I have moved my blog to armaghansaqib.wordpress.com. All new updates are posted there.

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Here are some of my latest blog posts.

• Being under-confident and over-confident
• When boys are boys and girls are boys
• What is your elevator pitch?
• ITCN Asia 2010 is an event
• So what’s the deal with debono’s lateral thinking tools?
• Low calorie diet. This time it is not food.
• Free ebooks by Seth Godin on personal development and marketing

There are too many injustices in the world; red tape is too long, your boss treats you badly, your friends are selfish, you don't have enough money to buy the latest clothes and shoes, your work hours are too long, your parents don't understand your problems, your spouse is not happy. (the list is really long)

Ok I got it.

There are two possible ways to channel your energy:

1. Complain about these injustices and keep complaining forever.
   
2. Manage yourself to take some small positive steps; learn new skills, make new connections, read books, volunteer somewhere, tell others what you can do for them etc.

Guess which approach is going to help you and make this world a better place?

I keep hearing complains all day and I am tired of these people. Please don't be one of them.

Black hat is not enough. You need to use yellow and green hats too.

Most of us have made life changing decisions in a matter of minutes or even seconds. Just scan your past and you will find many examples. This happened because we were forced to do that due to unexpected turn of events. This also means that we are capable of making good decisions in the shortest possible time.

But in our day to day life, we keep thinking over and over again about small issues. Thinking time can span days or even months. This has one huge problem: we keep postponing the real action.

The time discipline of thinking tools liberates you from this thinking rut. You are asked to practice a particular tool (PMI for example) within 1-5 minutes. With some practices, you brain adopts this discipline for your day to day thinking and helps you become a doer rather than a philosopher.

Information we get daily is doubling every 18 months. To get attention we need to make dead simple and readable websites and blogs. But not all web developers and bloggers are with us. They want to show off their newly learned design skills and use all possible colors, flashing and scrolling text. External website widgets are another source of cluttered and bloated web pages.

I have been using readability tool by Arc90.com since it was released in early 2009. This tool removes all clutter from the web page you are reading. This tool is also available as a firefox addon and google chrome extension. See the screen shots of a web page below before and after applying the readability tool.

Safari browser by Apple, a company built around design and usability, now has this functionality built into it.

Hey, web developers! Do you still need proof people want simpler and readable websites?

Today I visited the office of a big business. This company has annoyed probably close to thousand customers due to some of its acts; none of which are out of its control. The only motive seems to maximize profits.

Are we really helpless? I thought. "Client executive" (whatever that designation means), and then his manager, tried to calm me with all sort of false statements.

I then insisted and proceeded to see the department head and recorded my protest. This respectable old man tried to look courteous but could not offer anything concrete and used his intelligent mind to confuse the matter.

I am not sure my protest will have any dent on the company practices; may be some; may be a lot. But I do think we have the right and we should protest respectfully and peacefully. It can make a difference sometime somewhere. I used to argue with faceless call center operators but that is probably close to useless. Higher the authority you protest to, the better.

Some people are lucky enough to know what they want to do with their life. Some need a bit of digging into their own mind. You can't hit a target unless you identify a target. You can't achieve a goal unless you know what your goal is. Right?

Old advice. Yes it is. But it still works.

I came across this small booklet, "a brief guide to world domination" (pdf, 29 pages) which might help you to identify your passion and work for it.

This booklet is based around two most important questions:

#1: What do you really want to get out of life?
#2: What can you offer the world that no one else can?

Here is a direct download link for the pdf.

There are times when, despite all your intelligence and experience, you make a really big blunder and then keep regretting it for a long time. You are just bewildered how on earth you did that. But it has happened and now get over it. And you have a big company. :)

Why this happens? This is not stupidity. This is due to the way our brain works as a pattern making and pattern matching system. All new incoming information is matched to existing brain patterns. A particular sequence of events can trigger a potentially unfavorable pattern in our brain. A con artist can use his skills to make our brain's pattern matching system work to his advantage.

Edward de Bono's thinking tools can help you to cut across existing brain patterns instead of matching these. The three important tools to help you in tricky situations are APC, CAF and PMI.

APC stands for alternatives, possibilities and choices.
CAF stands for consider all factors.
PMI stands for plus, minus, interesting.

To apply each tool, you list as many points as possible within 1 - 3 minutes without bringing your judgment into the thinking process. Spend some time on practicing these tools with a paper and a pencil. Simplicity of these tools and few days of practice will make it possible for you to use these in real life situations without much effort.

Let us avoid the next big blunder.

(Photo credit: lolsnaps.com)

I have been writing my blog for past 4 years but doing it daily for the past few weeks. A number of people have praised this practice. Thanks. My friends think that this is something not so easy. But I think every one can be a blogger and every one can write daily. How?

You learn something daily. Don't you? And you also have a big repertoire of experience as well. On a personal blog what you do is you just share something, anything, out of your huge repertoire. You don't necessarily need to write large, well researched post every day.

Then why it looks so difficult to write? I think because we under estimate our learnings and experiences and think that these will not be useful for the rest of the world. This is not true. You are unique and you are capable and you can help the world.

Another thing perhaps is that you want to look perfect to the outside world who is having a look at your blog. You are not perfect and don't try to be. Make mistakes and thanks anyone who points out yours. It will just make you more confident.

I often see the web pages of companies and individuals full of all
possible things they can do and just wonder what they really do and
what they really have experience with. Perhaps this strategy (we can
do everything) only dilutes their message.

The best lesson I have learned so far in my life (after doing the
exact opposite) is do less. And it has changed my life, for better.

With do less philosophy, you do not try to do every thing you can do;
you try to do the best thing you can do. And the best part is you are
going to be happy with your life and there is a good chance you will
make more money too.

This is what Seth Godin tries to convince us in the attached 7 page pdf.

In a recent blog post I told you how to install and run Ubuntu Linux on your PC. You can also run Ubuntu Linux directly from CD without disturbing you PC. A number of people have installed and started using Ubuntu Linux as their desktop operating system on my suggestion.

One of the often asked questions is what to do if there is no alternative available in Linux to a particular Windows software. In such cases you can always run Windows and your favorite Windows software in virtual environment on your Linux desktop.

Sun/Oracle's VirtualBox for Ubuntu is a software which allows you to run Windows and its software in virtual enviornment. You install it on your Linux desktop, install Windows within virtual box environment and then run any Windows software.