:: Hikmah @ Ekhwan.Com :: » Internet & Hosting

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art

Juzar Noorani — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:34:33 +0000

It has just been a few months since the launch of Google’s Social Media Service, the widely talked about Google+ and just a few days since its launch of Brand Pages.

Google has tried and tried again to plunge into the social media business to get a scope of it highly lucrative and viral reach but has withdrawn most of its products after the much enthusiasm with which it was launched was never met. Google Wave was withdrawn from the product line and so is Buzz being turned down in a few weeks time.

Google does have to understand that FaceBook has already done its trial and error thing and understands the user’s needs from its age and learn from the trends set by such a successful venture, from its pros and cons, rather then build from scratch and then keep people waiting for the most needed features yet to come. The wait turning tiring and the enthusiasm fading out.

What Google simply lacks is its integrity with existing social networking media. Google+ would have rocked if it were to have feeds from twitter and facebook, from multiple accounts off-course. Better and tighter privacy options and since Google+ does not allow profile pages for Businesses and in turn has launched pages, they should have focused on allowing people to reserve their brands in the URL rather then having to ask then to remember some funky digits.

I recently plunged into the pages thing to get pages reserved for the organizations I am associated with and then kept wondering as to how I could add other contributors and admins to those pages on Google+. At the end of the day I realized they are still working on it. Its quite simple, can’t they learn from FaceBook that this is supposed to be a basic function for a page that represents an organization or a business entity or does Google+ seem to have a single employee, LOL.

The entire game about so many people running into, what I would call, an immature network, is the mere fact that googleplus accounts tend to get listed on google’s search engine faster then a facebook one, but what about other search engines like Bing. Let’s face it Google is still number one and synonymous when it comes to Search Engines.

It needs a lot of patience to educate people on new tools and time is scarce when it comes to the speed of the Internet, so lets wait and watch what how rapidly Google+ makes its way to into the Social Media.

As for the short URL I did manage to get an easy to remember URL for all my Google+ pages as well as my profile.

http://gplus.to/ekhwan
http://gplus.to/attalim
http://gplus.to/hitechuae

Google Apps Transition

Juzar Noorani — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:28:46 +0000

Google Apps has announced that all the google services will now be available for google apps users just like any other google account. Everything works fine and data is also not lost if suppose you already had a sign-in to any other google services with your google app email. The problems is not the data it is the association of a google id or account to the data. That is, once the google app account is transitioned and someone signs in to, for example, webmaster tools central or analytics, they will be prompted to transition their existing data to another NEW gmail or google account OR a third party email account. The most weird thing I faced was that for each service I had to enter a new email address because existing google accounts were not allowed.

The steps are really making it hard for some people to remember multiple accounts and use them for different purposes and making the task of transition harder. I think google should find a solution to this as most of our attalim.net users have been transitioned except a few due to conflict. The weird thing about the whole game is that each google tool has its own way of looking at things, feedburner is different, adsense and adwords both work differently when it comes to account sign-in and so does webmaster tools central and analytics, while blogger has its own way around as well.

There is a lot of reading and helping tutorial on google but it took me almost an hour to figure out my problem with the adwords account, even then it was only solved by a support request to google and I must say they are fast.

Poor Cutomer Service

Juzar Noorani — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 21:56:17 +0000

When it comes to a monopolistic market trend it is the customer or the end user at that end who suffers the most. Poor competitions is not only far from being a consumers market but rather far from being productive and quality conscience as well, with the woes of the quality not ending an limiting to the sale or production of the product but also deepening up to the customer care and support as well.

Recently I had been to India where you can get a 128 kbps broadband connection on your mobile phone with a limit of 2 MB per month for less then a 100 INR or say 2 USD. The connection would be off course over the 3G and can be used on a laptop provided your phone has the proper supports. The other mobile services are so cheap with a second wise pulse billing going down to a paisa per second, the Indian market is booming with so much competition around.

Back in the UAE the monopolistic trend prevails with not much competition to look at when it comes to the Telecom sector and it is far from being a consumer market. I happened to visit the Etisalat Main Branch in Sharjah for registering a few .ae domain names, which cannot be registered other wise, such as over the Internet. There were 12 counters with only 4 of them active and it took me about an hour to get the 2 out of the 3 domains registered. The remaining one was available when checked on the NIC and aeDA websites but could not be registered because of some technical problem in the Etisalat system. For which I had to go to customer service and report the matter so that it could be escalated to the IT Department, which took another hour just to be informed that it would be solved in 3 working days.

