Maah-e-Ramazan Aaya... Ramadan has come!! [Urdu / English

Hearing the Clamour about the New Moon...

 

شور مہ نو سن کر تجھ تک ميں دواں آيا
ساقی ميں ترے صدقے مے دے رمضاں آيا

Shor-e-Mah-e-Nau sun kar tujh tak main dawaaN aaya
Saqi main tere sadqay, mayh day, Ramazan aaya!

Hearing the clamour about the new moon, I, rushing to you have come;
O’ Saqi, I will forever be yours, bring me some drink, Ramadan has come!

اس گل کے سوا ہر گل باگوش گراں آيا
ديکھے ہی گی اے بلبل جب وقت فغاں آيا

Iss gul kay siwa har phool baagosh giraaN aaya
Dekhe hi gee ay bulbul jab waqt-e-faghaaN aaya

With the exception of this one rose, every flower with deafening silence will come;
This the nightingale shall see, when the time of sorrow does come!

جب بام تجلی پر وہ نير جاں آيا
سر تھا جو گرا جھک کر دل تھا جو تپاں آيا

Jab baam-e-tajjali par woh naiyyar-e-jaaN aaya
sar thaa jo gira jhuk kar, dil thaa jo tapaaN aaya

When that darling of my life did reveal his Divine Light’s peak;
Every head fell down, bowed, every heart did feverish become!



جنت کو حرم سمجھا آتے تو يہاں آيا
اب تک کے ہر ايک کا منہ کہتا ہوں کہاں آيا

Jannat ko Haram samjha aatay to yahaaN aaya
Ab tak kay har aik ka munH kehta hoon "kahaaN aaya?"

Having mistaken Paradise for Madina, here I have come;
Now looking at every face, I ask "whither have I come?!"

طيبہ کے سوا سب باغ پامال فنا ہونگے
ديکھو گے چمن والو جب عہد خزاں آيا

Taybah ke siwa sab baagh paamaal-e-fanaa hongay
Dekho gay chaman walo jab ahd-e-khizaaN aaya!

Except for Madina all gardens will become annihilated, trampled;
You will see this O’ denizens of the garden, when winter does come!

سر اور وہ سنگ در آنکھ اور وہ بزم نور
ظالم کو وطن کا دھيان آيا تو کہاں آيا

Sar aur woh sang-e-dar, Aankh aur woh bazm-e-noor
Zaalim ko watan ka dhyaan aaya to kahaaN aaya

The head and the stones of that abode, the eyes and that place of light;
The ingrate is thinking of his homeland after here having come!



کچھ نعت کے طبقے کا عالم ہی نرالا ہے
سکتہ ميں پڑی ہے عقل چکر ميں گماں آيا

kuch naat ke tabqay ka aalam hi niraala hai
Saktay mein paRee hai ’Aql, chakkar mein gumaaN aaya!

The art of writing poetry in the Prophet’s honour is unique indeed;
The intellect has become dazed, dizzy has the imagination become!

جلتی تھی زميں کيسی تھی دھوپ کڑی کيسی
لو وہ قد بے سايہ اب سايہ کناں آيا

jalti thi zameen kaisee thi, dhoop kaRee kaisee
lo, woh qad-e-bay-saaya ab saaya-kinaaN aaya!

How the ground beneath did burn, how fierce was the heat;
Here! That Shadowless Prophet has a cool shadow for us become!

طيبہ سے ہم آتے ہيں کہئے تو جناں والو
کيا ديکھ کے جيتا ہے جو واں سے يہاں آيا

Taybah se hum aatay hain kehiye to jinaaN waalo
Kya dekh kar jeeta hai jo waaN se yahaN aaya!

I have just come from Madina O’ dwellers of Paradise;
How does one survive, who from there to here does come?!



لے طوق الم سے اب آزاد ہو اے قمری
چٹھی لئے بخشش کی وہ سرو رواں آيا

lay tawq-e-alam say ab aazaad ho ay qumri
chiTThee liye bakhshish ki woh Sarwar rawaaN aaya

There! Be freed now from the ring of pain O’ carrier-pigeon;
With a letter of forgiveness in his hand, that Chieftain has come!

نامہ سے رضا کے اب مٹ جاؤ برے کامو
ديکھو مرے پلہ پر وہ اچھے مياں آيا

Naama say Raza kay ab miT buray kaamo
dekh meray pallah par woh Acchay Mian aaya

Be erased from Raza’s Tablet of Deeds o’ bad works;
Look! Here to my aid my Acchay Mian has come!

بدکار رضاخوش ہو بد کام بھلے ہونگے
وہ اچھے مياں پيارا اچھوں کا مياں آيا

Badkaar Raza khush ho bad kaam bhalay hongay
Woh Acchay Mian pyaara acchoN ka miyaaN aaya!

Be happy Raza all bad things will be transformed into good;
That beloved Acchay Mian, master of all good people has come!

Note to verses 11/12. Acchay Mian was the nick name of Ala Hadrat’s Sufi Shaykh. It means ’Good Sir’. In verse 12 there is a play on the words so that it can mean either that Acchay Mian came or the ’Sir of all good sires’ – i.e. Beloved Muhammad al Mustafa SallAllahu Alaihi wa Sallam has come!

Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Dreamz-Rebiuld-our-nation/176215539101271

Career Advancement Tips: Your Way To Top

Career Advancement Tips: Your Way To Top

Getting a good job is a tough task which requires a combination of luck, hard work and proper timing. Once you get a job it is easy to keep going on the same path which in some cases can lead to lack of growth and success. Every person who is working at some position looks forward to career advancement and success. No one wants to stay at the same job and the same position, so we all try to keep learning and getting better at our jobs. However, not everyone succeeds at getting as advanced in their professional careers as they had hoped for initially.

