I find myself pondering about global economics, technology, innovation and where we might end up in the next 50 years. In this fast paced globe change is perpetual and I find it fascinating, and eve though I’m no economist but perhaps these books will help stimulate my mind to a better understanding of things to come in the near future?

You can find these all on Amazon, download them to your PC or read them on your Kindle device:

You Are Not A Gadget, by Jaron Lanier

Crisis Economics, by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm

The Great Stagnation, by Tyler Cowen

Listen to me PLEASE; you’re like ME, a homosapiens, a wise human …

Please note that due to restrictions placed on this video I cannot directly embed it here on my blog the traditional way, please watch this inspiring and thoughtful video on You Tube.

It’s been a while since i’ve done a stack of supplements that has worked so well for me.  My goal was to bulk to about 250/260 lbs. and then cut down to about 235 lbs LBM—and those extra 20 (from 220 t0 240) were pretty easy to add on thanks to the Cellucor products.

With the right diet and nutrition it took about 3 months to add the extra poundage; i stacked M5, P6, and N0 all together for the ultimate in muscle pumps and weight gain (previously it’s taken me 8-12 months to make quality gains upto 20 lbs).

If you’re looking to make gains, or bulk up Cellucor has the right products for you; a little on the expensive side but well worth each and every cent. Note that these supplements are not for the faint hearted so if you’re going to use them make sure that you know what you’re doing-the creatine especially will give you a hell of a kick.

For folks who might want to tone down they also have a set of weight loss series.  I’ve never tried them, however i have a feeling they are will give you the results that you want.

You see so many people in the gym coming in day in and day out without making any progress whatsoever.  Most of the time its a nutrition and diet issue, they just don’t eat the appropriate amounts of food.  Having said that, supplements will always help you out—but please for heavens sake don’t supplement supplements for the food you need to intake.

I’m a big believer in “Quality”, and its what keeps me alive in this business. Its also what attracts others to my work and that is what keeps me satisfied => to grow and grow “the right way” with the web.

Having said that its true that many people do compromise on the quality that they deliver for their clients (especially in Pakistan) and thats a real shame, to say the least….

A good example of what i mean here is at Obaids blog where he talks about the Dawn website and it’s redesign. I mean a huge newsgroup like Dawn cant even develop a decent portal for their users??

I have talked to so many people about this but they just look at me and say “Oh thats an awesome site!!” After all most of them dont have anything to compare it with, nor do they care to. Obaid is one individual that steps up and isnt afraid to speak out loud and have people here his voice. And thats a good thing..

Reasons why “A quality driven approach” in all its entirety has helped me, and might help you too

1. Get noticed and fast with quality over quantity: Might is right just doesn’t work anymore. Try and revel in the LIM Approach (Less is More!)
2. Satisfaction: A deep feeling of satisfaction is achieved when you put the desired effort into your work. At the end of the day if you feel good about your work, you will never work a day in your life.
3. Staying out of your comfort zone: When approaching a solution try and move away from your comfort zone and target higher-end technologies that you don’t really know about. Higher end solutions are always quality driven…
4. Build Confidence: Confidence is one of the keys to success in any business and especially with the ever-changing web. Start out by actually implementing what you have learned into your solutions on a day to day basis.
5. Setting yourself apart from the rest of the pack (Individualism): This is debatable here in Pakistan, nevertheless I still believe that you should distinctly separate your work from the rest of the pack. A v

Ultimately the above reasons is why i have stuck to my guns in the last year and half or so. I could have easily gone the “average” way but what fun and challenge would that be. I like to push myself, and really feel that the youngsters here in Pakistan should also.

If anyone is interested in group learning sessions where we can exchange ideas about how to improve ourselves i am ready.

