World Flag

I just saw Robert Scoble's post on Google+ about the flags at Apple HQ flying half mast.

And I thought there needs to be a world flag to hosted there as well.

And why don't we have a world flag? A flag to represent the whole of mankind?

How I Overcame My Email Checking Addiction & You Can Too.

Does anyone close their browser after checking their email nowadays? Gmail even has a lab feature which reveals the number of unread emails on the browser tab.

Gmail - I can't live without it & can't live with it :)

Now, if you have short attention span like me, you really struggle to ignore the email as soon as you are notified of its delivery.

I have tried many ways to make myself stop checking my mail every few minutes & truth be told, I don’t receive more than 2-3 ‘useful’, ‘worth dealing with’ emails in a day. The point I am making is that all the above really make for unproductive, disappointing & not to forget distracting time.

It all happened by accident. I have had a ‘love it’/ ‘hate it’ relationship with Firefox for years & now with the latest releases, I am almost truly in the ‘love it’ crowd. It is just an amazing browser. (I am not going to go on a tangent & share why I think Firefox is superior to other browsers in this post).

One of the strong points about Firefox is the availability of add-ons (extensions) & one of my favourites is Firebug. No self-loving, self-respecting developer could/ should/ would live without it.

Unfortunately, Firebug also slows down Firefox. So, one day, in a Eureka moment, I thought, why not create separate profiles, one for the ‘Web Development’ work & the other for normal surfing. The idea being that I will only install the add-ons relevant to each profile, i.e. Firebug in ‘Web Development’ profile & as an example, ’Read it Later’ in ‘Web Surfing’ profile. Following the same logic, The ‘Web Development’ profile is not to be used for emails, web surfing & other than work related searches. Vice Versa, ‘Web Surfing’ profile is only for surfing & not for web development.

I did a quick Google search & it turns out that Firefox 3.6 used to have a profile manager already built in & Mozilla stripped it out of Firefox 4.0. A quick second search resulted in a link to a separate Mozilla program which helps you set-up multiple profiles within moments. And a wonderful program it is, very easy & you don’t ever have to install it. Just download, extract & run! Awesome.

Here is a quick walkthrough of how to set it up.

Download it from Mozilla FTP.

Extract the files & run the profilemanager.exe

Create a new profile by clicking on the 'new' button on the top left menu.

Just enter a profile name, I'd recommend leaving the other options as are.

And that is it. Now, instead of using the Firefox icon, use the 'Profile Manager' exe file to start Firefox.

It is worth mentioning that each profile will need its own add-ons installation & even if you previously had add-ons installed, you will have to install again. Though, that does not take long does it? :)

A bit of motivation

When I used to frequent the London Bridge gym, while walking through the London Tube station, I would always enjoy the 'Art on the Underground' series of posters. Fortunately, I captured one of my favourites one day and now, after almost three years, I am happy to post it online :)

" Nothing is worth more than this day "

                                               Johanne von Goethe

A long due post... with excitement!

I have been meaning to write posts for a while now & every time I decide to write a blog post, something comes up. Oh, who am I kidding, (I myself apparently).

Truth be told, I just get lazy or get distracted by something more Coca Cola (immediately satisfying but hardly useful in the long run).

I have read quite a few amazing books over the past many months worth raving about here on my blog. Now thankfully, there is no written law prohibiting me from sharing some of the book's names, if only the names.

First & one that immediately comes to mind is 'Girls of Riyadh', a wonderfully entertaining & delightful story of four girls & their quest for love in the conservative Saudi society. Considering the many years we spent in Saudi Arabia, the story was all the more vivid for me & the finale nicely wrapped it all up & was just as satisfying as the rest of the book. After finishing the book, I did wonder what those girls must be upto now, which is always a good sign.

'Girls of Riyadh' was quite informative but hardly educational which is where 'The Checklist Manifesto' comes in. A book about... checklists (!?!). And its good!

Atul Gawande makes an excellent case for how inspite of all the explosion of knowledge, we still have not been able to correct some of the most basic mistakes we can possibly make, thereby leading to the very disasters advanced sciences are suppose to help us solve & avoid. Answer comes in the form of, yes, checklists. Atul cites many case studies (most are relevant to his profession of surgery) to deliver the message home & it works.

Let me just say, I make checklists everyday, in my paper diary, yes a paper diary! You need to read this book.

I think many people know the story of Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in US. Randy died of pancreatic cancer in 2008. Before he died, Randy wrote an essay book with a friend & gave a talk at the university titled 'The Last Lecture'. I watched Randy's presentation on youtube a while back & decided to read the book as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

For someone with a low attention span, I actually found the book much more insightful than the youtube video & it has more of Randy's stories. And great stories they are.

Some of the stories that really stuck with me were the ones on team play & the story of Sandy Blatt & Jackie Robinson. Read the book to find out, you'll be glued to it till the end. Oh & its free too!

I just had to share this:

Its a bit old but this is an amazing display of naivety, ignorance and just plain pathetic leadership:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5878525/Pakistan-president-Asif-Zardari-bans-jokes-ridiculing-him.html 

Beautiful faces

I love this! Absolutely love it.

This is an image of aveage features of nationalities of a few countries. What is so amazing is that each is so beautiful and gorgeous... and this is just 'average' face.


FACES

Wi-Tribe is a pathetic ISP... be warned

If I really wanted to sink low, I would love to add a few expletives to the title.

I have been trying to upload one Youtube video (45MB) and the connection doesnt hold up.

First of all, Im paying almost the same rate for 1MB connection here in Pakistan that I would pay for a 24+MB connection in London. Here Wi-Tribe (my ISP) is offering only 12GB for monthly allowance, in London I had unlimited connection. Here, Wi-Tribe caps the torrent and download speed to 24kb. How pathetic!

First of all, the 12GB allowance and then they cap the speed as well, people, this is what you get for living in a third world country with a pathetic leadership and even more pathetic service providers.

You guessed right, Im quite annoyed and really wanted to air my view on how unfair the customer treatment is over here: basically non-existent.