Nur Ahmad Furlong

Blog

  • Online Doc/Note storage, Google docs & Evernote

    As you can tell by my last post I’ve suffered a bit of a dilemma relying to heavily on locally stored data. Sure backing up would help, but that’s one side of the story, sometimes you need more than a huge clunky usb harddrive to retrieve lost data quickly.

    I use 2 solutions, google docs and evernote. Google docs is alot more powerful as an Office suite though for me evernote is alot easier to deal with and it just saved me huge amounst of time with it’s online synced account storing data added through the desktop app. It also helps having an browser add-on to quickly grab snippets from the web. Only problem I have is my paranoia with the reliability of giving away your data and needing a web connection to access it. Have a look at what the 2 solutions have to offer.

    Google Docs

    Create and share your work online

  • Upload from and save to your desktop
  • Edit anytime, from anywhere
  • Pick who can access your documents
  • Share changes in real time
  • Files are stored securely online

    • Evernote

    On the web

    Create, clip, and share notes on the web and see them everywhere

    On your phone

    Take snapshots, read to-do lists, record audio whenever and wherever you like

    On your desktop

    Search through all your notes, even find text within images, whether online or off

    Evernote have posted a tutorial on exporting your notes from google notebook which is no longer being developed by google. You can also email notes to your evernote account using a special address generated in your account. Nice one.

  • My macbook HD has crashed, go backup yours now!

    The importance of backing up

    Anyone seen the terrible flashing question mark of harddrive death before, well now I have.

    A few months ago, my HP notebook’s motherboard burnt out and put me out of action for a few days. I managed to take the harddrive to get it backed up but Incredible connection’s service centre did an incomplete backup. So I ended up lossing loads of data and being in a bit of distress for a while being the digital nomad that I am.

    Technology can never be infallible

    So I decided to make the switch back to mac hoping for a more stable and reliable setup. I hoped to use the time machine system to keep a regular backup of work btu my 500gig HD has already got loads of data on it so I couldn’t format it just yet until I could find a way to back up that data.

    Yesterday, in nearing the end of my largest project to date and with 6 other projects running in the background, my macbook HD seems to have completely packed up. It started with a few freezes and then a flashing question mark. I tried most of the generic fixes provided online to no avail and I think I’m gonna have to kiss loads of data goodbye. Thanks the Lord for my online backups and test sites of my current projects I might only have to catch up on about 2 days of work in the short term, but all my juicy resources, wordpress code, plugins, themes, imagery, etc etc is a distant memory.

    Be warned, your Data is at risk

    So My warning to anyone out there who is listening, backup right now, yes right now, now is almost too late to backup.

    Mac Data recovery guru needed

    To any mac gurus out there who might have a solution for me, the HD still seems to be making some buzz but is completely not detectable. I’ve even bought a casing and attached it to another mac but nothign detected, if anyone has any solution out there I will be eternally grateful and might even be able to offer something of value in return.

  • Does Google Friend Connect deserve a beta test?

    google_friend_connect_diagramSo you might have noticed the box to the top right of this post with some friend avatars in it. I signed up to be whitelisted as a google friend connect beta tester and then as usual when signing up for these types of things forgot all about it. Google sent me a notification a few days ago that my request had been accepted so I went through the motions of checking out what they had to offer.

    To be honest I’m not very impressed although I suppose things are still in development, the features available are currently not very usable. For example the widget I used in this site, which allows friends to connect with me on my site and invite others to do so, only allows me to see one or 2 profile links and doesn’t really allow me much interaction with the person who signed up as my friend. Maybe someone needs to develop a wordpress-friendconnect plugin to integrate some of the functionality.

    I admit I haven’t spent an awful amount of time going through the limited documentation, but so far it seems very raw and nothing to write home about, though I do love getting some additional little functional elements to play around with and spice up my site with.

    We’ll see what the community comes up with once the serious developers start throwing their social dev weight at this thing. As a non-hardcore-developer I can only but wait for now and throw in my 2 cents worth. How about you register as a friend and tell me if you found the process easy or valuable at all.

    The promise of Open Social seems to be working it’s way towards something but I don’t think it’s fully arrived yet. Next I think we’ll try Facebook connect and see how it compares.

