Thu	25	25/9	4:24	5:43	11:45	3:11	5:47	7:47
Fri	26	26/9	4:24	5:43	11:45	3:10	5:46	7:46
Sat	27	27/9	4:25	5:43	11:45	3:10	5:45	7:45
Sun	28	28/9	4:25	5:44	11:44	3:09	5:44	7:44
Mon	29	29/9	4:25	5:44	11:44	3:09	5:44	7:44
Tue	30	30/9	4:26	5:44	11:44	3:08	5:42	7:42

Note 1: Fajr means both Fajr Athan (Azan) and Imsak (starting fast) and Maghrib means both Maghrib Athan (Azan) and Iftar (breaking fast).

Note 2: Ramadan starting date is according to Makkah.

A Short Interview - Deepika Padukone - Bollywood Star

2008-08-11T04:21:00.000+03:00

Frustrated IT Professionals

2008-07-05T12:20:00.000+03:00

All images are subject to copyright material of Fdilbar.com

Saudi Arabia, a country for real men. Because you'll never find a lady roaming around, what only you'll see is, black talking shadows roaming in the market, this shows that there's no life for bachelors and young people, I'm sure you can see how frustrated IT pro's really are. In reality there is nothing to do in Saudi Arabia except working, eating and sleeping at your place, all I ever find in this country is bulk varieties of cuisines and good air conditioners to sleep in. Okay. Now let me share few memorable moments with you guys, expatriates like us are not just passing the life by, we're really living it here in Riyadh. This place really rocks! Even the shadows are living it the way it should be.

Rapid Planning and implementing of networks in organizations has never been as fast and easy for IT service providers as we just did in almost all of our fascinating networking projects. Implementing high speed gigabit networks with all latest technologies has never been so easy before. Designing a network on a piece of paper in one moment and implementing in the next. Until now our team of few professionals performed exclusively so well that they never gave up even if the network has worst ever conditions. Understanding client's needs and suggesting best solution which is always cost effective and enough relaible for dependency. Its always a great experience working with my team in any projects held until today. "When you take interest in everything you do, you'll never work." This is what goes on in our projects. Its always something newer and something which we cannot forget and especially if you're working with such stunning personalities as one shown below (lol...);

It sometimes happens to see multi talented IT professionals but its a rare case that an IT professional can be ... a pilot as well. Having a lot of beer during work and talking and sharing some real exclusions which you never share with anyone while working as one of our other team member used to say. For instance, sharing techniques of opening objects and then closing these opened objects, sometimes such discussions are quite disgusting and awful. Passing LAN cables from one place to another has never been so difficult as putting the roof top sealing back again and sometimes it so worst that it fells off to our team member's head (thank God it wasn't that serious) but you can imagine 1 kg of dust on the sealing falling off on you, below is an example;

Ouch... I hope he's doing fine now. And its even worse when two guys are just holding whole one row of sealings in the air and shouting for help, "fahad!! fahaaadd!!! idharr a yaaaar!!" and at last the guy comes for rescue and somehow the sealing gets placed properly. Placing the face-blades and modulars has never been an easy task, especially when you're working along with misterious creatures in your team.

It sometimes happens that you've to become a civil engineer while working on your IT project. Yes I'll show you one here. Making wrong use of machinary is always been a tradation in IT department. Surprising no one will argue with you, because you ... are an IT guy. (proud)
Heres how we hang up on the forklifter;

and we never comment on that, because I never understood why they both went up that way. Their expressions were like if they have been caught doing something, but its good that they were dressed up well with enough space. Okay back to the IT point now, doing wrong things and discussions sometimes let our project manager to cut wrong cables in hurry, its just like cutting grey hair from your head one by one but its another case that our manager seems to be all grey sometimes (married men you know :P);

I always said IT guys has nothing to do with telecommunication engineer's thing, but as I told you before that we got a pilot in our team, may be its that strange. And when the Germany made cutter is used to cut wrong cables, a different feelings occur. It was always a great missin to fix up one single duct somewhere on the wall in the ancient days of our previous projects, until we had something called "drilling machine". Before that technology we used to fix ducts somewhat like this;

A hammer?? yeah I know you must be thinking why the hell the hammer is being used? Well, in our ancient times unexpectedly we used all possible tools to nail the duct in the wall and often accidently we broke the ducts. Hanging out of window with hopes of love has never been stopped and pilots are never afraid of heights;

Oh, this reminds me of a joke totally irrelvant to this:

While sitting on the train one day, the man next to me started screaming,
"Call me a doctor! Call me a doctor!"
I asked, "Are you sick?"
"No," he replied, "I just graduated from medical school."