For free Ruby on Rails training and awareness please visit our company blog

So you want to your services/products/solutions to be “heard” all over the world. Sure we all have our present and future clients, but the ambitious and smart ones will pay the little extra they need to get them out there!! Gosh only knows where you can earn extra revenue streams especially with current economic situation…

I was doing some research about email marketing (as i am a complete noob) and came across many sites. The one i liked the most was Campaign Monitor an Australian company and email marketing experts.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT CAMPAIGN MONITOR VS. THE REST OF THE PACK

• I liked their site alot which attracted me at first impression. Love the web 2.0 and blog stuff as well
• Content was clear and it was extremely easy to get around to where i wanted.
• Pricing for campaigns and emails is extremely competitive
• They offer free email templates as well
• They have an awesome client list and show it off right there on the home page. One of the clients was 37Signals which i was really pleased to see!
• I found out just about everything i need to know about inline CSS, email clients, designing for different Email client, etc etc at their Tips & Resources section
• Different payment plans for those who dont have credit cards. You can also Pre-Purchase credits

To sum it all up its an awesome place to visit, learn and perhaps even buy some credits. I will be thats for sure…

At the end of the day you can be an awesome company with great services and solutions, but you need to have your voice heard and across the globe (if you are good and ambitious!).

Campaign Monitor will help you get your message across!!!

Often while working throughout the day I seek inspiration from different sources. If you watch TV, read the papers, or get your information from the web you will read about “successful” people who have made it in this world.

Success comes in all industries, and I feel that the drive to nurture your talents and never give up hope remain the most valuable lessons learned. You can be sure that these people believed in themselves, planned and worked their asses off to get to an established level.

I just wanted to share with you some people that i took inspiration from today.

KATY PERRY:

Perry was born in Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The middle child of two pastors, she grew up listening to gospel music and singing in church. She graduated from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California in 2003 and immediately moved to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen. She changed her surname to Perry because “Katy Hudson” was too close to Kate Hudson. Perry is her mother’s maiden name.

If you have listened to her music ever, its not her looks who attract me (though she is awesome); its more her voice and style that gets me going.

Talk about being a natural..

SARA FROM ON-SIMPLICTY:

Here is another example of a young woman who has a great writing talent and ability to reach out to the general users out there. She blogs at ON-SIMPLICITY about about creating a happier, easier, more enjoyable life for yourselves. Well done Sara, to me the basic’s are Keeping it Simple (no matter what situation you are faced with).

THE FIVE RUNS TEAM:

FiveRuns delivers simple, elegant and affordable products for instrumenting, monitoring and managing Rails application performance.
I got to hand it to the team, their work is extremely impressive. You can see that they have cultivated their talents over the years and come together to form Five Runs as the pinnacle of achievement. True Bliss Fellas, just true bliss. Thats what dreams are made of…

ALINA POPESCU

I’m impressed with Alina’s style of writing and consistent detailing. I feel women are doing very well these days, and this is just one of them whom i think will do very well for herself in the coming years. It’s people like her who will come out considerable better than others in the year 2009+. She is starting her own company soon, and i wish her the best of luck!!

Catch her at her blog: Words of a Broken Mirror

GEOFFREY GROSENBACH

Geoffrey is a serious Rails Developer and founder of PeepCode; a site dedicated to Rails screencasts. Geoffrey has done whole hell of lot for the Rails community and blogs over at: NubyonRails

BAHT (The Reindeer Lover):

Baht is from Mongolia, and herds reindeers for a living. He lives with the reindeer in a tent on some plains near a mountain. His love for reindeer runs deep as he has dedicated his whole life to herding them; this tradition was passed on down for generations.

He trades reindeer antlers to the neighboring Chinese, just to stock up on supplies (flour, wheet, rice etc etc) for the year. Can you imagine living in the freezing cold and having to relocate somewheres away from the snow capped mountains 10 times a year.

Baht is a great example of a passionate man, untainted from the complexities this world throws upon us. Baht, dude i couldn’t find your pic so i added a reindeer one instead. Though is likely you will never see this post, rest assured that there are people who adimire your character.