The key to success in professional life is fairly simple and following some basic principles can help in making a significant change in your career. Many people keep on working hard and enthusiastically but still fail to get the desired results in their professional life. The failure or rather the absence of success in career development leads to disappointment and loss of motivation.

The corporate heads and experienced professionals from all spheres of life agree upon some tried and tested golden rules that can help in advancing one’s career significantly regardless of the industry. Following these basic steps will make sure that you get appreciated for the effort that you have put into work and do not have to face disappointment in the long run.

Go One Step Further:

As a professional who wants to advance in his career, you must always be prepared to go an extra mile and do more than the minimum job requirement. This shows that you are enthusiastic and have the desire to learn and progress. When you are willing to perform added tasks, you learn much more than your colleagues and the experience gained this way will be invaluable.

Take Initiative:

If you want to become successful you have to be proactive and well prepared to take initiative rather than waiting to be asked to take care of a job. Volunteering for work, even if it is not included in your job description, improves your image and helps you in learning valuable skills.

Keep Learning:

Even when you have been in the professional field for months and years, you have to keep the learning process going as there is always the need to update the existing skills that you possess and learning new to keep up with the rest. When you end the learning process, there is no guarantee that you will succeed in the professional life.

Be Innovative:

You need to be creative and innovative at work if you are hoping for a career boost. Doing as you are told is acceptable and expected but it will never get you the level of appreciation that you deserve. Be creative and come up with new ideas and suggestions not only on specific projects but also for the general benefit of the company. This also shows loyalty towards the organization, a trait that is much appreciated by the employers.

Accept Your Mistakes:

A successful professional is one who is ready to accept his mistakes and is able to learn from them. If you are stubborn and refuse to admit that you were wrong, there is no room left for growth and development. Admit your mistake and work on the shortcomings so that you can avoid making the same mistake in the future.

Focus On Long Term Goals:

Career growth is all about long term goals so instead of focusing on what you are learning and gaining in the short term, pay attention to the long term benefits and gains. Even if you are not accomplishing a lot in the short term, you might be able to get long term benefits from the organization.

Share Your Views:

You must share your views and ideas in meetings to make a place for yourself. If you keep silent and are reluctant to share views, the seniors perceive you as a laid back person who is not interested in contributing to the team. Such attitude does not help in boosting the career as once you get pegged as a passive person; there is little hope that the manager will give you an important assignment.

Invest In Connections:

Networking and making connections is the most important part of career growth as the more people you know in your field, the greater are the chances of your success. It is a well known fact that when you apply for a job, the employers often ask for recommendations from your previous bosses. To be able to provide such references you need to have good relations with your superiors and colleagues.

Determine Your Goal:

The most important aspect of career advancement is having a decided and determined professional goal. There are many people who are going through their careers without having any particular goal in life and it takes them many years to finally figure out what they want to do in life. You need to decide what you want to do and which career path you want to follow in life. The simplest method to do this is by making a 5 year career plan and start working on the short term goals right away.

Keep Moving:

Career growth is dependent on how much you develop within the same company as well as how much have you gained in different organizations that you have worked for. Remaining in the same company for an extended time period after you know that you have achieved the maximum level of advantages that can be gained from this organization can be detrimental for growth. After a few years, one has to move on and find another job which offers new challenges and opportunities to learn. People often get so comfortable at their jobs that they continue in the same position for years which gets stagnant and all hopes for growth are lost.

Fight Limitations:

If you want to be at the top you need the right attitude to get you there. You have to believe that there are no limitations and if there are some hindrances you must make every effort required to reach the top.

Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Dreamz-Rebiuld-our-nation/176215539101271


 

How to Remain Safe and Healthy at Work?

With people spending up to 9 hours at their workplaces, the office of today has become the new home while away from home. Hours of daily interaction, organizational stress, long shifts in front of computers, risking shortcuts to meet deadlines, consumption of junk food and handling of equipment or machinery without proper training are just a few pointers towards why workers are increasingly becoming unhealthy and unsafe at work. That is why occupational health & safety is a matter of great importance in the current job sector. Unhealthy and unsafe personnel are not only liabilities to themselves, but as well to their co-workers and their organizations.

Unfortunately, no statistics concerning occupational health and safety are currently accessible in Pakistan, because a greater part of accidents are not reported to the Labor Department. Diseases and accidents in the Pakistani work places are an appalling tragedy. The frequency of occupational diseases and injuries is very high because thousands of workers are regularly exposed to unsafe practices at work. However, remaining safe and healthy at work is an individual struggle. With some common sense and attentiveness, we cannot only care for ourselves, but also for our co-workers and our workplaces. Following are a few tips on how to remain safe and healthy at work.

Learn to Say “NO” to a Task that’s Unsafe

If you’re asked by your supervisor or the manager to perform a task; which you think is too risky or just unsafe, remember that you have the legal right to refuse. Saying “No” can at times save yourself and other people’s lives. However, the trick is to say it in a professional manner, so as not to offend the boss and potentially risk your career. Inform your supervisor why you think the job is too risky. Maybe it’s because there are too many potential hazards, or you might not have received proper training in performing the task. Ask the supervisor his/her viewpoints on why they consider the task safe? Are they able to show you how it can be done properly? Let them know of your doubts and request assistance or extra tools to help you, if necessary. Always remember that if you are going to put yourself in a tight spot, with prior knowledge, you are solely responsible for all the outcomes.

