Nur Ahmad Furlong

Category: Blogging

  • WordPress Meetup Cape Town #2 Coming up soon

    Hi All you wordpress Gurus, Rockstars and enthusiasts out there. The second WordPress cape Town Meetup is closing in on us and registration is open. The first meetup was a great success even though numbers were relatively low but we expect a much larger turn-out for session 2.

    No payments necessary this time as the venue is being Sponsored by Jayz.co.za. So you’re interested in wordpress, you want to learn something or have some crazy wordpress skills and experience to share with others,head on over to the second WordPress Meetup in Cape Town on 26th March 2008.

    The Details

    Date: Wednesday 26 March 2008

    Time: 4pm – 7pm

    Location: Bandwidth Barn, 125 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town (map)

    What’s The meetup all about?

    Basically it takes on the style of an (un)conference and is very informal. We get together, bring some ideas,questions, problems, cool wordpressy stuff and share, present, ask and generally try to progress in our understandings of the platform.

    Branding the Meetup

    I’ve been working on giving the meetup a bit of a face and was wondering what you think of it. We’re hoping to turn this event in something of a feature and one which will build in momentum. I’m also looking to form a proper network of WordPress enthusiasts. The designs below are inspired by some designs developed for a previous wordpress based project.

    wordpressmag

    So let me know what you guys think of the logos and hopefully see those of you who can make it there. Please register by posting a comment on this post.

  • Yesterday was one Great day to remember- Open Coffee and all

    Whfew! What a day, been getting birthday wishes(I’ve just turned 30) from all sides, messages of congratulations related to so many great things that have been happening lately and business looks set to boom in the coming months.

    I have to say thanks to all of you out there who have been keeping in touch and being great support. This buzzy period comes after month of struggle and difficulty and I’ve seen times of major doubt and disillusionment. My sites traffic has seen a huge spike, some nominations for a few awards and some prizes coming my way from others.

    It makes me think of a verse from the Quran which goes something like: “Truely, After Difficulty comes ease, After difficulty comes ease.”

    The thing is, this is only just the beginning for me. I look forward to building a great network, upping my game in the blogosphere, building a great business and solving some key problems for business and society along the way.

    Open Coffee was a huge success today with a great turnout. As usual Henk Kleynhans of Skyrove was there topping us up with free skyrove credits which we are all grateful for. Thanks a ton Henk! I finally chatted with Eric Edelstein briefly. Eric is the original organiser of the Open Coffee Cape Town Meet up.

    I also met up with the guys(Kilian & Nico) from Red Button and chatted briefly about their businesses development, cool things coming from their side regarding wireless hotspots. You can become a Red Button affiliate and earn some cash by recommending a venue which needs a hotspot. I think Red button could learn a thing or 2 from Skyrove’s event sponsorship approach.
    Callum Macdonald was around doing his regular Scottishly nomadic thing and promoting the wordpress meetup which has shifted to Wednesday 26 March due to the easter weekend.

    I had a very interesting Interaction with Frans Kuipers who I met at the first Open Coffee I attended last month. Frans is an open source enthusiast and a Drupal developer. We spoke about the problem Open Source seems to have with getting rapid uptake of it’s programmes and platforms in the general public. From my perspective it has to do with 1. Usability and 2. Communication and Marketing. Some areas programmers & developers don’t always have a tight handle on

    I also met Andre from Biz-community and a guy from Joyent who’s name I forget because his business card was a Joyent Logo on a sticker. A few others who I chatted with briefly were Scott Hayes(Encyclomedia), Michelle Matthews(Writer & Publishing Consultant) and Will Gubb(Wired Communications).

    Myself & Callum spent a bit of time trying to convince one of the above that wordpress is better for blogging than Joomla, I won’t mention who.

    I had to rush off after receiving a call for an urgent proposal, hold thumbs for me, it’s a nice big one. I spent the following few hours in Kauai recovering from the coffee scrabbling down a proposal just before the sun went down.

    All in all, another productive day of networking, doing business and sharing of ideas.

  • Care to join me on a Journey of Self Discovery and Creative Development

    Like most professionals who also blog, I’ve wondered what steps to take to make what I do really rock so to speak; take it to the next level if you know what I mean. This post kicks off my nomadic blogumentary, a journey through the world of the web, creative thinking, social networking, business strategy, personal brand building and self discovery.

    This is the start of my nomadic BLOGUMENTARY, a journey through the world of the web, creative thinking, social networking, business strategy and personal self discovery.

    On this digital journey I aim to take myself from amateur blogger / professional web designer with little direction, to what I always envisioned myself to be. I aim to become an agent of positive change and innovation, and to find true meaning and purpose to what I do.

    a-nomads-journey

    How do I plan to do this you may be asking yourself?