Okay, back to the point. So why IT pro's are so fraustrated of their work. Sometimes they even lay theirselves on office tables. I really don't know if something was going on in that room but I didn't find anything when I just took this snap unfortunately;

I hope you enjoyed. We provide all kinds of IT solutions in Saudi Arabia, for more information please don't hestitate to contact us.

Love & flirt - Online Dating - Relationships & Breakups

2008-06-27T20:29:00.000+03:00

A short Discussion
It always has been an important topic to everyone, some said love is just a thought, some said love really exists. in this post I'll really share something really delighted with you about my life.
I really know what love is, how it comes, how it touches you, how it searches each word beneath your breaths. for instance, You are passing by someone one day, something arose in your heart deep inside, the next day you again went to the place just to see if she is there walking on like yesterday, this happened for days, and at last one day suddenly you said Hi to her and talked to her, you find a positive response, You cannot stop this feeling for someone you feel is special. You may call this feeling something else but it always comes in different forms. The way you think about your special person whole day and whole night, whatever you'll do you first thought will be about him/her.

Now if this is true from both sides and the heat is in increments at the both corners then there is no way you can stop these love birds, but if one is true and the other just playing with feelings, then its like a heavy book on a broken glass table which can break it and fell down on you anytime without your notice. As one of my friend just blogged lately that internet is the best way to communicate these days, and it leads everyone to online dating, even when one is not wishing to get involved in some relationship this technology will make you spin yourself in this wave of tornado. It really depends on how true the person is whom you're talking to. Having someone on internet and getting strong feelings in a very less time is usual amongst us, I mean the frequent computer users, but not always you are ready to get hurt by someone. Especially ladies (a fact) get into love with every second guy on internet, they flirt and they love in real-time, for instance, the lady came online and shes all yours, you go offline and get online with another identity, add her up and check the love she'll have for you. So people playing around on the internet is a kind of misuse and disadvantage of this technology.

People often say that why not go to any paid online dating website and find your life partner, well may be it works somehow, but it could also be dangerous in other means, you really don't know when your guy leaves you. What I learned in my life and from my relationship is that, its all in your palm, if you keep this relation strong it will be unbreakable, but if you keep putting arguments on tiny things then this relationship would possibly end up very soon. If your guy did something wrong just forgive him and if your lady did something...vice versa. Human is made to do mistakes, but being too hard on your beloved ones will take your relationship no where, all you will get in free is a breakup. These days majority is just online for flirt and time to time relationships but its all of no use, but may be its useful or fun, if both ends are the same. Well, its easy to keep your relationship stronger, all you have to do is ignore and forgive all things done by your partner in mistake, and give a small lecture about it, and never ever argue, because arguments lead to fights and so on. Tell him/her if you didn't like something don't just bury it in your heart and keep on increasing things and later throwing everything out when you're arguing. Another aspect is, that you both compromise, it always happens that something is disliked by the lady and liked by the man, so there must be something that either man or woman both remain happy. Life is colorful if you're in love with someone. But its hell if you break up with nothing.
Wish you all the best with your relations. (and all my friends who're in relationships, I wish you all get married soon!)

Status Inspired Live Performance - 27th March 2008

2008-03-28T02:42:00.000+03:00

As a roodie of Status Inspired, the new rock band in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I would like to say that at last, by the Grace of Almighty, Status Inspired performed really well, and Thank you to all the supporters, all fans, visitors, its all your affection that let us perform like this, we hope that it was good enough for our introduction, we'll rock you soon in some individual band's performance, so keep yourself updated with our site, keep visiting it to get updates on our up coming events! Thank you!