Learn to Identify & Report Workplace Hazards

In order to point out potential hazards at your workplace, get training on standard occupational health & safety and also learn basic First Aid. Furthermore, ask your company on their policies and procedures for identifying, reporting and eliminating internal risks and hazards. Sometimes, all it takes is good use and co-ordination of your senses to recognize vulnerability at your workplace. Make sure that all the electrical equipment that you handle has been checked and properly installed by a professional. Furthermore, enquire questions like, is their a fire extinguisher handy and does someone know how to use it? Does the office have a first aid kit? You may feel hesitant asking these questions at first, but remember they are your right to know, as they concern your own well-being and life.

Don’t let Stress take the Better of You

Corporate stress is something we all have to endure at sometime within our careers. However, job pressure regarding deadlines is one thing but mental stress leading to psycho-social problems is something completely different and alarming. Apart from making workers increasingly distressed, irritable, anxious, insomniac, depressed & tired, work stress can cause personality disorders, as it severely affects the immune system, leaving psychological impacts. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder are a few examples of such psychological impacts caused by work stress. Proper stress management training and organizational management is needed to avoid the development of stress factors at the workplace. If you feel you’re stressed out or one of your co-workers is, immediately notify the supervisor with proper reasoning. Take work, duties and responsibilities with reasonable enough time-frame. Remember never to over-burden yourself or let your job take over your physical and mental well-being. A good tip to take your mind off the stress at work is to treat yourself with a bit of chocolate or anything sweet.

Enjoy Healthy Food Practices at Work

Instead of opting for coffee and smoke breaks, do yourself a favour by quitting both. Plus, smoking is just something you would really want to avoid, especially at work. Eat a wide selection of foods, including plenty of fresh and seasonal fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Reduce junk food, takeaways, saturated fats and processed foods to the minimum. Make sure that you drink plenty of water and possibly try some herbal teas in its place of coffee and tea. Keeping a water bottle on the desk is a great and simple way to stay healthy. Plus, it helps in constantly reminding you that you need to drink plenty of water to keep yourself from dehydration. Another advantage is that water detoxifies our body systems, maintaining our health along the way. Furthermore, drinking water at regular intervals will help you fight fast food cravings.

Stay Fit not Fixed to the Computer

If you’re spending too much time sitting fixed to the computer, you’re possibly going to end up with muscle pain in the arms, stress and redness in the eyes and probably some weight gain. Turn off the monitor every couple of hours for five minutes. This will give your stressed eyes a much needed rest. Utilize these five minutes to loosen up, close your eyes or else direct your attention on other things. You could also take time off to get away from your desk and if possible go for a quick walk outside. Also consider stretching your arms and legs, while at break.  Stretching helps by keeping your body loose and flexible; it increases suppleness and blood circulation; plus, it sets your metabolism in motion and keeps your body warm.

Most importantly, keep your family and loved ones in view at work. Remember, they are one of the reasons we are at work, and that someone is waiting for us at home to arrive safe and healthy back from work.

Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Dreamz-Rebiuld-our-nation/176215539101271


 

The history of cloud computing

It all started in 1972

Back then, IBM released System/370 which included an operating system called VM or Virtual Machine. It included what we’d today call a hypervisor – a layer between the hardware and the OS. But the idea of virtualising machines really only lived in the IBM world for many years.

IBM S/370 Model 138

It was obviously theoretically possible to do it on any CPU architecture. In fact Bill Gates and Paul Allen sort of did it in 1975. They developed a version of the BASIC programming language for the Altair 8800, one of the first home-built, hobbyist micro-computers. They didn’t have an Altair 8800 on which to develop but they did have access to a DEC PDP-10 computer. So they wrote something that emulated the instruction set (Intel 8008) and hardware of the Altair’s internals, and of course the rest is history.

The Altair 8800

 

DEC PDP-10

Virtualisation hits the x86

VMWare formed in 1998 and released a virtualised environment called VMWare Workstation based on the x86 chip. Many people before had thought it not worth the effort of virtualising such a chip because the overhead would be too great and the effort would not be worth the results. VMWare proved this wrong. A number of other vendors also offered virtualisation on the x86 chip namely Connectix with their Virtual PC product which was later acquired by Microsoft.

Over the next few years the efficiency of these environments improved dramatically as more and more resources were poured in to development. There was also a notable project at Cambridge University called Xen which became the open source software movement’s virtualisation engine of choice. There were others but these three, VMWare, Connectix (Microsoft) and Xen became the mainstay of virtualisation in the IT industry.

In the noughties, it was being discovered that virtualisation was a good way of consuming the “headroom” that most physical servers possessed when running in data-centres. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for a physical server to sit at less than 30% utilisation for most of the time. That meant 70% of the resource in a data centre was mostly unused. By putting 2 or 3 virtual servers on to one physical server, all that spare capacity could be consumed.

In the early and mid noughties, virtualisation took a real grip in many large data centres and the arms race between Xen, VMWare and Microsoft was on.

An Online Retailer gets a piece of the action

Back in the mid-noughties, Amazon, famed for its success as an online retailer was having a few problems in maintaining, scaling, changing and operating the most successful online retail infrastructure in the world. They decided they needed to take an entirely different approach to the problem. Werner Vogels, now the CTO joined and drove the company down a shared-services platform route. It became obvious as all this was going on that services could also be sold to customers and in 2008 Amazon announced Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

This used Xen virtualisation to run the virtual machines but Amazon had already started to solve problems with things like scalable storage and so although Amazon AWS became the umbrella term for the offering, it was in fact divided up in to many services such as EC2 (the compute virtualisation infrastructure) or the Elastic Compute Cloud and S3 (Simple Storage Services).

