Tariq Ismail

Its remarkable how quickly time flies. Its already been a month and half since I’ve moved back to Dubai. It all happend so quickly. One moment I was still in summer school and the next moment I was frantically selling my furniture and packing my stuff. July 20th I dropped my personal belongings and car off to a freight forwarding company, who’s owner was kind enough to then drop me off at the airport and that was it. The end of a chapter of my life that lasted 4 years.

And back to Dubai, major moves are an extremely stressful activity. The pressures and stress of packing and figuring what you want to keep and what need to get rid of. Although its a great way to purge all that accumulated material junk with one swift motion. You realize that 80% of the crap you’ve gathered is a total waste of space and money, but alas the accumulation starts right over once the move is over.

Its an interesting experience starting over in a new place (even if that place was a place you’ve lived before). Four years changes a person, you’re prioties, perspectives, and lifestyle are all different. And especially when you’ve grown accustomed to living alone and doing things your own way it can be shock to having to learn how to compromise again when you move back home.

Nonetheless, the advantages are endless. Its so nice to be able to eat 3 wholesome meals a day, and that being your Mom’s amazing home cooked food. The burden of maintaing a household, from cleaning to cooking to worst of all laundry, being lifted. And of course it gives you all this new free time making one realize how much time housekeeping tasks can really take away from your day. So it has left me with a great amount of time to dedicate to personal and professional development, and surprisingly even a little bit of time to give to my endless hobbies.

It was a difficult decision to make, bringing me back to a poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, which my 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Ridley, insisted that we memorize. The poem is about those times when your life comes to a fork in the road, and you have to decide which path to take. The narrotor finally choose “the path less travelled by…” and for him that “made all the difference.” But how do you really know what decision is the right one for you? It was decision between remaining in Canada and pursuing a career there, or returning home and seeking out my opportunities here. From what I’ve been able to figure out, you don’t ever know. You just got to trust your gut.

These moments shape the outcome of your life. The opportunities look good so far. I can’t tell you yet if I took the easy way out or the hard way out by moving home. But so far I’m damn happy with the decision. Lets see what comes next.

blogging isn’t easy. i’m still having a hard time consistently updating my site. life gets busy. but new posts and updates are coming soon. what’s been going on? new logos and projects completed, in the midst of relocating back to dubai, and of course iUnituS.

things have been interesting, so will be this blog…soon.

Had to bring my car in today to the dealership (2007 Nissan Altima 3.5SE 6-speed). Barely 2 months after my warranty expires my tire pressure sensors go all crazy, one of my chrome exhaust tips falls off and today my driver side window decides it doesn’t want to close anymore.

Warranty: the built in time bomb in your toys waiting to go off.

Tried convincing them to give me the Nissan GTR they had sitting in the showroom as a loaner. Didn’t go over so well but how sexy is this car? I think I’m ready to trade up (I wish!)

http://www.ssscwestern.ca – Today I finally moved what I consider to be my first true real project to my completed projects archive. Today is a milestone for me. This project is a landmark. A door I dared to open that changed the course of my life, a changed career path, a new perspective even.

It’s astonishing how much I’ve learned through building this website. An interesting journey it was. Starting with a torrent download of a PDF copy of Web Development for Dummies in the summer, a random desire to sit in on a university student council meeting, the impeaching of a soon to become friend and respected peer, a two week insomniac binge for a  student government election campaign, and of course iUnituS.

It gave me a taste of it all–social media, web design, graphics, communications. And even now, when I have officially retired myself from the site and handed it over to its new operators, I have this urge to go back and make those small little tweaks I’ve told myself I always wanted to do and never gotten to. Of course its all those little things that keep bothering me the most, the things that most people will never notice but every time I visit the site will irritably stick out at me. I’m always going to want to come and apply every new thing I learn that I possibly can.

This is a product of many sleepless and frustrated nights. Lots of Tim Hortons coffees were bought, a lot of yelling and stomping was done, and many many set backs. The patience paid off, thats why the next few projects made it to the archives first.

Who know’s social science, maybe I’ll sneak in a few tweaks and upgrades here and there when I get my chances.

Lets see what next.

(more…)

The Armani Hotel, which is designed by Giorgio Armani himself, is situated in the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world), in Dubai. Arabian Business Magazine has been able to get the first pictures of the interior of the hotel. You can check it out here.

Also, if you want to see a really cool website check out Armani Hotels & Resorts new website: http://www.armanihotels.com.

I know the guys that are doing this. Really cool stuff. Its a vinyl that they can print in any design or color and they do the installations themselves. Apparently cheaper than a paint job while protecting the original paint underneath. They did my sister’s Mercedes SLK as a promotion. It was originally black, and here’s what it looked like after:

There are a lot more photos to find on their facebook group

A buddy of mine suggested this site to me actually, and many times I’ll even choose it over my own iTunes library, just because its so convenient. Its perfect for when you have people over and they want to play a song that you don’t have. No longer do you have to clutter your computer with music downloads that you will never listen to again, just for the one time gratification of your house guests. The music sounds great, the music loads fast, and I’ve yet to look for a song that they didn’t have. If you are still using YouTube to stream your music you really need to check this out.

The site is supported by adware, but what’s a few lousy ads for good quality free streaming music. You can opt for a premium account for a nominal fee to remove the ads and get more features. Check it out: http://www.grooveshark.com.

Not even a day since I’ve installed WordPress and I’m sick of it. Exams season means that I haven’t had that much time to play with it but the entire thing just leaves you thirsty for more. Control over the elements seems limited, and so far I just haven’t been impressed by the development community on WordPress. Even when you do try and use an extension, templates don’t seem to know how to display it right so you end up toting with CSS code way more than you would have to in Joomla.

That being said I love that I can post to my blog (as I am right now) from my iPhone. The WordPress app is clean and easy to use. As a very simple blogging engine WordPress is great. For somebody who likes to tinker around and have total control over their web environment there is a lot more Joomla can do out of the box.

For now I’m going to stick with WordPress, only because I’m really eager to get back into blogging (failed blogging attempts can be found Here and Here). But I see Joomla coming back in the not so distant future.

This is the story. I bought my domain name in August as soon as it became available for purchase again. I bought hosting, started setting up a site with Joomla!, then got really busy making websites for clients and with school and what not. Then the site disappeared as I realized that I needed to upgrade my hosting. Finally, we’re back!

Although I’m an avid and devout Joomla user, This site will be powered by WordPress. As much as I love Joomla, WordPress is significantly better suited for a dominantly blogging site. And although I am still primarily going to develop on Joomla, I am very pleased so far with my experience with WordPress. You install it and right out of the box its setup and ready to blog, very impressive.

More to come soon.