  • I’m running on wordperss 2.7 RC1

    A few days ago with the release of release candidate 1 for wordpress 2.7, I tested it out on my local install and without any bugginess decided to go live. One or 2 plugins conflicted with the new install which rendered nomad-one.com a blank white screen for a few hours. I also forgot to reset my index.php file to tell it I was running wordpress from it’s own directory within my root folder.

    wordpress27

    One or 2 fixes later and I’m glad to say WP 2.7 RC1 has given me no more problems and is a huge pleasure to use. I recommend upgrading, but be sure to disable all plugins, and follow the regular upgrade process very strictly by backing up all files, backing up your database and taking it a step at a time. If there’s anything special you’ve done within your wordpress install be sure to pay attention not to overwrite any custom mods.

    Once you have WP RC1 running upgrading is as simple as one click away once the official release is out.

    I’m currently working on a detailed step by step dashboard guide for 2.7 which I hope to make available in pdf format in the next week or 2.

    WordPress 2.7 sees a major overhaul of the administration interface, integration of some great previously external plugin functionality. The menu and easy to use dashboard customisations are my favourite improvements making managing yoru wordpress site easier than ever. You can also quickly swicth off certain panels which are of no relevence to you or your clients.

    Grab a copy of the latest release at www.wordpress.org, or stay tuned for the official version which should be available in the next few weeks. I just couldn’t wait anymore.

  • Salam BC, an impressive new business network

    A few months ago I posted some designs on crowdspring.com for the re-brand of the social network which targets Muslim, Arabic and Middle-eastern interest groups. I won the contest and went on to complete a logo design according to the client’s very strict specifications. See Salambc.com Logo Design below:

    I signed up on the network a while back in the testing phase but only really started using it in the last few days and I have to say, Linkedin needs to take note of some of the features in Salambc.com’s network. Salambc’s profile’s work alot more like a facebook and creating and joining groups is alot easier than Linkedin.

    They’re described themselves in the following manner:

    The Salam Business Club is the world’s first social business network especially for the Arab, Asian and Muslim business world with members from 170 countries around the world. Join the hottest Internet startup and find old friends, colleagues, valuable business contacts and new markets for your products. Extend your network and connect with decision makers, freelancers, entrepreneurs and the managers of the future.

    I’d love to know if their backend is custom built or running on an open-source platform. Have a squiz at Salambc.com and sign up if ur interested in networking with Muslim/Arab Friendly business professionals.

    An aquantance of mine criticised the special focus of this social network saying no social networks should be specifically for certain groups. I had to dissagree, as  person with a specific set of values and ethics, I’m interested in networking with others who share my values and on a business level I’d like to network with other business people who appreciate that there are certain types of business practices I cannot promote, joining Salambc gives me this opportunity.

    Salambc is not exclusive though and even though it encourages doing business in an islamically acceptable manner, it invites all interested to join. If you do join though, know that there are rules to any game, so promoting business which does not conform with Islamic Business rules is not allowed, those being interest based financial services, gambling, alcohol, anything of an adult(XXX) nature or any unhealthy products or services.

    I take my hat off to theses guys and wish them every success going forward.

  • Skye News WordPress Theme by Elevate & nomad-one

    Earlier in the year, a well known premium wordpress theme developer(Nathan Rice) announced that he would be embarking on an open source wordpress theme project and that he was looking for designers who wanted to collaborate with him. Of course as a wordpress nut I jumped at the opportunity and offered my services.

    I whipped up a this quick design and zipped it through to him a little later. Since then Nathan has been quietly busy getting his ducks in a row with what has now launched as www.elevatethemes.com, a freemium theme project.

    The design I sent Nathan has formed the basis for what was released as the first elevate theme called Skye News. Nathan has significantly simplified the design, but has packed some really great features into the coding of this new release which can be demo’ed here.

    I think what I’m going to attempt is to download this baby and try to style it to look a little closer to my original design which I will then send to Nathan to add to elevate themes as a Skye News alternative.

    Go check out elevate themes yourself and if you’re a bit of a theme design why not chip and and send some designs of your own or offer to code up someone else’s design?

    Check out www.elevatethemes.com and gime a shout if you like the theme and need some theme customization.