The Cloud is born

Suddenly every man and his dog has a cloud offering. Amazon’s first name – the “Elastic Compute Cloud” described a virtualisation environment that you could consume on a per-hour basis. You could quite happily fire up 20 VMs for a couple of hours then deprovision them again.  This billing mechanism became one of the key features of the cloud over simple hosting. With hosting you get a monthly fee for the server (whether virtual or physical) that you use in a hoster’s data-centre. You can’t really say when the bill comes in “actually we weren’t using the server for 10 days on the month, can we have a discount?”. But with cloud service operators you pay by the hour for compute, by the GB for data storage and by the GB/in and GB/out for data moving in to and out of the data-centre.

Google also got in to the cloud game with Google App Engine or GAE in 2008. The idea was “you can run your web apps on Google’s massively scalable infrastructure”. GAE is based around a Java/Python development environment. They run and serve your code for you. You don’t get access to the VMs that are sitting underneath the applications. This made it very different from Amazon’s EC2 in which you get full admin access to the VMs. Some people argue that handling and maintaining infrastructure is a burden, others feel the sense of control it gives is a good thing.

At the time all this was going on, Microsoft had its own set of problems with services like MSN, Hotmail, Messenger, X-Box Live and so on. These were massive infrastructures that had to respond with agility to customer needs and growth. So a team was asked to look in to this problem and in doing so they came up with the idea that there should be a division between the underlying infrastructure and the application. So many systems in the past have been architected in such a way that they are deeply embedded in to the OS, the virtualisation, the networks infrastructure and so on. Microsoft released a cloud service to Beta called “Red Dog”. When it was commercially released, this became known as Windows Azure.

VMWare has a range of technologies it sells directly to its customer that allow them to build their own cloud data-centres (discussed below). They have also put in to Beta a public cloud service called CloudFoundry. Don’t get this confused with their original CloudFoundry offering, which is now called “Classic Cloud Foundry”. With the classic version you submitted your JavaSpring application and it ran on Amazon AWS’s infrastructure. In the new version it runs entirely on VMWare’s infrastructure.

So that gets the three big cloud providers out of the way. These are called cloud services. They are built in such a way that anybody with a credit card and an Internet connection can consume them (they all have free offers for developers who want to try the services out without any commitment). Because they are so available, they are known as “the public cloud”. Any operator that allows you to send your application/data and run it on their infrastructure in this highly transactional way (you can sign up to these services in a couple of minutes, pay-as-you-go and only-pay-for-what-you-use meaning you can also bail out at a moment’s notice) could be a called a public cloud operator.

Security

Hmmm – but of course if you have data that is sensitive, private, confidential, restricted, subject to legislation etc that means it can’t live in another organisation’s infrastructure – well, that’s a challenge. If the law says you can’t do it – you can’t do it; easy answer. After that it’s down to what other legislation you need to abide by and your own assessment of risk. For example if in your country there is a code of conduct from some kind of financial authority that looks after banking and financial information, even though you may be abiding by the law, they may say you can’t store your data at another company. Again, it’s an easy answer. When you get to your own assessment of risk, well that’s a long conversation. But you can see how annoying it must be to some firms who want the economic and business agility benefits the public cloud offers, but they can’t store their data there too, or at least some of their data.

That’s where the private cloud comes in. In the same way that Microsoft, Amazon and Google offer services on an infrastructure where the benefit is that they can offer services more cheaply because of the sheer scale they operate at ($0.5bn or more is not an uncommon price for a data centre and they all have several data-centres) so can a centralised function (say, the IT department) within an organisation do the same. Instead of offering say a specific service to the finance department and a different one to the marketing department and yet a different one again to the sales department, usually each with their own physical corner of the data-centre shielded off from other departments and ring-fenced, they could offer a shared infrastructure in which each department’s applications are run. Remember what we said about server utilisation in the section above on virtualisation – the shared infrastructure could give a much greater efficiency of resources. These private cloud data-centres could be owned and operated by the organizations that need them, but they could also be shared across a number of organisations that share some affinity. Like a health federation – many health organisations all sharing a private cloud data-centre. Each one has its own private applications and data but the service is built and operated with their specific needs in mind. This shared service could be run by all the health organisations together, or perhaps another organisation runs it and charges them for the service. It’s not like the public cloud where anybody can come along and take part – only health organisations (or whatever the taxonomy is) can use the service. You can also think of clouds like this as “community clouds”.

Technology

And then there are cloud platform providers. Take Amazon for example, it has based its cloud infrastructure on the Xen virtualisation technology. Microsoft has based its infrastructure on Hyper-V. With AWS or Windows Azure you’ll never be sat at a Xen or Hyper-V management console directly managing the virtualisation in the way you would in your virtualised private data centre but nevertheless the technologies underneath it all are there.

VMWare has seized the idea of the private cloud and extended its virtualisation offerings with specific products aimed at running a private cloud. You could buy and operate these technologies in your own massively scalable data-centre and sell them to the public as a public cloud operator. Microsoft has done the same with Hyper-V and the System Center range of products. Many private clouds are built using Hyper-V and System Center. But there is a difference between buying the software that runs a cloud data-centre and actually owning and operating your own cloud data-centre, whether it’s a public or a private cloud data-centre. For example Microsoft runs hundreds of thousands of physical servers and many multiples of virtual servers in its 6 data-centres around the world, located in North Europe, West Europe, South Central US, North Central US, South East Asia and East Asia.

Microsoft Data Center

I hope that’s cleared up any confusion over what a cloud operator is, what a cloud platform is, what the difference is between a public and a private cloud and where technologies like Hyper-V, VMWare and Xen fit in to this new vocabulary we’re all going to have to get used to in the future…

Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Dreamz-Rebiuld-our-nation/176215539101271

 

Ramadan, The Blessed Month of Fasting

"This world is beautiful, but Jannah is much better. So prepare yourself for Jannah in this Ramadan".

