The other day I installed Linux on my laptop, something I thought I will never even consider all the more do it in reality. More and more work in unix at office and finally a Unix training paved way towards learning something which is associated with Geeks. I for one got windows on my first pc and since then I never had an urge to think about anything else but the new versions of windows. But now I have installed unix and one thing I like about it is when you are working on unix and specially on the console to me it seems a more intelligent way of interfacing with the computer. But to all my friends who love using windows (which i still do) trust me for a home pc you can do almost everything in linux what you normally do in a pc like checking mail, using internet, printing stuff etc. As per playing all the latest games I still have to ask someone.

One sometimes watch a movie, TV commercial, drama, read a book or just an article from the newspaper which leaves an everlasting impression in the mind. Pursuit of Happyness a movie starring Will Smith did exactly that to me. It is based on a true story of a person's life from rags to riches. This is the story of Christopher Gardner, the owner and CEO of Christopher Gardner International Holdings with offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. The strong acting by Will Smith keeps you involved in the movie so much that at the end you feel it ended too soon. I will recommend this movie to all for its strong message of going after your dreams with passion against whatever odds, all you need is to believe in yourself and your goals.

I became Jeffrey Archer's ardent fan after reading "Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less". A book, I still never think twice recommending to my friends.

When Jeffrey Archer was serving his sentence recently the books he wrote like Prison Diary, I was not too impressed and almost forgot about him when I started my pursuit of reading books by different writers and made a point to give a gap of at least 3 books before picking up a second book by a writer I have already read.

The other day while I was browsing through the books section of a store I saw this book in new arrivals, "A Prison Of Birth" by Jeffrey Archer. And I picked it up and went through the summary and found many similarities to his book "Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less". It looked like a book about a common man's revenge against very strong personalities against all odds.

I am still in the first quarter of this book and have not completed but I am loving it. Jeffrey Archer has done it again and I think it is going to be a best seller for sure.

Note-13Mar2008: Completed the book yesterday and it ended with no major surprises meaning a good book to read.

Right now am sitting at the Qatar Airport waiting for my flight to Dubai. It will be in an hours time. Now when I look back its been a good experience

I came to Qatar back in June to work on a project for a local bank here. It was my first international assignment. I had so far got the chance to work with foreign clients from US to Gulf previously but never got the chance to visit any of these countries. But this time the project was such that it had to be developed sitting at the client side thus I came to Qatar as a consultant to work on this project. And it has finished succesfully and now am moving to Dubai on my next assignment.

Its been a journey with ups and downs, saw days when I didnt know whether I will be able to find a place to sleep next day to days when I was living in a luxurious fully furnished apartment. From tough clients to difficult times at the project. Flexible working hours to same food every week :).Alot happened and I believe everything helped me become a better person and was a good learning curve.

Now as am moving to Dubai on my next assignment I consider myself a more mature a person and better equipped to handle clients in this region, why I say that can't explain enough till you have to come and deal with them yourself :) .....

So Qatar thanks for your hospitality .. hopefully sometime in my life I will come back here on a visit.

I am not that good at English and am not sure if the word "Nostalgia" can be related to bad memories, as whenever I've been nostalgic the memories have given me kind of joy. But the other day I was a bit nostalgic about something which I used to despise but the context was such that it put a smile on my face.

Maybe my destiny was to become a computer engineer, and since most of my life I had to type instead of writing my handwriting was absurd from the beginning. Ya I know what you thinking that my destiny could have been a doctor as well but I was pretty horrible at drawings as well thus didn’t like biology that much with all the circulatory systems of a frog etc. Thus it had to be a computer engineer.

So getting back to the point, since my handwriting was abysmal, my cousins used to taunt me and the elderly cousins who were teachers at that time tried to warn me that I shall do something about my handwriting otherwise I won’t get good marks specially in my board examinations of 10th grade. Whenever this topic used to come, I always vexed since all my trying I just couldn't improve it. Finally I worked extremely hard and when my 10th grade result came, I scored highest marks among all the cousins with the same handwriting, and that so called record has yet to be broken by someone.

The other day I was sitting at the office and we had to send some documents to a client, on which the captions were to be handwritten. We were 3 guys their and I asked whose handwriting is good enough for the task and both the other guys just backed off saying they have forgotten to write :) .... and then I wrote all the captions and my handwriting was kind of appreciated :) .... at that time I just got nostalgic and felt triumphant as it was the first time my handwriting was appreciated :) ... Life and its funny cycles.

Yesterday I left a little late from office. I was in the car and a few ideas started popping up in my head. Ideas which I would like to write upon. By the time I reached home I had compiled a couple of paragraphs in my mind.

I got busy in dinner but in my sub conscious I was doing the same exercise over and over again. Later I was watching one of my favorite TV shows and I reached a point when I couldn't concentrate any further, I went and picked up a pad wrote down everything once. I corrected it and wrote it down again with clarity. Read it a couple of times and then I was at ease and able to relax.

I don't know if there is any word for such an experience. But it was a different experience and I had fun.

I was going through this article "When Consumers Can Write the Ads" on ecommercetimes website.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/9klFJqniKqGVnz/When-Consumers-Can-Write-the-Ads.xhtml

And I really enjoyed the whole idea of this latest marketing gimmick. That gives access
to the consumers some video clips of a product and allow them to make an advertisement out of it and surely the best one wins some good prize.

The idea is so raw and fresh that I really liked it. I even went to one of the websites mentioned in this article and tried it out and loved the ease of the whole process
and made a few ads myself.

I think in Pakistan this can be used by different companies belonging to telecom, beverages etc. And the one who realizes it and uses it upfront will win the race. Let’s see....

I think people will like to try their hands on it and sharpen their film making skills. So here is the link of the one I used, enjoy and have fun www.chevyapprentice.com.