Monday, September 29, 2008

Koi zabt de na jalal de
Mujhe sirf itna kamal de,
Mein har aik ke sada banon
K zamana mere misal de
Tere rehmaton ka nazool ho
Meri mehnaton ka sila milay
Mujhe mal-o-zar ke hawis na ho
Mujhe bas TU rizq-e-halal de
Mere zehan mein Tere fikr ho
Mere sans mein tera zikr ho
Tera khauf mere nijat ho
Sabi khauf dil se nikal de
TERI bargah mein aye Khudha
Meri roz-o-shab hai yehi sada
TU Rahim hai, TU Karim hai
TU sab hee balaon ko taal de.
AMEEN.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Best Friends Redefined....

As I stood with my niece waiting for her 'van wala mama' to arrive, we started a little chat. To start the conversation my niece asked:
"Phopo, who is your best friend at university?"

Saying university in her own cute style, her own-created pronunciation, she utters the word like it's a very big word for her to say, which by the way it is, she is only three after all. Okay, back to the topic.
So I didn't know what to reply to this innocent question, so I decided to evade it by saying:
"Aap ho na phopo ke best friend."


At that she broached another question:
"Acha yeh bataein aap ko apni university mein sab se zada kaun pasand aata hai?"

At that I just laughed. Thankfully I was saved by the 'van wala mama'.

********

At dinner, I was narrating this story to my family (in my niece's absence). As they all laughed at the story, my brother (my niece's father) pointed out that she was actually defining what for her is the meaning of best friend when she asked me the second question.
After hearing my reply to the first question, she realized that I wasn't answering her truthfully, she realized that it wasn't the answer she demanded, she must have thought I was that dumb, so she rephrased the question for my benefit. For her,
"Best Friend" means "a person you like the most".
:) Which is not a very incorrect definition. Though this is not the way we adults define it, for us best friends would mean not the people we like the most, but the people who would give up everything for us.... well that's another discussion all together.

********

To confirm my brother's theory, I asked my niece the same two questions she had asked me in the morning. I asked her
"Who is your best friend?"

She gave me three names.
Then I asked her
"Who do you like the most in your school?"

She gave the same three names.

Definition confirmed:
Best Friend is a person you like the most. :) A simple and cute way to define the concept.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Output Parameters

Sometimes when you write a function, you may want it to manipulate and return several values rather than one. Whenever I needed to do this I used to return an object.
But there might be a possibility that the returned object has no other purpose than to be used just to return multiple values from a function.
And then I discovered output parameters. Though I haven't really used them. (Just used them to check the functionality, nothing flashy. :) )

With output parameters you define the variables that will be returned. But you don't use the return keyword. With return keyword you can return a single value or object not multiple.
But with output parameters you don't use the return keyword to return multiple values rather you just specify that these variables are output parameters and their values can be used by the calling program and the called program can manipulate their values (in fact, assign them values).
For the above stated purposes you use the keyword out.

Example Code:
Say, you have a class "Class1.cs" (a very innovative name, right?)
In this class you have a function called ProcessNum which takes two integers as input and as output gives their sum and difference. This is how it will work:

public void ProcessNum(int a, int b, out int Sum, out int Diff)
{
Sum = a + b;
Diff = a - b;
}

Calling ProcessNum:

Class1 obj = new Class1();
int S;
int D;
int num1 = 5;
int num2 = 5;
obj.ProcessNum(num1, num2, out S, out D);
Console.WriteLine("Called ProcessNum of Class1 with parameters " +
"a: " + num1 + Environment.NewLine + " b: " + num2 +
Environment.NewLine + "Returned Values:::: " +
Environment.NewLine + "Sum: " + S + Environment.NewLine +
"Diff: " + D);


Source:

Apress Beginning ASP.Net 2.0 in C# 2005
Chapter # 3: Types, Objects and Namespaces
Pg. #: 75

Disclaimer..... or something to that affect

It's not actually a disclaimer. Rather a notification.. or maybe not even that. But just liked the sound of it. :P

For the past few weeks I have been researching on a few things and a lot of things have come up that I thought I should blog about. (Maybe that's because I don't want my blog to be just sitting there with the most recent post being the one posted a year ago. So I decide to add anything and everything on the blog.)
Whatever may be the reason, the next few posts might be just links to articles that I found interesting and informative, they might be about things you already know, or they might be about things you would find useful like I did. :)

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Another act of innocence

My niece decided to drop in on me and inquire:
"What are you doing?"

She must have been intrigued by my posture of just sitting at my chair starring at the computer screen.
On her question I instinctively replied
"Reading a book."

At which point she asked
"Where is your book?"

Looking here and there, trying to look where I was hiding my book. She must have thought I was lying to get rid of her, while in reality I was reading an ebook.

Monday, September 8, 2008

New job... New life..... :)

It has been 2 months since I started my new job, that is to say, my very first job.

(I joined on 1st July, and people told me that I should have taken a break, and now I agree with them.)

I have been meaning to write about my job since the day I started, but never actually got around to it. This is because I didn't know exactly what to write. I don't know now either but have decided to go ahead with it anyways.

So... new job.. a new phase of life. Completely new and definitely different. Utterly new for me because I didn't have any experience of free lancing or internships. Different for the same reason.

