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Google Wave – What Does It Mean?

Filed Under: General, Javascript, Programming
May.29, 2009

If you are a nerd, or a technology enthusiast, then you must have heard about Google Wave. I mean literally it was all across the web, from twitter to techcrunch (aren’t they both the same?) Anyways, if somehow you missed it here is a video that you must watch.

So what is wave? why am I talking about it? While the demo itself is simply amazing and the application looks like the next generation of Gmail evolution, what excites me more than anything is behind the scene technology.

If you are a web developer you might remember those good old days of web, when Javascript was a “client-side validation” scripting thingy. Now with the new and upcoming HTML 5 and Javascript ECMAScript5 coming to almost all browsers, we are seeing a new powerful platform. One that can help us built really high quality web applications.

So what’s all that special about HTML 5?

To get some context around this, let me recap what we currently use. Most of the websites (pretty much all of them) are currently on HTML 4 standard — which is a decade old standard. Web has evolved therefore HTML standard needed to evolve too.

So HTML 5 is being developed since 2004 and so far it is still being specd out. Which means that it will change over the next year or so before it is finalized, but the guts are out there now.

I won’t go into a lot of details about HTML5 in this post but would like to touch upon two things that really stood out for me:

1. Structure

How many times you have defined your HTML with class/id attributes structure it with header, footer, content, sidebar etc? HTML5 fixes this issue by providing new elements for representing each of these different sections. So elements like <header>, <nav>, <aside>, <article>, <footer> etc.

Makes it better for everyone to write and read the HTML code. Search engines can target your content and designers get to leverage it as well.

2. Video & Audio

We all have been embedding youtube videos for a while now. There is one in this blog post. HTML really didn’t have any way to allow embedding video and audio content easily into a website. So people had to use flash. So now in HTML5 we have an <video> and <audio> tags. Along with DOM API to manipulate and interact with the video and audio.

There is a lot more to the story. I will write in more details about the upcoming Javascript changes and what it means to us web developers. I am truly excited at the possibilities that it will bring to the web.

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World’s Best CAPTCHA

Filed Under: General, Programming, User Interface Design
May.28, 2009

via 90 Percent Of Everything.

worlds-best-captcha

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PakTranslations.com – A small redesign

Filed Under: General, Inspirational, Pakistan, Programming, Startups, User Interface Design
May.26, 2009

I love cool technology. Maybe it is the nerd in me that gets excited after seeing something awesome but I sure do love cool technology.

One such great technology is powered by PakTranslations.com – To see how awesome the technology is you can see the urdu version of Mazaydar.com!

paktranslations

So what’s this blog post all about? While I love their technology, one thing that bothered me was their UI. I think they can make the site and technology a great hit if can make users life easier. They already have a great way to do it but its sorta hidden.

So I spent about an hour or so last night, while I couldn’t sleep and came up with this small mock layout.

Some thoughts behind the layout:

1. My goal was to keep the focus on the cool technology. I certainly didn’t spend too much time on the logo, which can certainly use some work

2. The “Instant Translation” is a nifty feature. Users need to know that they can place http://www.paktranslations.com/? infront of any url to get it translated.

3. Bookmarklets are also awesome, I have been using them and they are just simply great to translate anything instantly.

I think the whole website is an amazing idea, a much needed innovation coming out of Pakistan. I am sure as they progress the technology will just keep getting better and better. But I also strongly believe that a good technology which isnt’ accessible is not worth much. People need to be able to use the technology easily to be able to provide feedback that is needed.

Note: The design is totally opensource for PakTranslations team to adapt.

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HelpIDPs.com & Free Banner Spot

Filed Under: General, Inspirational, Mazaydar.com, Pakistan
May.21, 2009

So in an effort to raise more awareness to the current IDP issue in Pakistan, we decided to launch www.helpidps.com – a twitter aggregator and a landing page for those looking to help out with the current crisis.

We encourage all of you to contribute with whatever you can. If you are a twitter user please remember to tag  any IDP related tweet with either #IDP, #SWAT or #helpIDP and our system will aggregate that automatically.

Also, we want to do something to raise funds quickly, so we are offering 5 banner spots on the following sites for 1 year for free for anyone who donates a sizable amount to any recognized charity organization who is helping out in SWAT relief effort.

You will be able to put your banner on helpIDPs.com and Mazaydar.com for 1 year.

Let us help those in need. Let’s spread the word via all the social networks that we can think of.

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Help IDPs in Pakistan – An Appeal

Filed Under: General, Inspirational, Mazaydar.com, Pakistan
May.20, 2009

Directly from Jehan’s blog:

Here is a video of Ammar Yassir, Mohammad Nawaz, Syed Talha Izhar, Fariha Akhtar, Jamal Ashiqain and Muneer Usman making an appeal to each and every Pakistani to become a part of the mission to offer relief and assistance to the people of Swat.

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You Can Change The World!

Filed Under: General, Inspirational, Pakistan, Startups
May.15, 2009

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover -Mark Twain, author

A very true statement. I often get asked what is it that I want to do in my life? After all I am at the start of my “professional” career, don’t have a MBA or 15 years of industry experience. In fact, none of our team members at Deensoft have more than 5 years of “industrial” experience. We have advisers who do have that sort of experience and that is great. To me experience is something that is not quantitative, its qualitative.

What we do have is a great understanding of how the web works, how your website, your web application, your mobile application should look, feel and work. We have strong understanding of how to build early stage business and how to help our clients focus on the core while we deliver the solution for them.

So to all those friend out there waiting to get that “industrial” experience, my advice would be to jump in. Find what you love to do and then do it. As Mark Twain said above, twenty years from now, you will be more happy that you tried.

And also check out this awesome video.