- Status Inspired -
http://www.statusinspired.com

Feel free to give us your feedbacks and suggestions for future at:
info@statusinspired.com

Happy New Year 2008!

2007-12-31T18:05:00.000+03:00

KPMG MESA Annual Conference 2007

2007-11-25T09:32:00.000+03:00

KPMG MESA Annual Conference 2007

This was one of my best short-time projects I ever worked on. It was almost my first experience on such project but it helped me put myself on the high end. Couple of days back I just joined AMP (Arabian Marketing & Promotions), I just had a small meeting with Sayed Ibrahim the Head Projects Supervisor with one of my close friend who was already been working with them in couple of projects. It was not too late when the project actually started, the first guide meeting held in the Targets Leo Burnett office in Faisaliya Tower. As a part of the team they selected five team leaders of different teams including me. I was guided to look after all the happenings & to organize my colleagues under the lead of Ms.Ahoud & Mr.Nader Al-Sidawi (Leo Burnetts’ Employees).

My work started by filling up the folders with one colleague for welcome letters & correspondence to the guests visiting Riyadh as a part of KPMG’s conference, well it was fun filling up 125 folders with sudden alterations, & I remember the tasty Italiano sandwiches which we had in lunch in between, I don’t know who actually brought those sandwiches, I think it was doctor, but anyways thanks to whoever brought those, they were tasty though. So first day ended with the welcome letters & a bravo, it was funky too, a small radio type device, in fact it helped us too much especially when there was complete silence things were going bore I just buzzed Mr.Nader to say Hi.

Well, the second day was with the side meetings of KPMG, & I have to look after 3 different halls side by side as Mr. Nader guided. It was interesting too, some of the KPMG staff were really happy to see the pop-up banners; of course it was a different look. The second day passed all along in chill looking after the three halls.

Third day was the big one I guess, the Prince Sultan grand hall was fully arranged for the KPMG conference & all the VIPs & guests were sitting there. Everything went perfect. The fourth day was having the same kind of conference almost, with few alterations & further amendments in 3 more halls. Well while I was in the grand hall the presentations were being held, I really liked the presentations from the Saudi government natives who were the chief guests individually on both days, I was listening & watching the presentations in most of the times & after going through all those I guess Saudi is on the edge of improvements right now.

Few moments were really funny to me & my fellows working with me, such as the questionnaires & answers by the managers in response, in between one of our guy was not giving the mic to KPMG’s employee who was willing to ask something, whole hall was asking him to god damn it give the mic & he was saying No! like a 5 year old child, well you know whom I talking about. It was funny. At the end the Saudi traditional dance was presented & everyone enjoyed it a lot after sometime it was closed up with thanks by the KPMG to all guests & the organizing teams. At the end of this day we just packed up the banners and stuff. Yeah I didn’t get it why we had to pick up all the flowers & place them in the office upstairs, it was cool because in between we just had chill going up to the 23^rd floor, it was a great wow. And thus the fourth day passed out, but it was quite long I guess. And by the way I’m still waiting for the photographers email with our snaps. I’m sure he forgot it.

On the fifth day I had to look after 2 more side meetings in the same halls with Mr.Nader where I was in the beginning. It was a great time; a lot of new faces were there in those side meetings. Well friends, all I wanted to tell you guys by writing a real summarized happenings of this project is that I really enjoyed working in this project, it was all because of the friendly leadership I got & real respective people all around working along, thanks to everyone. I wish we could have such project again in future with the same spirit of hard work. Special thanks to leo burnett people.

I had a great laughter all along typing this, whatever you call it. Thanks for reading it.

Believe in Almighty Allah the most Gracious the most Merciful

2007-10-28T03:33:00.000+03:00

A young man had been to Wednesday Night Class of Quranic Studies.
The Mualim had shared about listening to Allah and obeying Allah through intuition.
The young man couldn't help but wonder, "Does Allah still speak to people through intuition?"