Ramadan provides us annual training opportunity that is meant to fulfill the character building needs for the rest of the year. It gives us God fearing nature, patience, self control, self discipline, sense of responsibility, obedience and purification of soul.

First 10 days are for MERCY
Ramadan is meant for spiritual development by fasting, it is not expected to deprive our body from eating and drinking., a Muslim should recite Quran, Hadith and Zikr and should made sincere commitments to Allah and beg for his mercy. Therefore this stage one is for sincere confession to Allah that we are weak and sinful and that we desperately need His mercy
Second 10 days for Forgiveness
Now it’s the time to beg Allah for his forgiveness. For the sins we have done and rules we have beaked and for disobeying his commands.
Last 10 days for Freedom from Fire
Last 10 days of this month for us are to beg Allah for the freedom from fire, as it is the last of this Holy month, which will come after a year, we should praise Allah and Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (SAWW).

Fasting in Ramadan makes a man to accomplish good and avoid bad, it brings peace to body, mind and soul. Fasting in Ramadan is a unique opportunity to attain peace for heart and soul.
Ramadan, sensing Muslim unity
In this sacred month, all muslims fasts and they eat sehri and aftari. Say their prayers and thus, in this blessed month we can sense an increased feeling of unity and of being a single Ummah due to our fasting and breaking our fast collectively. We also feel an increased awareness about the state of affairs of the Muslims and of the hardships that they endure, because: "During the fast, a Muslim feels and experiences what his needy and hungry brothers and sisters feel, who are forced to go without food and drink for many many days. Indeed, the unity of the Muslims, their support and assisting one another is one of the great fundamentals upon which the Religion of Islam is built, as Allah the Most High said: "And hold fast altogether to the rope of Allah and do not be divided." Islam teaches us collectiveness, Thus, Ramadan is a time to increase our sense of unity and brotherhood, and our commitment to Allah and His Religion. And there is no doubt that this sense of unity necessitates that: "We work together as required by Islam as sincere brothers
Ramadan, gaining Taqwaa
Love for Allah + fear of Allah = taqwaa
Fasting is a means of attaining taqwaa, as it helps in preventing us from many sins. This blessed month teaches us to pray sincerely to one God with pure soul and Emaan. Due to this, the Prophet sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam said: "Fasting is a shield with which the servant protects himself from the Fire." (5)
Taqwaa is ability to safe guard.
Ramadan, cultivating good manners
this blessed month teaches us not only to give up from food and drink, but to also avoid such statements and actions that may be the cause of harming people and violating their rights. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said,
"A Muslim is one from whom other Muslims are safe from his tongue and his hand."
We should avoid back biting, slandering and tale carrying, leg pulling, abusing and hatred towards other muslims. A fasting person doing all these bad acts gets nothing from his fast, except hunger and thirst. This sacred month teaches us to understand and behaving in good manners.
Ramadan, Acquiring Patience
Fasting means for learning self restrain and patience. With patience we are able to worship Allah alone, with sincerity, and also cope with life’s ups and downs. with patience we are able to perform our Prayers calmly and correctly, without being speedy, and without simply pecking the ground several times! With patience we are able to hold back our souls from greed and meanness and thus give part of our additional wealth in Zakaah (essential charity). we are able to control the soul’s ill temperament with patience, without losing tempers and behaving badly.
Allah the Most Significant and merciful said: "O Prophet, urge the Believers to fight, so if there are one hundred who are patient, they shall overcome two hundred; and if there be one thousand, they shall overcome two thousand, by the permission of Allah. And Allah is with the patient ones." [Soorah al-Anfaal 8:65-66].
Ramadan, Nearance to Allah
"Whosoever reaches the month of Ramadan and does not have his sins forgiven, and so enters the fire, and then may Allah distance him." (7)
This blessed month becomes the reason for the muslims to come closer to Allah, the Most Perfect. This can be achieved by fulfilling obligatory duties and also reciting the Qur’aan and reflecting upon its meanings, increasing in kindness and in giving charity, in making du`aa (supplication) to Allah, attending the taraweeh Prayer, seeking out Laylatul-Qadr, a night which is better than a thousand months, attending gatherings of knowledge, and striving in those actions that will cause the heart to draw closer to its Lord and to gain His forgiveness. Our level of striving in this blessed month should be greater than our striving to worship.
Medical science has also proved, fasting is good for the human body. It gives vital organs, a complete rest and promotes elimination of metabolic wastes. It allows body to adjust and normalize its biochemistry and its secretions. It increases the power of digestion and assimilation. Fasting also strengthen the mind. Fasting the body eliminates the toxins and mind becomes clear for thinking.
In this Ramadan, let ourselves do good deeds and pray Allah Almighty, beg for his forgiveness and say our prayers daily and recite Qur’aan. Allah bless all of us in this blessed month. Ameen!

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan

Microsoft releases Visual Studio LightSwitch: a fascinating product with an uncertain future

Microsoft has released Visual Studio LightSwitch, a rapid application builder for data-centric applications.

LightSwitch builds Silverlight applications, which may seem strange bearing in mind that the future of Silverlight has been hotly debated since its lack of emphasis at the 2010 Professional Developers Conference. The explanation is either that Silverlight – or some close variant of Silverlight – has a more important future role than has yet been revealed; or that the developer division invented LightSwitch before Microsoft’s strategy shifted.

Either way, note that LightSwitch is a model-driven tool that is inherently well-suited to modification for different output types. If LightSwitch survives to version two, it would not surprise me to see other application targets appear. HTML 5 would make sense, as would Windows Phone.

