• By
  • 31/07/09 at 14:32
  • 1

Life: Mistakes, Lessons or Fate?

Hi All,

That had been a comment on  a blog I’ve wrote recently on Dina‘s blog Chosen Odyssey.

Take your time to believe that which you are conventionally expected to believe. We are not expected to make any mistakes, but are there any absolute mistakes in Life’s lessons?

Well Dina, to respond to the question we had to define 2 words “perception” and “mistake”.

Going back to the concept of paradigm shifting, and the fact that the image formed in our minds about a certain issue is nothing more than a formation from our past experiences and what we grew up believing from the our community and that image will, accordingly, differ between people, as they have different experiences and may be, cultural or religious background.

So, the perception of a “mistake” will differ widely between people.

In Engineering when someone ask for “the best” solution, he shouldn’t be given an answer till he defines all the variables associated with his problem. For example: What’s the best programming language to learn. the response had to be it depends! What applications are you going to develop, what’s your background in the topic, how much time you can dedicate for that .etc

When you go for a competition, you might be the most experienced or most knowledgeable among the competitors but you might not win! Why, they’re mostly judging based on a set of variables that might not be set the right way, they might be judging your technical writing skills and you’re the most qualified craftswoman .etc

So, when I say, I made a mistake or someone made a mistake, I defined some variables that I saw fit in that situation, and judged that based on my previous experience or background. And surely there is something I didn’t take into consideration when doing so, especially if we’re talking about life events.

But there is still things that’s considered to be mistakes by everyone, for example cheating on partners, is that a mistake or not? everyone knows that it’s a mistake.

So, everyone will pick a set of variables to judge actions, these variables might be coming from his own experience, the perception of his community, or religious teachings.

As believers, we’re supposed to believe in Al-Qadr or the Fate. As it’s among the 6 articles of faith for Muslims. That what happened, god wanted it to happen, and it’s the absolute good for us.

That concept might be hard to understand and believe, but much harder to practice while we’re in the acme of troubles.

That article will communicate what I want to say better, when it comes to perceiving actions as god’s will and as a result, it might be “wrong” or “mistakes” according to a certain standard, but for us it’s god’s will.

Attributes of Allah “The all Wise” check that article:
http://www.nabulsi.com/english-nab/ideology/names/names-24.php

We as humans aren’t knowledgeable enough to find out all the variables associated with our life problems or situations, and as a result, while we do our best to approach the solution based on the variables we’re able to define, we should trust the ultimate knowledgeable entity which is aware of all the variables, and whether what we wanted worked or not, that was our fate, and god’s will.

We haven’t done a mistake, if we do that, even if we didn’t reach what we wanted.

You know, that’s the core belief of being a Muslim. Islam means submission to God. Which means accepting god as the all knowledgeable and submitting our will to him as he only knows the best for us.

- Abdo

Sharing Link: http://abdo.me/cp685n

  • By
  • 29/07/09 at 00:29
  • 3

Ending my Facebooking Career!

Hey There,

I had been investing so much time on FB lately, and just tonight get back to PHP with MySQL beyond the basics from Lynda.com which I started 3 weeks ago and had to stop to take care of my starting FB pages first.

Today, ending my career as a Facebooker and marketer, getting back to Geekdom! All projects pages are up & running with 120+ fans

http://facebook.com/aladhamweb > 631
http://facebook.com/abdo.me > 353
http://facebook.com/DeveloperMan > 193
http://facebook.com/EgyptDesigners > 154
http://facebook.com/Egypreneur > 122
http://facebook.com/Helwaan > 203

Updates to be submitted to pages from TwitterFox during breaks! and that’s plain AWESOME!

Of course, I’ll still be there, but hope to make it to be rarely, as it’s a huge time waster!

Stay cool :)

- Abdo

Sharing Link: http://abdo.me/6fcp7n

  • By
  • 28/07/09 at 10:37
  • 1

Hollywood seeking Muslims and Arabs

Hi All,

That guy keep bringing me incredible laughs!

Just to clarify something, Muslims does come from every ethnicity and background so you can’t define someone as Muslim by look, and Arabs make 18% only of the total population of Muslims.

- Abdo

Sharing Link: http://abdo.me/g78hzb

  • By
  • 27/07/09 at 05:25
  • 1

Isn’t that racism??

Hi All,

Was taking some Facebook quizzes and everything was going funny and okay, till decided to take that “What’s your true age” quiz, where I had been asked for my race:

racism

Shouldn’t that be considered racism or Arabs and Middle Eastern people are classified as one of the above? Anyway, won’t take the quiz!! till getting answers!

I’m a Middle Eastern, Arab, Egyptian, why didn’t the quiz creator take that into consideration while making the quiz?!!

- Abdo

Sharing Link: http://abdo.me/3scba8

  • By
  • 26/07/09 at 09:39
  • 0

Politics Illustrated: Free Chocolate for Everyone!!

Hi All,

Thankfully, two posts a week as minimum hadn’t been broken so far, and I’m hoping to find more time to blog more frequently. General updates will be added as I get other projects I’m currently working on stabilized.

So, this time I’m inspired by a Facebook conversation with Sami with a little bit unusual political views!!

Political Views: Free chocolate for everyone party

Actually, related to that, we had the following conversation:

Abdo: Hey, how is your political career going? “Free chocolate for everyone party”! I haven’t got mine yet.