On returning home it was discovered that the sales lady over the counter had made a mistake while entering the email address of the Registrar of one of the domains. Therefore I called the NIC helpline to know that they could not help me and that I would have to visit an Etisalat branch physically or send down a fax for the problem to be solved in 3 working days. I chose the first option and visited the branch the next day. 12 counters and 7 of them working. It took me another hour to get the mistake corrected.

On asking about the domain for which I had raised a request, I was told that the issue was still pending to be resolved by the IT department, even after 24 hours. Such is the quality of customer service you get when there is no choice left.

A request for the reader not to mention the so called competitor Du which is not better. Look at its twitter notification service which is dead since a few months and all you find @dutweets are excuses.

Twitter Jungle

Juzar Noorani — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 19:19:00 +0000

Recently I came across a write-up in Gizmo “In Twitter No One Can Hear You Scream” which I tweeted as usual. Most of the time I feel twitter is non-sense and a waste of time but not if you know how to use twitter to your benefits. Its a great tool that can spread the word about blog posts, maybe short thoughts to the people who follow you and want to know what you are up to.

I use twitter to mark some of the wonderful pieces of information that I read around and at time just stumble on while surfing the internet. To save the good information one can simply tweet it and/or mark it favorite and it can be found in the time line later. Twitter can be used to share and jot down immediately great ideas that pop-up at anytime and any place.

Another great thing about twitter is its sms notification service. I use it to keep in touch with my immediate family and keep them updated of what I AM exactly doing. Though sometimes my son does get annoyed by the number of sms/tweets I send him, he sure likes reading it.

Though most of my tweets are really those 71% mentioned above I find it useful for myself. After all one can know what the Big B is doing when he tweets at least.

Ever since I have added my twitter to the facebook account it has saved my a lot of time updating my facebook friends with new blog posts at least.

Twitter has done great wonders in several ways and those who master its use and are looking for some serious business can benefit from everything that the little tweety has to offer.

We have seen companies offer serious support to their customers on a regular basis using twitter and others post important and vital announcements to their followers who do really look forward to such information. Looking at the age of information and the way the internet has changed our perspective of getting the information we need, its not only twitter that is a jungle but every piece of existing data is. One just needs to learn how to use the available data and resources to suit our best needs. That is the reason why we are humans and not monkeys of the jungle.

The thing about Ads

Juzar Noorani — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 08:11:23 +0000

Basically advertisement really means to promote and draw attention to your product. A more ethical way to say it would be to raise awareness. Ads that work within these bounds are only valuable the rest is just wasting money on junk and crap.

There are these multinationals that sponsor large events to get a piece of public attention drawn by the media and spend a hefty amount of money on campaigns. Does it really work is the question. Say if Pepsi was to sponsor a huge international sporting event and roll their sleeves on promotional offers would that even matter to the Coke lover? It might hike Pepsi sales during the event but would it effect the loyalty of people towards other brands?

There are 2 things that are involved when sales are closed. The first thing is that, which draws the customer’s attention and the second, which makes him or her loyal and keep them returning back.

A cool blonde might be just enough to draw the prospect into a sales lead and close the deal but what makes them loyal is customer support. The kind of treatment one gives to the customer. Its like the old saying that goes, “treat a lady like a queen and she becomes surf”.

Advertisement for the sake of getting the glorified attention of the media begets the most needed attention to draw your clients so why not use it to raise the awareness of the support and services that the customers experience at your sales counter and from the customer support department. Using the media to promote the word of mouth of a customer is something that will endorse the brand. A brand recommended by commoners and not celebrities. Get a webcam and capture your customers’ testimonials and promote them as you go.

Its not the sales lead that makes a company grow and stand rather its the customer loyalty and demand that keeps it going and that is what exactly what kept us going as well. Customers are real people who make us stand apart from the competition.

Our bounce back after deciding on a closure was stopped not by customers, rather our friends.

Copyright association with Names

Juzar Noorani — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 06:45:01 +0000

Identity theft is a very common issue in today’s digital world where people can easily take the advantage of replicable usernames and other digital signatures to represent another entity. This at times can prove to be life threatening in certain cases.