So LightSwitch generates Silverlight applications, but they do not run on Windows Phone 7 which has Silverlight as its development platform? That is correct, and yes it does seem odd. I will give you the official line on this, which is that LightSwitch is not aimed primarily at developers, but is for business users who run Windows and who want a quick and easy way to build database applications. They will not care or even, supposedly, realise that they are building Silverlight apps.

I do not believe this is the whole story. It seems to me that either LightSwitch is a historical accident that will soon be quietly forgotten; or it is version one of a strategic product that will build multi-tier database applications, where the server is either Azure or on-premise, and the client any Windows device from phone to PC. Silverlight is ideal for this, with its modern presentation language (XAML), its sandboxed security, and its easy deployment. This last point is critical as we move into the app store era.

LightSwitch could be strategic then, or it could be a Microsoft muddle, since the official marketing line is unconvincing. I have spent considerable time with the beta and doubt that the supposed target market will get on with it well. Developers will also have a challenge, since the documentation is, apparently deliberately, incomplete when it comes to writing code. There is no complete reference, just lots of how-to examples that might or might not cover what you wish to achieve.

Nevertheless, there are flashes of brilliance in LightSwitch and I hope, perhaps vainly, that it does not get crushed under Microsoft’s HTML 5 steamroller. I set out some of its interesting features in a post nearly a year ago.

Put aside for a moment concerns about Silverlight and about Microsoft’s marketing strategy. The truth is that Microsoft is doing innovative work with database tools, not only in LightSwitch with its model-driven development but also in the SQL Server database projects and “Juneau” tools coming up for “Denali”, SQL Server 2011, which I covered briefly elsewhere. LightSwitch deserves a close look, even it is not clear yet why you would want actually to use it.

Most Expensive Laptop In The World

10. Acer Ferrari 1100: $3000 Acer Ferrari laptop is built just like the Ferrari car. It’s built with ultralight design that wear resistant carbon fiber chassis. The laptop is built using AMD Turion X2 Dual Core CPU, 4 GB of RAM and of course all other features like Wifi. With the good specification of hardware, it’s hoped that it will get the maximal speed like Ferrari car. It’s a worthed buying with $ 3000. The reason to buy this most expensive laptop usually for the performance and of course for appearance. Acer Ferrari 1100 9. Dell M6400: $3000 This notebook that coming from Dell is very powerful. It’s featured with Intel Core 2 Quad Core Extreme Edition Processors. The reason of using this laptop is for ripping complex analysis that need large data and graphics memory as the laptop have 16 GB of 1066 MHZ DDR 3 Memory for data as well as 1 GB of graphics memory. You won’t think that this laptop is the same as the low priced dell in all aspect. The price of this notebook reaches $3,000. Just provide that amount of money to buy this laptop. Dell M6400 8. Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV660: $3500 The special thing about this laptop is can handle HD DVD. The laptop is powered by 2.0 GHZ Core 2 Duo, 240 GB RAID 0 HDD and Nvidia GeForce Go 7600. This is the first laptop computer that utilize with HD DVD player with 17 inch screen in 1920 x 1200 resolution. The price is quite expensive but you will think it’s worth of money because of the good design and the entertainment. Just provide $3,500 and you can take this laptop home. Toshiba Qosmio G35 AV660 7. Lenovo ThinkPad W700DS: $4500 The special thing about this laptop is the secondary pull out display that can be drawn from the main dispaly. It makes this laptop different from normal 17 inch laptop. The additional dispaly is very useful for excel and CAD programs. The display itself is also very high in quality. This laptop is equipped with 2.53 Ghz Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9000, 4 GB RAM, Dual 250 GB 5200 RPM Hard drives. The price is $4,500. Lenovo ThinkPad W700DS 6. Alienware Area 51: $5000 This laptop is dedicated for the game lovers. This laptop is sophiticated in hardware design with stylish and sleek casing design. The laptop is using Intel Core 2 Extreme Packs with Nvidia Geforce 9800M GT in dual SLI Configuration with 1 GB in graphic performance. This laptop has 1 TB of storage in high speed RAID 0 configuration. The storage is equipped with a smart bay system that can record HD TV and film with the built in TV tuner. For $5,000 this laptop is very reasonable in price. Alienware Area 51 5. Rock Extreme SL8: $5000 This laptop is claimed to be the world’s fastest laptop computer with specs of Intel Core 2 Quad Processor, NVIDIA 9800 GPUs in SLI and 8GB of RAM. Equipped with blue ray that can display in high definition. You must be proud to own this prestige laptop. The price is $5,000 and I think it’s very reasonable price compared to its feature. Rock Extreme SL8 4. Voodoo Envy H:171: $8500 If You want a high performance laptop that already optimized you should consider this laptop. The laptop is already optimized so will be maximal in performance. The specifications of the laptop are Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor, 4 GB of RAM, twin Nvidia Quadro FX Go 2500M graphics chipset, 1.3 Megapixel webcam, dual 250 GB hard diskk, 7 in 1 memory card reader, dual layer DVD RW drive and high resolution 17 inch 1920 x 1200 display. The special thing about this laptop is the casing that can be chosen from 14 tattoos options available. The price of this laptop is $ 8,500. Voodoo Envy H171 3. Ego for Bentley: $20,000 From the image of this laptop, you will surely think that this is not a laptop for men. The authenticity of bentley logo make this laptop very stylish and worhty to carry match with the bentley car that also driven by the owner. The laptop can match the color of the Bentley car. This laptop usually bring by rich women that can spend $20.000 just for fashion purpose. For your intention this laptop just use 64 bit for vista and 160 GB Hard Disk. Ego for Bentley 2. Tulip E-Go Diamond: $355,000 The laptop has an image as “most luxurious laptop in the world”. And I guess it’s true. The reason is because the laptop is designed with a touch of chrome in unique women bag shapre. The grip of the laptop can be replaced with white gold and diamonds. The price of this laptop can reach $355,000. Don’t ask about performace as this is the same as usual laptop. It’s just 12 antiglare screen display, 2 GB of RAM, 160 GB Hard disk, integrated webcam, bluetooth 2.0 and DVD burner. You should be rich enough to spend $355,000 for just a laptop. Tulip E-Go Diamond 1. Luvaglio One Million Dollar Laptop: $1,000,000 The title says it all. You should own $1 million to own this laptop. This laptop is made to order and you will get your own design and specification. You can also order from what kind of material your laptop will be made. You can choose from wood, metal or iron. This laptop is also designed so the owner can upgrade the hardware themself. This laptop is equipped with 128 solid State drive, MP3 player, built in USB stick and equipped with “integrated screen cleaning feature”. Luvaglio One Million Dollar Laptop Do You want to own one of those most expensive laptops in the world? Thanks & regards, "Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua" Raheel Ahmed Khan System Engineer send2raheel@engineer.com sirraheel@gmail.com http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/ http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/ http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Dreamz-Rebiuld-our-nation/176215539101271