Sami: Hey you, I am just packing the free chocolate for everyone and I will pack an extra ounce one for you :) ))) *

Abdo: So, I’ll get two, I’d join your party, though :)

Sami: Hmmm, so you’d like to serve me or my party?! Or both?!! ;) ))))

Abdo: Oh, so you see yourself excluded from your party? Who’s packing the free chocolate?

I got it, so the 2 chocolates I’m getting one from your party, and the other from you.

So, from a strict political mentality I’d say, “I’d support you inside your political party till reaching the presidency. This way I’ll always guarantee my free chocolates will be increasing”.

Sami: Materialist!!! :) )))

Abdo: LOL no, just a politician :)

Sami: You look too young to be a politician! ;) ))

Abdo: It’s the experience in our years that makes us great politicians. the ability to twist, deceive and manipulate people. joking!

There is no one too young to work in politics, but there is people who’s too kind to work in politics, just like yourself, Sami :)

———

And yes, this is politics illustrated!! wherever you are, within your family, at work, or even in a charity organization, that’s the principle of everyday politics:

What’s in it for me – how can I get what I want and keep it coming.

That’s why Free Chocolate for everyone party, will find hard time surviving in a political environment. Except they have an intelligent man like myself leading them, I’ll be doing a great job for humanity too, with loads of free chocolate to manage.

What a devoted, sincere, public-centered leader am I?!!

- Abdo

** Published with Sami’s approval.

Sharing Link: http://abdo.me/wzkn4a

  • By
  • 22/07/09 at 13:40
  • 1

Reaching Out (2) – Starting an Online Business

Hi All,

This speech had been delivered by myself July, 21, at Cairo ToastMasters club.It was my 4th speech at the competent communicator track where my objective was “How To Say It” so while preparing this speech my main emphasis was picking the right words and forming the right phases and getting away from using jargon or difficult words. This speech is supposed to be from five to seven minutes.

By the way, I’ll rewrite the content in more details and publish it and make Vlogs about it in the future, really delivering these speeches inspired me with some business ideas that I’ll be executing in the coming few months. here, on DeveloperMan and Al-Adham Web Solutions.

Introduction

Last time we stated general points in reaching out to people on the internet and gave basic steps you had to follow in order to be successful in your online communication using different social networks. Let’s remember, it was “Be there, participate, engage and then personalize” Last Speech

This time, we’ll explore a new model of what’s called online businesses, where there is no physical office and business is totally being ran online by a freelancer or a team of freelancers. The same ideas apply to a company trying to expand its client-base through the internet.

This business model is found to be convenient by designers, programmers, IT professionals, writers and consultants.

There is 4 major steps that you should follow to run a successful online business.

Present

The first obvious step in running a successful online business is to have a strong online presence, that’s a website; the idea about your business is being reflected through your website, putting a small investment on getting your website done professionally will save a lot of troubles on the long run.

Having your own domain name is essential; it’s strange seeing some people still seeking to run online businesses using a freely hosted blogs or websites, investing $10 and getting your own domain name and email, is an essential step to run a successful online business. So, present yourself professionally, chose the right domains and create the right email addresses.

I remember when I was having a “computer networks” course with participants who were elder than me, I was eighteen at this time and most of them were at their mid or late twenties. We exchanged our contact information, and I gave them my fancy email at this time which was abdo37_sk3, the next session I accidentally heard a discussion where someone was asking have you added them, not all, look at that email, what an idiot! Why should I add him!

After that, I got my emails sorted out professionally, so having your own domain and emails will not only give your audience the smell of professionalism, but will save you from being labeled as an idiot too.

Seek

It’s not hard to get a professional online presence, it’s usually very quick and affordable, the difference is made by the marketing plan this online business will utilize to reach out to people.

Having a few pages about your business, won’t be more than getting some other pages stuck on the already dense internet, if it’s not backed by a strong marketing plan. The ultimate goal from marketing an online business should be putting your website in front of interested prospects’ eyes. The most famous techniques are:

The regular PR work: building relations with other already popular sites, adding the site to business directories

Paid advertising: where you can seek to show your website to a specific group of people filtered by age, gender or location interested in something specific.

SEO or search engines optimization: is helping your website being found by prospects searching for a certain keyword that you chose to optimize the website for.

Involve

The next step would be getting the visitors involved with the site the moment they see it to ensure it won’t be just a onetime visit. The repetition of the marketing message is what will convince those visitors to become interested and finally use your services. Some tools that are being used to involve visitors with the site are:

Newsletter: Is collecting visitors’ emails and sending them regular Email updates about your business, which is being considerably replaced by the next point.

Business blogs: Where articles and updates are being posted regularly on a part of the website and the audiences get involved with that content, by commenting and interacting.

Widgets: Involving people would be by finding where they frequently are, for example if they’re using Facebook regularly why not to make a Facebook page to your business and interact with them on it, you’ll find these widget things that will help you connect your site or blog with other famous networks where it’ll be much more easier for people to involve with you.

Manage

Congratulations, you’re now winning projects, and people are asking you to get their projects done. There is a lot of online communication and project management tools that will help you manage your projects effectively, starting from an IM and VoIP service like Skype, through which you can chat and talk with your clients to full project management tools and client management applications, where the client can check all the information about his project on a certain part of your website.

Conclusion

Through these four steps professional presentation, seeking the right audience, involving and engaging visitors and getting them interested in your service and finally managing the projects and the client communication the right way.

We could now, congratulate you on joining the league of successful online entrepreneurs.

Thanks

- Abdo

Sharing Link: http://abdo.me/dzv9gb