But what if there is no identity theft. What if there do exist people with similar names and surnames or even full names. There are these sites that provide digital signatures but it does not always work everywhere on the internet. How can one secure their identity particularly if a person is associated with several NAMES and BRANDS.

Recently I had to deal with a submission made by me on ezinearticles.com which was rejected by saying that I did not have exclusive rights to it. The reason why I was supposed to NOT have exclusive rights to a content was that the article Ramadan and Fasting was also posted on the hikmah.ekhwan.com blog under the name of Juzar Sh Yusuf bhai while the article submission was made under the name of Juzar Noorani

The way ezinearticles verifies the actual author of the article is weird and illogical. A same person can have a short name, a full name and even several brand names that belong to him not just associated.

While looking for a possible answer to the problem aroused by my experience with ezinearticles it did make me think and do some research of my own. There are several resources that can help with the entire issue of copyright and brand protection or whatever you might call it. The Creative Commons license is the best of all that needs to be published on your site or associated with your work. Another freebie is myfreecopyright.com which is an amazing service which provides unique digital fingerprints for blogs, podcasts, websites and even files. Another free tool which might be of interest is ud.com which provides a search on the availability of the names you would like to associate with on most common social media.

There might be several free tools out there that can help people deal with such issues and if anyone knows of such tools please feel free to leave a comment.

Ekhwan Group Dot Com

Juzar Noorani — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:30:13 +0000

Ramadan is always a time when we Muslims free ourselves from the worldly hassles of life and simply look into spirituality and religious affairs. Its the time to nourish our souls of with pure worship and faith in the Lord our creator.

The past month has been really busy for me with most of my time spent as the Masjid and a part to and fro to my home from the Masjid. A little rest and some spare time with the family. Ekhwan has been in the hosting business since many years now with a few large companies that have trusted us for the many years we have been in business, dophinheattransfer.com and ezwaretechnologies being the most oldest of them all.

Saying that Ekhwan has become a brand in the hosting business that many prefer for the truthful and sincere service and advise we offer to our clients. Our aim has always been to help our clients get the most out of their business.

The reason for all the above introduction is a disclaimer that recently came into my notice. A website called ekhwan group dot com. I have separated the words and spelt out the dot so as not to link to it. This website is NOT a part of Ekhwan and we are not associated to this website or company in any way, even if it is legitimate which we are not aware of.

Just a second note. I have much to write about and will continue as soon as I am back from the spiritual journey, fully revived.

Unlimited Resources – Myth and Reality.

Juzar Noorani — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:03:06 +0000

There are many hosts out there that just stick a huge board or sign luring people into becoming their clients. They often boast of unlimited resources, be it bandwidth or disk space.

The competition has gripped so tightly on the industry that even the most reputed hosts begin to give away such offers. Value for money thinking has dropped so much in the industry that people start off with absurd plans thinking that at the end they would make some money in volume sales.

Logic does not agree with the concept of unlimited bandwidth or unlimited disk space. Even cloud computing would not be able to fully provide unlimited Hard drive (hdd) because there is a physical resource out there which has a limited capability to whatever extent. When we virtualize such resources we simply eliminate the possibility of being limited on resources and boast of with the word UNLIMITED.

There is no such thing as unlimited and there is no way for it logically either. A simple example that may be understood by the current monetary crises in the banking sector. The bubble grew larger, much immense and out of control for the human capability and blew off leading to a series of piled up collapses into the financial market. The reason behind such immense destruction was the creation of virtual money on the click of a button, built on limited physical resources.

The UNLIMITED resources may lure the buyer into grabbing a low cost service from even the most reputed client but it there is no profitability for the service provider they will finally lapse in the after sales service scenario.

Even one of the most powerful giants on the internet such as google count the amount of space there users are provided when they say 7349 and counting. There is no unlimited tag even if they say. You never need to delete another email from now.

If you are a person who wants their business truly maintained then go for the truth and not the unlimited myth. If you are unsure what is your requirement do read this article to determine your web hosting requirements.

The more precise you are about the needs of your companies website or even your personal needs the more easy it will be for you to determine your costs. Do not get lured into the unlimited bids and be practical even when you dream high for having an internet business like amazon, maybe.

Why a free email account sucks?