    I’m still in the process of figuring all the steps out and plotting my course ahead. I know coming out with this self challenge is a brave move, one I could very possibly be very sorry for if I don’t keep up with the challenge, or fail to achieve the goals I set.

    Therein lies the secret. I plan to drag you all along on this journey, get your feedback, give you advice and ask for some as well. I might even involve a few of the Guru’s out there to help make this journey an action packed adventure, which we can all benefit from.

    I hope to cover everything from the initial idea / vision phase, on to a little bit of a business plan with clear goals. I will be developing a strategy including the steps which I will need to take to achieve certain goals.

    What will I be sharing with You

    • my Brand building endeavours and the lessons I learn
    • selecting & shaping my niche
    • the technologies & methodologies I will be using
    • the tutorials, tips & advice which shape my decisions
    • my favourite resources & influences
    • The tools I use to make my tasks easier

    Sharing the Experience

    I’ll be sharing the troubles I encounter along the way, the feelings of failure if any(I’m sure there will be), the stumbling blocks & challenges faced and the stresses I experience.

    Sharing the successes, stats, milestones & profits

    Any success achieved along this perilous journey will be shared with all of you. I’ll let you now when I earn my first paycheck, which I hope will be soon, in fact I desperately need it to be soon. I’ll tell you about what this project does to my web stats and when I’ve made a major breakthrough in learning or self development.

    What do I want from YOU

    the visitors to this site have pretty much kept their identities to themselves for their own specific reasons. I hope this will change.

    Involvement. I hope you will share this journey with me. To this point the visitors to this site have pretty much kept their identities to themselves for their own specific reasons. I hope this will change and that you will start to engage with me and get to know me as well as help me to get to know you better.

    Feedback. I’d like to know what you think about what I have to say, about the decisions I’ll make and the advice I’ll be giving. I plan to put in place a few incentives if and when I am able to make it worth your while to get involved. I started with a little experiment in the form of the Logo Design Q & A competition which I ran recently.

    Inspiration & Advice. We can never achieve much on our own. We achieve things by learning from others and benefiting from others, and then by sharing this with others. I hope we can develop a mutually beneficial relationship where we influence each other and inspire each other to achieve great things. Where there are areas which you could help me I’ll appreciate it and if there’s anything I could do for you I hope to be able to help as well.

    So where do we Start?

    Well we kind of have started already. I’ve met some great people already and have a few of you subscribe to my RSS feed. I’ve just crossed the 4000 hits mark since starting out blogging more seriously a few short months ago and have a few more RSS subscribers but have no idea who they are.

    I’ve just completed negotiations with a few parties to get into my own office space and have just moved in. I’m also in the process of re-designing my website to empower me on this journey.

    I’ve gotten started on a few post series and have some great ideas for interesting and value adding content to help you guys out there with your journeys.

    What I’d like to know from you guys is this:

    Who are you all out there?

    What Can I do for you?

    Do you have any advice for me in getting started?

    • Who are you out there?
    • What do you guys do for a living?
    • What can I do for you out there?
    • What would you like to see on this site?
    • What would you like to hear about?
    • How can I empower you all to excel in what you do?
    • How do we develop a platform or community which can be a springboard for us all to achieve something good?
    • Do you have any advice for me in getting started?

    Lets start talking and start something meaningful!

  • nomad-one.com nominated in SA Blog awards – Vote for me!!!

    Today just keeps getting better for me, my blog has also been nominated in the category Best Blog about Design in the SA Blog Awards.

    Thanks to all those who nominated me, much appreciated, though the guys I am competing with make it really difficult to get past this point.

    So give me some help and vote for nomad-one.com in the SA Blog Awards Now! http://www.sablogawards.com/2008/

  • Great Flickr Photography – Check out Daniel Lurie’s pics

    When I came across Daniel Luries’ Flickr account I just had to contact him and give him a compliment on a great collection of imagery. It’s amazing how technology & web 2.0 has levelled the playing fields in many disciplines to allow those who, like Daniel are looking to make a name for themselves. Many times Flickr Photographers are either willing to allow you to use their images with links back or they’re selling great pics at affordable prices.

    See a few of Daniel’s shots below:

    Daniel Lurie Flickr - Darth Vader Daniel Lurie Flickr - Photographer waiting

    Daniel Lurie Flickr - View from Lion's Head

    A quick Flickr search could yield exactly what you were looking for an you might be able to get away with paying flickr photographers much less than you’d be spending at stock photography sites.

    Using Creative Commons images on your blog

    I’ve also installed a cool wordpress plugin called Photo Dropper which allows you to search appropriate creative commons flickr images and drop them from flickr into your posts via your wordpress admin panel. I think this is a great way for both amateur photographers and bloggers to share the value. The plugin also drops in this nice little credit automatically. Creative Commons License photo credit: Millzero Photography ( 99% low fat photography)