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Help the IDPs in Pakistan

Filed Under: General, Pakistan
May.14, 2009

Help the IDPsI am sure most of you have been following the news with what is going on in the Swat region. We are not going to discuss the political aspect of the whole situation, as I think right now, helping those in need is much more important.

There are many ways to help:

P@SHA has launched a relief effort.

Here is a list from ChapatiMystery

Please donate at:

Please do take a few minutes from your schedule to address this issue. Tell your family and friends and encourage them to donate. These people really do need our help.

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How we approach projects at Deensoft

Filed Under: General, Startups
Apr.30, 2009

You may or may not know that I am the founder of Deensoft, a web design and web application studio here in Ottawa. I get a lot of young people approaching me asking me about how Deensoft works, what our design process is, how we deal with clients. So in the effort to consolidate my thoughts on one page, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about our philosophy and why we do what we do. I hope that other young entrepreneurs can benefit from this.

Before I actually dive into the details, please do note that this isn’t a “one-size fits all” solution. This is our approach, has worked well for us, but we constantly keep improving it. Learning from mistakes is critical.

1. Listen

One of the most important aspect of our approach is to listen to our customers. We really listen. We let you tell us all about the dream application / website that you want. Why? Simple, because you have a great idea. We let you tell us all about your website, your competitors, your brand, you ambitions and your dreams.

2. Brainstorm

Before we start our coding brains, we work closely with you to sketch out your idea on paper, get the architecture strong and visual identity spot on. We create layouts for your application. This helps us to understand and digg deeper in your thoughts and ideas. Worth every effort!

3. Create

Once we have a foundation, it is time to lay the stones and start building. This is where we unleashing our coding monkeys to attack the problem and start working top bottom on your application. Soon your dream becomes reality.

4. Build

Once we have created a solid structure, it is time to decorate it with all the nice stuff that we had promised during the brainstorming. This is where you get to see the site with all the bells and whistles. For your website, we use separate layers of XHTML, CSS and some nifty Javascript.

5. Test

We take quality control seriously. We test and test and then test again, before handing you the green light. This ensures that we are delivering upon our promise and that the customer is going to have fun using their own dream application. Errors are bound to happen, that’s why we do testing, to catch them and kill them.

6. Deploy

Before unleashing your website/application into the wild, we sit down with you to go over every aspect and make sure you are ok with all of it. It is critical to make sure that every detail is in place.

7. Celebrate

If you live in the same town as us, we treat you to a nice lunch or dinner. Our way to celebrate success with you.

One of the key elements in working with any client is to have a structured approach with them. Remember, they are approaching you to help them solve the problem, not increase it. So keeping them in the loop every step of the way is an ideal way to keep things happy.

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Paypal in Pakistan

Filed Under: General, Inspirational, Pakistan, Startups
Apr.08, 2009

I have been reading a few blog posts by various Pakistani bloggers on how Paypal should start offering services in Pakistan. You can read this blog post to get the idea of how much we really want it.

Now I am all for improving web services in Pakistan. Online payment gateway will definitely open up a lot of ecommerce related websites and will encourage us to make more and more services available online.

But I also think that it is useless to ask Paypal (an American company) to cater our needs. Why should they even consider expanding their services to Pakistan? What good can that possible do for them? 160 million (well not all of them) users? nah, if I was Paypal, I wouldn’t even think about expanding to Pakistan. I am sure Paypal has many other countries to expand to that are worthwhile.

Banging our head against their walls doesn’t really solve the problem. Actually, this is a good problem to have. It leaves the space open for innovation in Pakistan. So lets get our NED and FAST and LUM heads togther and do something about it. Trust me, there is a HUGE first mover advantage in doing this.

So instead of writing letters and spaming Paypal, lets hold innovative sessions on campus (or off-campus) and think about how can we solve this problem. If our banks are playing hardball, than we need to find a way to play around it. Remember, nothing is impossible.

We all will be working together to create these services in Pakistan. We started Mazaydar as our first step towards that mission. It is a long road — a tough road, but I know there is a light at the end of it. So lets get back to work.

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Cricket Game From Mindstorm Studios

Filed Under: General, Pakistan, Startups
Mar.30, 2009

I have been meaning to write about this over the weekend but couldnt’ find the time.

So last week Jehan Ara introduced us to Mindstorm Studios on ITLOW. Babar seemed to know what he was talking about. A young, energetic and upcoming entrepreneur. While listening to him I was very excited to hear about the game and what they are doing.

I wanted to take a few minutes to give my feedback to Babar regarding the game and business stuff around it.

1. Where is the trailer? I could not even find a link to the trailer on Jehan Ara’s post, neither on Mindstorm studio website. I had to digg it up myself on Google and then found out that its called Cricket Revolution (unless they have changed the name)

2. Launching in 2 months? Where is the buzz? See the thing with game industry is that they need to create a hype, a culture, a mystery around the game. I think Mindstorm studio should be spending a lot of time in marketing the game. Just making the game isn’t enough, it you can’t reach the masses. My suggestion would be to get a website up and running and start talking to every single game website to showcase and review your game. You need this hype, you need to get infront of those who won’t spend a single second in searching for you. Why should they?

3. What about XBOX and PS3? As far as I can tell they are launching a PC only version right now. My advice to Babar would be, do whatever you can to get the game on PS3 or XBOX. DO NOT launch without that. You need to cater to that market and they will love you for it. (i know i would)

4. At least say the name of the game in the interview. I didn’t hear any during the whole interview. This interview (and my more like this) should be used as a marketing tool and you should maximize every single marketing channel.

I am excited to see that a Pakistani company is coming forward with a game. I wish them all the best and I hope to see many other titles coming out of this studio. I know how hard it is to make a game and I really do appreciate their efforts.

To start off your marketing, here is a trailer for Cricket Revolution that I found on youtube.

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