We have been doing projects throughout the four years of our bachelors. These projects included not only the programming projects, the softwares we created, but also the presentations we gave, or the researches we did and produced a report as a result. We did a Final Year Project to give us an essence of what professional projects are supposed to be like. But being in professional life in reality is different then any simulation you go through during bachelors.

And it's not only the work thing. It is basically about settling at a new place. With new people, who will play different roles in your career, they can be your supervisors, the people who'll work with you side-by-side on a project, the people who are hired with you and the people who are your seniors. It's about settling with an AC on top of your head, and you are feeling like you are sitting in an igloo. It's about getting acquainted with your workplace computer. :P (People who work with me would know what I am talking about.) It's about getting used to the working hours, though they are less then the time we spent at uni, but definitely more tiring.

It's about calling your office, your place.
In an orientation session at office, the presentor broached a question
"Can a person work at a place about which he doesn't feel like he owns it. Can he work at an office which he doesn't own?"
I sat quietly while the others nodded. My expressions must have betrayed me because the presentor pointed me out and said "Yes you tell me, is that possible." And although I wanted to say yes, he can, I instead said no. And then he explained, again because my face expressions must have betrayed me, that
"yes it is possible if the person doesn't like working at that place."

For me the answer 'yes it is possible' holds true for completely different reasons. My reason being that if I think I own the place, I'll stop working. :D :P
I'll work when I understand that I am doing a job there and I am supposed to work. If I feel like this company's owned by me then I would surely not press even a single key, would not even bother to place a ';' at the end of a statement.
But what he meant by owning a place is not literally owning the company, but he meant owning in a completely different sense. And I won't go ahead and explain what he meant, because I don't know how to explain this phenomena.


And in the end it's about enjoying... making new friends, experiencing a new side of people. And again, enjoying...
Coz it's not worth if you are unable to find an element of enjoyment. Enjoyment encompases enjoying your work, loving what you do, realizing that you chose the right field, the right profession for yourself. And you realize that only when you like doing what you do. No, not like, love it. Enjoying is when you don't really want to get up in the morning, and you drag yourself to your office, but when you start working, you get so indulged in it that you don't realize the time flying by. Enjoying is when you are finally done with a project and you get that feeling of happiness, yes the feeling you get when you have finally accomplished something no matter how small. Enjoying also includes the feeling of nervousness you experience when you are assigned your first project, when you are asked to give a time line and schedule of that project, when you are expected to solve a problem, when you are expected to come up with new ideas and what not.
Enjoying is.. being there, doing it. :)

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Things to do in Ramadan

As Ramadan approaches, pamphlets are distributed, articles are published in various magazines regarding the Ibadat that a person can indulge himself/herself into during this holy month. My mom read one of such articles to me, also specifying how can I complete them. Like at one point she said, you can easily recite these ayats on your way to office. You have ample time to complete one tasbeeh easily.
I am jotting down some of them below, so that we can all try to recite them whenever we can, and so that we may not forget to especially take out time for these. After all, this month comes but once a year.

One tasbeeh of First Kalma everyday.
One tasbeeh of Third Kalma everyday.
At least one tasbeeh of Astagfar every day.
One tasbeeh of Surah-Ikhlas (Kul ho Allah)
2 Nafil shukrana every day.
Try to offer Salat-e-Tasbeeh before Friday's Zuhur.
In Ramadan Surah-Qadr (Inna Anzalna) should be recited extensively. Recite it 7 times, at the least, every day.

You can recite a few even while working...
Read Ya-Allah, Ya-Salam, Ya-Hafeez.


Right after waking up in the morning, read Bismillah and then read Durud-Shareef three times, then blow on your wrists and then rub them on your face.
If you are irritated or angered by something then read Al-Hafeez, you'll feel better.
After Isha and Namaz-e-Taraveeh read Al-Qavi 21 times.
After Isha and Namaz-e-Taraveeh read First Kalma three times.

Source: Pakeeza (September 2008). Pgs. 303 - 305. You'll find a lot of other ayats you can recite during Ramadan. Do make it a point to go through these pages because I have jotted only a few of the many present.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Ramadan Mubarak


I know I am a bit late with this post. We at Pakistan are already done with the 3rd roza, this post should have come early but well, better late then never.

Ramadan Mubarak to all of you

May we all take the full advantage of this blessed month. Pray as much as we can and may we keep ourselves away from all kinds of sins for this one month at least. Ameen.

This is the month where all Muslims try to follow the rules a bit more carefully. When we all try to offer our prayers, all 5 of them and all at the right time. When we try to keep ourselves away from sins and try to indulge ourselves in Zikr. When we keep ourselves away from food, in order to achieve Allah's blessings.

It's a completely different environment in Ramzan. You know everyone is offering Fast. You talk more about Islam and what we should be doing in this month. People offer Taraveh we all try to finish Quran in this month.

I am writing all of this, not because I intend to preach about Ramadan. But because these are the things that I especially like about Ramadan. The fact that we all strive to become good Muslims, even if it's just for this one month. But even so it feels good that after all that has been happening all around, and after all the things we have entangled ourselves in, in spite of all the complexities we have sewn all around us, in spite of all the conspiracies we brew to keep ourselves ahead of everyone else in the race of life, there are times, when we detach ourselves from all these worldly affairs, or at least we try our best, and engage ourselves in our deen.

I would also take this opportunity and request everyone reading this to forgive me for anything that I might have said or done to hurt you in any way. Please forgive me.
Who knows I might not be there to ask for forgiveness the next time Ramadan is here.