iPad To Dominate Tablet Market Until 2015

The iPad will continue to dominate the growing tablet market until Android tablets take over in 2015, according to forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media.

The study estimates that Apple currently owns about 75% of the tablet market, which is expected to expand from less than 20 million units in 2010 to more than 230 million in 2015. By that time, Apple’s share of the market will drop to just 38%, due largely to the proliferation of cheaper and more advanced Android tablets. Still, it will take another year — until 2016 — for Android tablets to outsell Apple ones.

RIM’s prospects for market expansion are less optimistic, the study finds. Once the PlayBook begins supporting Android apps and 4G connectivity — HSPA+ and LTE versions are expected before the end of 2011 — sales are expected to improve.

Other analysts are more bullish on Apple’s market dominance. A study released by Gartner in April predicted the iPad will maintain a 47% share of the tablet by 2015, with Android hovering just above 38%.

The A to Z of Trending Web Development Technologies

Suppose someone were to describe to you a website built using HTML5, CSS3, Ext JS and node.js. It had PHP at the server side backed with a MogoDB database, all running off a HipHop server optimized by Varnish Cache. You might suspect that such a cocktail of web technologies is unnecessary to have a mere online presence.

After all, HTML, CSS and JavaScript on the client side and possibly a dynamic language should suffice. But as you start to build bigger, faster, more scalable and more highly optimized websites or applications, you'll reach a roadblock. Traditional web development technologies start showing limitations, such as lack of caching support in PHP or the time-intensive challenge of large chunks of JavaScript code. You could obviously work around these issues, but there are several frameworks, libraries and tools that can help you take care of this.

Now, this doesn't mean you need to learn and use all possible web technologies and techniques. Mixing everything together eventually leaves holes big enough to drive a truck through. Instead, it's common wisdom to use a technology only when it solves an issue.



If you’re curious about new web development technologies and techniques to use for your projects, then grab a cup of coffee and enjoy our A to Z of Trending Web Development Technologies & Tools.

A - Azure

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud services operating system that provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale and manage web application through Microsoft’s datacenters. The Windows Azure platform supports multiple languages including ASP.NET, Java, PHP and Ruby along with standards and protocols like SOAP, REST and XML. Other than its scalable hosting environment, Windows Azure also provides durable storage in the cloud and a content delivery network (CND).

B - BBC’s Glow JavaScript Library

BBC’s Glow JavaScript library allows developers to easily manipulate web pages, create animations and add sophisticated widgets to their web pages. It simplifies DOM manipulation and event handling by abstracting common tasks, hiding cross-browser issues, and providing a set of user interface widgets.
 

C - Closure

Closure is a set of tools developed by Google that help developers build rich web application with JavaScript that is both powerful and efficient. The Closure Compiler for instance, compiles JavaScript into a compact (minified version) and high-performance code. It also checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about common JavaScript pitfalls. These checks and optimizations help you write apps that are less buggy and easier to maintain.

D – Dragonfly

Dragonfly is a built-in debugging environment for the Opera browser. You can debug JavaScript, inspect or edit CSS / DOM elements on-the-fly and view errors on either your mobile or computer. It also supports monitoring for network activity. If you are a developer, or a designer, Opera Dragonfly has the tools to keep you covered. It is comparable to Firefox’s Firebug or Safari’s Web Inspector.
 

E - Erland

Erland is a programming language that was initially developed to create massive real-time telecom applications. However, it is slowly paving its away to power more web services. Facebook, for example, uses Erland to drive its chat system. There are several Erland frameworks aimed at developing web applications that are worth checking: ErlyWeb, Erland Web and the Nitrogen Project. http://sergioveiga.com/index.php/2009/12/02/erlang-on-nitro-erlang-web-development-tutorial-part-13/
 

F - Flash Catalyst

Flash Catalyst is interaction design software that allows designers to create user interface for Rich Internet Applications (RIA) easily without requiring extensive programming knowledge. Flash Catalyst supports import of graphics from graphic software and once the interface is created, it can be exported to Flash Builder. It is a pretty decent tool that aids in architecture applications prior to development.
 

G - Git

Git is a free, open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git clones are full-fledge repositories with complete history and revision tracking capabilities. With Git, branching and merging repositories is fast and easy to do.
 

H - HipHop

HipHop is a runtime compiler for PHP that transforms your PHP source code into highly optimized C++ to improve performance of server’s CPU usage. It was created by Facebook to save resources on its server and while it can substantially increase the speed of PHP applications, it is going to be only beneficial if you have a large-scale application.
 