After Lessons, he went out with some friends for coffee and pie and they discussed the message. Several different ones talked about how Allah had led them in different ways and that at the end you'll know it was Allah(SWT) Who has directed you.
It was about ten o'clock when the young man started driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray, "Allah...If you still speak to people, speak to me. I will listen.
I will do my best to obey."
As he drove down the main street of his town, he had the strangest thought to stop and buy a gallon of milk.
He shook his head and said out loud, "Allah is that you?" He didn't get a reply and started on toward home.
But again, the thought, buy a gallon of milk came into his head.
"Okay, Allah, in case that is you, I will buy the milk." It didn't seem like too hard a test of obedience. He could always use the milk. He stopped and purchased the gallon of milk and started off toward home.
As he passed Seventh Street, he again felt the urge, "Turn Down that street."
This is crazy he thought, and drove on past the intersection.
Again, he felt that he should turn down Seventh Street.
At the next intersection, he turned back and headed down Seventh.
Half jokingly, he said out loud, "Okay, Allah, I will."
He drove several blocks, when suddenly, he felt like he should stop. He pulled over to the curb and looked around. He was in a semi-commercial area of town. It wasn't the best but it wasn't the worst of neighbourhoods either. The businesses were closed and most of the houses looked dark like the people were already in bed.
Again, he sensed something, "Go and give the milk to the people in the house across the street." The young man looked at the house. It was dark and it looked like the people were either gone or they were already asleep. He started to open the door and then sat back in the car seat.
"Allah, this is insane. Those people are asleep and if I wake them up, they are going to be mad and I will look stupid." Again, he felt like he should go and give the milk.
Finally, he opened the door, "Okay Allah(SWT), if this is you, I will go to the door and I will give them the milk. If you want me to look like a crazy person, okay. I want to be obedient. I guess that will count for something, but if they don't answer right away, I am out of here."
He walked across the street and rang the bell. He could hear some noise inside. A man's voice yelled out, "Who is it? What do you want?" Then the door opened before the young man could get away.
The man was standing there in his jeans and T-shirt. He looked like he just got out of bed. He had a strange look on his face and he didn't seem too happy to have some stranger standing on his doorstep.
"What is it?"
The young man thrust out the gallon of milk, "Here, I brought this to you."
The man took the milk and rushed down a hallway.
Then from down the hall came a woman carrying the milk toward the kitchen. The man was following her holding a baby. The baby was crying. The man had tears streaming down his face.
The man began speaking and half crying, "We were just praying. We had some big bills this month and we ran out of money. We didn't have any milk for our baby. I was just praying and asking Allah(SWT) to show me how to get some milk."
His wife in the kitchen yelled out, "I ask him to send an Angel with some.
Are you an Angel?"
The young man reached into his wallet and pulled out all the money he had on him and put in the man's hand. He turned and walked back toward his car and the tears were streaming down his face.
He knew that Allah (SWT) still answers prayers.
NOW HERE'S THE TEST....
If you believe that Allah (SWT) answers prayers, send this to everyone you care about and also the person that sent it to you!!!!!!!!!
If you do not send nothing will happen to you, but if you send you might just be sending someone hope and belief that Allah (SWT) hears our prayers and give hope to those who have already lost faith considering the situation most people.
Sometimes it's the simplest things that Allah (SWT) asks us to do, that enable us to understand His words clearer and better than ever.
Please listen, and obey!
It will bless you and others.

My Desire

2007-10-02T10:17:00.000+03:00

Enslave my heart's broken pieces...
And burn them deep in the fire...
Smell & breath the smoke out of it...
And let me once again desire...

Pick up the cold ashes...
And reborn my fragile heart with your magic...
Hold it, Watch it, Feel it, Love it...
And throw off with force and break it again...

Harass my heart dispassionate & see the broken pieces...
Kill the feelings, the senses which lay beneath...
Vanish the beatings & the beautiful rhythm of its' speed...
Write your name and rub it once again...

Still my heart scream harmonious words...
That I Love you undesirable...

Enslave my heart's broken pieces...
And burn them deep in the fire...
Smell & breath the smoke out of it...
And let me once again desire...

Getting High Alone

2007-09-30T22:29:00.000+03:00

You're my jaan...

So...I'm me...& Me is my jaan...

& jaan is Me...& I'm Me...