JON DAHL

I wanted to mention Jon from RailsSpikes (I believe he is also a member of the Five Runs team, or collaborates with them someway.) After reading his post about Running in Packs vs. Going it alone, i was seriously impressed with the amount of intelligence and insight this man has. (he’s not just technically sound, but seems to have a thorough knowledge of the business side as well)

I’m tired of hearing people complain about their work, and or jobs. I mean you spend at least 8 hours a day (for the normal people) and 12 hours (for the ambitious) at work. Couldn’t you like it a little more? If you are tired of the game, then get out of it and try a new one, one that you can be good at!

NaviStudio a leading Turkish Design Company has received a prestigious Web Site of the Day Award from the FWA.

NaviStudi has created one of the best websites ever says FWA for the site Egofoto.

I have recently joined twitter with the effort to start followng those bloggers i love (and with the hope that after some time someone follows me as well).  Get to my twitter page here:

Within this short time i came across a cool Adobe Air App for twitter users.  Refer to sceeshots below: 

A great little Adobe Air App for twitter users

What is TweetDeck?

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.

Additional Features

• Catch up with overnight global twitterings as TweetDeck stores all updates whilst running
• Continual status updates of TweetDeck and Twitter
• Resize TweetDeck as either an unobtrusive column, full screen or anything in between
• Especially useful running full screen on a separate monitor
• Filter tweets up to 48 hours using the Timeframe bar
• Auto updates from the Twitter API

You may find the application here:  http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
Make sure to get Adobe Air:  http://get.adobe.com/air/

I had been forwarded these websites that i found very interesting and extremely insightful by a colleague and friend of mine Hassan Salahuddin.  The first one which is a crash course on the global economy from Chris Martenson’s “End of Money” seminar, and is in the form of a mini presentation. 

Good news is that they decided to use the flash player to present the crash course to the world!  Whats great is that its a series of slide shows with Chris speaking and expanding on the points ilustrated.  Its a must see for anyone who wants to know where the economy is headed in the future.  Best of all its free and split up into concise chapters.  The demise of Lehman Brothers is a good example of what this article talks about.The second is from very informative website called the energy bulletin. 

The specific title of the article is “Closing the ‘Collapse Gap’:  the U.S.S.R. was better prepared for collapse than the U.S.”  A great article written by Dmitry Orlov with excellent examples describing how close the U.S. might be to collapsing on both fronts (economic and political).  I have marked the slides that i thought were interesting.  Go and check it out for yourself, there are alot more slides to learn from.  Lastly i would like to say that i am not an “American” hater, and even Dmitry stated that the Americans would not be happy to read this article.  Its just about knowledge to me, and to everyone at the end of the day!!

NONOBA MULTIPLAYER API
Nonoba.com, have released an easy to use, fully hosted and free Multiplayer API for flash developers. This should allow pretty much anybody with rudimentary flash skills to create multiplayer games, without any hosting costs.They have been working with multiplayer flash games on our own server technology for a long time, and during that time a lot of flash developers and companies have approached us for access or licensing of that technology. This made them realize that there is a huge demand for a great flash multiplayer API, so decided to wrap it up into an easy to use API and release it as a free hosted service. The API supports the full range of multiplayer games, from simple turn based games to more complicated real-time games.

NEW MICRO PAYMENT API
Nonoba Payment is a Flash API, for ActionScript 2 & 3, which allows any game developer to charge real money, from a few cents to hundreds of dollars, for their in-game content. The developer receives 70% of all revenue, while we use 30% to cover transaction-fees, fraud, and management of purchased items. It’s the same split as Apples iPhone App Store, and we think it’s a pretty good deal and a great way for a game developer to make some actual money from their hours of hard work. Games developed with Nonoba Payment work everywhere on the Internet.

HOW PAYMENT WORKS
Payment happens inside the game, and when the payment is done, the user can continue playing the game with the additional unlocked content. While they currently only support PayPal as a payment method, they are working hard at negotiating deals with additional payment methods like Premium SMS, promotion based payment, and credit cards for all countries.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE DEVELOPER
Game developers have complete freedom over what they want to sell, and the price they wish to charge for it. The system is not limited but supports a lot of different payment models: trial-to-purchase, level packs, upgrades, micropayment for mini-upgrades, or simply asking for donations. It’s up to the developer to figure out how they want to monetize their game.