I - ICEfaces

ICEfaces is an open source Ajax framework that enables Java EE application developers to create and deploy server-based rich Internet application using the Java language.
 

J - Jsoup

Jsoup is a Java library for working with real-world HTML. It provides a very convenient API for extracting and manipulating data, using the best of DOM, CSS, and jquery-like methods. You can for example use it to scrape data from a URL and find and extract data using DOM traversal and CSS selectors.
 

K - Kodigen

Kodingen is a cloud development environment combining an online code editor, cloud hosting along with both web-based access to file-system and FTP. It is free and provides developers with a feature-rich collaboration and social coding tools along with integration with a wide variety of existing frameworks and third party APIs. Kodingen also offers one-click installs for popular open source scripts like Drupal, Joomla and WordPress – great for testing something in a safe sanbox.
 

L - LightSwitch

LightSwitch is a new development tool in the Microsoft Visual Studio family that allows developers to build business applications for the cloud and desktop. By using pre-build templates and tools, you can quick create applicatison for Windows Client or Windows Azure without focusing much on writing code. LightSwitch creates Silverlight applications that can run in the browser, out-of-the-browser, or in the cloud.
 

M - MongoDB

MongoDB is a scalable, high-performance, open source, documented-oriented database. It is a NoSQL database whereby which data is not stored in fixed table schemas, but rather as collections of JSON-like documents. Many applications can thus model data in a more natural way, as data can be nested in complex hierarchies while being still query-able and indexable.
 

N - Node.js

Node.js is a server-side JavaScript environment based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine. Unlike web server which establishes thread-based connections, Node.js is event-driven which helps execute a lot of requests concurrently very quickly without using much server resources.
 

O - OAuth

OAuth is basically an open protocol that allows secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop, web and mobile applications. This technical definition may bamboozle many of you, but in a nutshell it is an authorization method that allows you to share your private information like photos, videos, contact list stored on one site with another site without having to disclose your username and password.
 

P - Plupload

Plupload is an upload handler that allows you to upload files using HTML5 Gears, Silverlight, Flash, BrowserPlus or normal forms, providing some unique features such as upload progress, image resizing and chunked uploads. It has a powerful API that will allow you to further customize it.
 

Q - Qooxdoo

qooxdoo is a universal JavaScript framework that enables you to create applications for a wide range of platforms. With its object-oriented programming model you build rich, interactive applications (RIAs), native-like apps for mobile devices, lightweight traditional web applications or even applications to run outside the browser.
 

R – Redis

Redis is an open source, advanced key-value store, often referred to as a data structure server. Similar to MongoDB featured above, Redis is a NoSQL database with great performance and scalability. It can read and write really fast opening huge possibilities of new features for resource-constrained web applications.
 

S - SimpleGeo

SimpleGeo is a web service that allows developers to easily add location-aware features to their applications. They offer three geo services for developers: storage, context and places. All are priced depending on the number of API calls you make, but they have some free plans based on limits as well.
 

T - Titanium

Titanium is a free and open source framework for building native desktop and mobile applications using open web technologies (JavaScript, HTML and CSS). It also has support for PHP, Python and Ruby. You can create great applications for desktop and mobile without learning a new programming language. Through its SDKs, this tool does all the hard work under the hood and even provides interfaces to access native desktop and mobile APIs.
 

U - Umbraco

Umbraco is an open source ASP.NET content management system with the flexibility to run anything from small campaign to brochure sites right through to complex applications. It is easy to learn and use, making it perfect for web designers and developers alike. Unlike traditional CMS solutions, Umbraco has a powerful API and integrates well with .NET controls.
 

V - Varnish Cache

Varnish Cache is an open source, state of the art web application accelerator. You install it on your web server to cache your content that will eventually reduce your website’s load time. It does so by storing web pages in memory so web servers don’t have to create the same web page over and over again.
 

W - WebP

WebP is an open source image format created by Google. This new image format is aimed at further compressing lossy images to make them load faster all the while preserving quality and resolution. Google believes that images not compressed properly can significantly slow down a user’s web experience, especially on mobile devices.
 

Y - Yahoo! Query Language

Yahoo! Query Language, most commonly known as YQL, is a web service platform that provides an easy way to query and manipulate data across several API providers. It borrows its syntax from SQL and through a set of predefined data storage and mapping, it eliminates the need for you to learn how to call different APIs, thus making it easier to build and run applications with fewer line of codes. With YQL, you can for example easily pull list of images for a FlickR account, geo-locate businesses based on your user’s IP address or return weather results for a particular location.
 

Z - ZK

ZK is a highly productive open source Java framework for building amazing enterprise web and mobile applications with no JavaScript and little programming. ZK supports all major patterns of development such as MVC, data-binding, templating, among others.

Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Dreamz-Rebiuld-our-nation/176215539101271

HTC Arrive Smartphone - First Look

HTC Arrive is the new smartphone manufactured by Taiwanese for U.S. mobile operator Sprint, running on Microsoft Windows 7 operating system and bringing one of the most requested features of copy and paste. HTC Arrive is a model with capacitive touch screen of 3.6-inch diagonal WVGA resolution with multitouch and Qualcomm Snapdragon processor of 1GHz to control everything.

The Arrive HTC also includes a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and sound recording 720p HD, 16GB memory expandable via microSD, stereo Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, a 3.5mm jack, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, access to Xbox Live services and Sprint Zone, Sprint TV and Movies as well as NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile.



Thanks & regards,

"Remember Me When You Raise Your Hand For Dua"
Raheel Ahmed Khan
System Engineer
send2raheel@engineer.com
sirraheel@gmail.com

http://raheel-mydreamz.blogspot.com/
http://raheeldreamz.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Dreamz-Rebiuld-our-nation/176215539101271