So you know...I love myself...My jaan in other words...

I miss few special personalities...

Who come in My thoughts...

& enslave My mind, rolled in their thoughts...

Upside down, My world...

Craze of something...something known as love...

Which people don't actually bother to understand...

Who cares...you don't care...I don't care...

But the one in it...really cares...

13 miles & the Smoke Pipe

2007-09-20T15:26:00.000+03:00

It was around 11:30pm Wednesday night September 19 2007, when Asia System’s team was on the way to rescue their helpless clients. The journey started with one medical center, all those beautiful faces roaming around & the voices wavering in the air (really I can’t forget those beautiful charmed eyes of one there). The meeting held with specific people in the center, after having a detailed talk of about two hours just passed in a blink (by the way I never knew, my colleague is a good photographer as that lady was really excited viewing him taking snaps, who knows they may be good friends or something). In the way back to our place, we found a porche with two saudi peeps requested our pilot for space, and our pilot just slow down the plane and the porche peeps got in the front with hopes of doing something irregular, but as it was just a saudi hope they changed their minds after looking at the most common blinking vehicle in riyadh (cops car). Later with best wishes to our favourite juice spot (mango village) and the hope to find it’s other branch, we had stopped at the next juice spot, had our usual mango pulp. After having a nice mango pulp we were on the way back home. After reaching my colleague’s area, he landed & parked his plane, I bought Marlboro whites for our pilot (which was unusual as well) instead of the old golden pack of Benson. Until now everything was full of hopes & unusual happenings.

Our pilot parked the plane right in front of his take off strip turned down the engines, when everything was silent we (asia systems’ team) came out of the plane and suddenly our pilot thought why not try to achieve our real goal for Wednesday night as it was planned before. Like this, our team checked the time & our pilot expected the time range in which we’ll reach our destination. It was 1:10am, as usual all engines were turned on, further ahead with normal takeoff etc. While in the air, there were too many air bumps according to our latest geographical system in our pilot’s plane, in specific speed, altitude, magnitude etc. we at last reached our destination with the best hope of our lives ever, to send a pair of shoes. Asia system’s team was inside the airport in search of someone really kind (which is quite rare these days). We found many typical desi people roaming around; our pilot requested many of them for the pair of shoes to be parcelled. But all we got was typical desi thoughts. As the bag in our pilot’s hands was black with suspicious looking pair of shoes in it. After all, our team was fully dishearten, and our pilot took out a cigarette and started smoking it (I’m not sure whether it was the new taste of Marlboro or the same old golden box). For then, our team came back as it entered the airport from the same way, from the same door. It was an unusual experience and a great treat from asia system’s pilot. As mission was completely failed, the team was back on its way home.

While being sarcastic as the takeoff was quite unusual, me and my colleague fasten on the seat belts (what I saw was, a complete new seat fastening system specially designed in for the cockpit). Until now everything was unusual. After a while when we were back, our pilot gave us a brief description of how a plane works and related stuff etc. and he shared some stories, one I remember in which he was sitting behind the pilot & pilot was really a punk and had some unique type of styles & was so cool to land the plane that only 13 miles were left & he Smoked his Pipe while landing with the population of 400+ people at the back seats (that was just awesome). And once when our pilot was in some local flight, and he became typical lala (typical peshawari guy) and just smashed one air hostess’ butt and acted as nothing happened and if something happened was just accidental and for his surprise there was no hard reaction. And once when that beautiful young airhostess was calling our pilot at the back of plane alone in the dark, but our pilot’s partner was not letting him go, as he was afraid of sitting alone (that was funny, but our pilot missed the chance). Later in the way, as our pilot never wanted to use built-in GPS in the plane he’s always manual, he just took a wrong exit as he was too sad for his treat to rest of the team with him. He asked me whether to take this exit, I just randomly said, “Yeah I think we should take this exit.” And our pilot took the exit because what he heard was, “Yeah I’m sure we should take this exit.” Well for that our pilot set the plane on auto for sometime & the plane came to its original route again.

Anyways, this inexplicable article was extremely dedicated to our so big team! And a guy whose not only my teacher but also a great friend. Cheers!