Failasuf Chi-Town

Quoted from a book I bought years ago at Toronto’s RIS. Says the Brazilian Catholic new-age novelist Paolo Coelho,

Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won’t suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back — and at some point everyone looks back — she will hear her heart saying, “What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of losing those talents. So this is your heritage: the certainty that you wasted your life.”

Pitiful are the people who must realize this. Because when they are finally able to believe in miracles, their life’s magic moments will have already passed them by.

By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Alert! Special guest at the MSD-Chicago Eid Ceremony, Dato Seri Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis, the new embassador of Malaysia to the United States, stated in his speech to the students that he is using a fake name in Facebook to unearth talented Malaysian students in America to be placed in top American corporations. Ah, better bloat my Facebook…

As a side note, you can catch a recording of the live performance of Purdue’s Hujan at the same ceremony on Facebook. Somewhat of an irony though, that the crowd cheered them sing the humanitarian-themed song of M Nasir’s Salam Dunia, when it was invoking us to reflect on the world’s suffering.

Youtube has been flooded with underhanded marketing and ever stricter copyright laws. Despite its vast audience, the sheer junk on Youtube once turned me into a huge proponent of Blip and other newer services that offer flexible video lengths and resolutions. That was until recently I left the States, I realized how slow Blip is, likewise all the other video-sharing sites like dailymotion, vimeo and metacafe. Blip, in fact, is practically useless in the region I am in now. Youtube on the other hand, still almost smoothly plays any video here and is the only place I go for videos now. And that is why, Youtube will continue to have an edge internationally.

If you’re going to stick with free themes and tweaking the heck out of it, you’re wasting precious time. Using free illegally distributed premium themes, is, sorry to say, stealing. Fighting the tempation to steal, I purchased a $20/yr subscription unlimited access at elegantthemes.com many months ago. So far very happy. Good community, responsive technical support, cheap price (compare, $175+ per theme at woothemes), a lot of custom options, easy to modify, loose usage stipulations. Only flip-side is, since its such a good bang for the buck, chances are those themes start becoming ubiquitous like the free ones. But for those who can customize it, I highly recommend elegantthemes.

Here is my latest wordpress-based website -> http://www.fiqe.org

I employed a similar magazine theme style frontpage to my previous work at al-furqaan.org. I did learn a lesson with that site, that the graphics was too heavy. Thus FIQE was designed with lightness in mind.

Problem: I can follow other people’s tweets, but how to get hundreds of people to follow your marketing tweets?
Answer: A bit new to Twitter, so I’m still looking for a practicle answer lest I strike twitter off as a marketing avenue. Anyone know?

Drupal is impractically flexible.
Joomla is sluggishly powerful.
Wordpress is simply amazing.

Time required: Couple of days side-work
Learning curve: Very easy

Problem: You can’t send a message out to more than 20 people at one time. How do you send a message to hundreds of people?
Answer: Create facebook group page and add all the hundreds of people to your group. Use “Message All Members” function.

Here’s the rough steps if you dont understand above answer:

1. Identify facebook groups that are relevant to your target audience. Ex: In my case, I am promoting a dawah site, so I look for facebook groups related to dawah like Fans of Ahmad Deedat or generally Islamic like university Muslim Student Associations.

2. Search for the above facebook groups, then click on members. It will pull up list of members of that group/fan page. Add each name to your friends list. This is tedious work, but doesn’t require concentration or mental energy. You could be listening to e-books, watching TV or listening to the Quran while doing this.

3. Keep searching for other relevant groups and keep adding people till facebook tells you’ve reached your limit.

4. After a few days, you should have at least a couple hundred people in your friends list. Now go to Profile > Info > Click See All under Groups title. Setup a facebook group for whatever you are doing.

5. Click on Friends, then Create New List. Add everybody to your list.

6. Go to your group page and select invite people to join. From there, find Filter Friends and select your custom list. Click select all.

7. To send mass message, go to your group page and select Message All Members.

Dear family and friends, stay updated with my ongoings through my picasa phone-camera diary RSS feed.

Alas, the predicted calamity descended upon me. It is not a self-fulfilling prophecy for that refers to desirable outcomes only. What is studied is a science, as it yields predictable outcomes. It is not natural but rather supernatural, not physical but metaphysical. In good and bad times, I worship the same God. Of course, when thus arrives the advice from Senegal, I can only say hasbunallah wa ni’mal wakeel.

Akal… bukanlah gadget mainan. Yang diucapkan ialah membunuh nafsu, bukan bunuh jasad! Mereka bicara tentang jasmani, saya pula ruhai! Tapi apakan daya, sudah terlanjur kata.