Juzar Noorani — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 22:31:58 +0000

The internet has tons and loads of information that is available for free. But does reading and goggling up all sorts of information day and night get you a PHD? Well, Billy Gates might be thinking that the internet would soon be a college or university in the near future its a long way to go. So why does all your knowledge not get you any certification after years of referring to the tons of information available here.

One might think I am diverting from the topic but it is quite relevant. The its not he information that earns you your grades and certifications, it is the authenticity of the information. It is how well the knowledge is organized to be put to practical terms and for that you need it to be authenticated and verified by people, living and physical.

When we talk about the internet it is completely virtual and a free email address or a free blogging service or anything that can be grabbed by anyone is unauthentic. Remember a facebook account cannot provide identity information nor can a free gmail or hotmail account authenticate your ID. Its like what Bob said “pope@hotmail.com or gmail.com” does not authenticate that the email is from him.

Most online merchants see the use of a free email account as a suspect of fraud. Such email accounts are also prone to getting your personal and private information at threat of being stolen anytime. Exchanging sensitive information related to your bank accounts or credit card details or online accounts like paypal can land you into a mess if ever the account is compromised.There are several ways this can happen and its a different story for another time.

Those of us who spend a few hours daily on the internet spend at least a few 100$ a year on surfing the internet, especially emailing but ignore a small little expense of getting a paid email account with our own domain name and space. Having total control over our personal and valuable data. It would cost a few dollars a month just to do that. Ekhwan has several plans including Email Solutions as well as Complete Hosting Plans for those who want to establish their own identity on the internet.

What domain should you register? Simply go for your own name or your company name or nickname whatever you think might make it easier for people to identify you on the internet. I have got myself domains like juzarnoorani.com and juzar.net Remember it does pay to have your own domain name and your email, blogs, website hosted on an easily accessible hosting account. It will save you all the trouble of mixed up identities on the internet and give you the authenticity you need. Apart from Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail and many other services, you might also consider having a second thought on third party free blogging services if you are an active blogger.

Whats More……Sign up NOW And…

Get a 50% discount for the life of your account with us

Do NOT FORGET to use the promotion code myidentity while signing up.

The promotion lasts till 12th September 2010 and has only 25 accounts up for a Grab. So Hurry Up!

There are two more days for our comment and win competition. All you have to do it just Comment on the post and win free one year hosting on any account of your choice.

SMS Updates from Twitter

Juzar Noorani — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 20:07:19 +0000

If you haven’t joined twitter yet or you do not know much about the social networking site, it is one of the most fantastic things that could happen in the mobile industry, or short messaging or even mini-blogging. Whatever one might prefer to call it, TWITTER rocks.

All you have to do is create an account for yourself and receive updates from your contacts, ie those people whom you wish to follow or receive updates from. These updates are called tweets.

You can search for a friend and then follow him/her or you can simply go to their URL and follow. Example: http://twitter.com/juzarnoorani or http://twitter.com/ekhwan Simply click the “Follow” button to add the person to your contact list.

When I say twitter being a best thing for mobiles I mean it. Twitter sends sms updates to your handset. Not from all of those you follow but from those whom you opt to have their tweet updates sent to you as sms notification.

For this you can go http://twitter.com/devices and setup your mobile number to access twitter and you might allow messages from the your contacts or those you follow.

The good thing is that it has a do not disturb system in place as well, where you can choose not to receive sms alerts at certain times of the day.

Once you have authenticated your mobile to access twitter, you can receive tweets in sms from all the contacts you select, Free of charge.

Whats greater even is that when you tweet or send an sms to your twitter account, all those following you will receive the tweet on their home page or their mobile softwares like nimbuzz or even just get an sms on their handsets, depending on the options they choose.

Great isn’t it. You can simply message all those following you, in other terms, all those who have added you to their contact list, in one go. At the cost of a single sms. Or even free if you are doing it though the internet.

Twitter now works with the DU network in UAE and Airtel in India. There are several network providers that support twitter worldwide. You can check it out if your local service provider is available.

Helpful Presentation about Twitter

Follow me on Twitter:

Ekhwan Web Hosting

Juzar Noorani

Note: Just like every social networking site, you should also keep your privacy as priority on Twitter as well. Check who is following you, whom you follow. There are many verified celebrity accounts on twitter as well.

:: Hikmah @ Ekhwan.Com :: » Internet & Hosting

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art

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