A new habit that I adopted in the past few years is ‘blogging’. I have been reading several blogs, stories from successful people around, learning from mistakes of experienced entrepreneurs, and just like all other people – I also have a list of people who I ‘admire‘ for their healthy contribution in my life. So I thought to share the list of people who helped me become what I am today.

After the limitless support of my family members comes the list of following people:

- Ra[y]za

Muhammad Raza, my school buddy – I was in 8th grade when we became friends and after buying my new PC, we used to share our stories about Need for Speed 3. Raza always used to crack down things, dig them to the deepest. We were once sharing some files for NFS when Raza made a webpage and hosted the file. Later, during lunch hours I asked if it’s possible to make a website and that hour marked the beginning of my web designing era. It was really fun to design personal home pages back in 2000 (I still have one hosted at: http://coolpoint.20m.com). He always helped me in picking up basic html concepts, file/hosting issues etc. And after that, he gave me a vision about web layouts and since then I’ve designed more than thousands of them! Thanks bro!

- TBT

Talha bin Tariq was a 3rd year student at my university when I was a fresher. Fortunately I got a chance to design an illustration for Graduate Profile 2004 and after seeing it he asked me to show him the rest of my portfolio (in Lab-1 of FAST-NU). He was the first person who encouraged me a lot and helped me to discover more in gfx. I was also offered to design illustrations for Online 17th and even after producing not-so-good results; he appreciated me and got the best out of me. I still remember that how with few quick-clicks in Photoshop, TBT used to create impressive outputs! His good quality knowledge about core, amazing after-effects on images and friendly behavior always made me enjoy his company =) There are few extra-ordinary students among each batch, and he was MashAllah one of them. Talha is now a Software Engg. at Microsoft and you can view his complete profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/talhatariq

- AhsanQ

Ahsan Qamar, my group member; my teacher – the one person who pulled me out of the failure curve and helped me to see the potential inside! I really had a poor start at university, although I had interest in web designing and development but never scored well in my exams. I always had a lazy attitude towards my assignments. But this one person dragged me out of darkness and helped me cover all the knowledge that I missed in classrooms. I still remember the Data Structure assignment nights spent at his place which really helped me to get a good grip on programming. Ahsan always used to understand things very quickly, remember each and every concept read just once, and program things in a very efficient manner – MashAllah! Most of the time when we had study sessions, Ahsan took the lead (with Shoaib Hafeez on support ). Today, I feel blessed having such friends, and the experience of failing and then going up really teaches you the importance of success, and this lesson one can not grasp easily by succeeding in one go. Ahsan Qamar recently flew back to his hometown (Rawalpindi) and will be starting his new job this week InshAllah. I’ll really miss him around!

- Asad

Asad Siddiqi, my mentor – yet another senior at FAST-NU but I got to know him after I graduated. I once added him for some freelance project on my IM and today, I chat with him just like my any other friend. During night-shifts at TeraData, I used chat with him and share recent happenings. While seeking new jobs, I used to consult him and he always gave me healthy advices. Although he is currently in NCR, USA but he had good knowledge about local software houses, their products and trends. And he really played a major role in helping me switch my job, in switching to a better place!

- Ammar

Syed Ammar Faheem, the little kid – committee interviews were on the go (during my final year) and I got a chance to interview this kid, both for ‘The Webmasters’ and ‘Interface’. Ammar used to manage PakMarkaz.net, so I visited the site and the colors didn’t appeal me much. Some mishap happened and I proposed not to induct this kid in both committees. But later on, we got him on board and the kid started to prove himself. We’ve worked together in Procom, Interface and even studied together during my last semester at university. And this little kid (not so little now ) is responsible for this space that I hold on the web – yes, my blog! Ammar was the one who pushed me to start blogging although I was reluctant to do so and always used to think: what’s the use?! But after starting it I realized the benefits it holds.  He has been selected as the President of Procom 2009 – proud of you kid! And I am really a fan of the ‘aggressive’ content writing he does.

(and the last one on my list is..)

- STUPEFY

Abdul Basit, just like my elder brother, and a business partner – it was the 1st semester, our group was sitting outside in the lawn (at FAST-NU) when I had a chance to chit chat with this geeky fellow. And our minds clicked on one thing that was “Flixin.tk”, a resource for IPT assignments. Much has happened until now and we’ve spent almost 6 years together. One thing not-so-immediately-noticeable about Basit is, “he is really soft-hearted” and he even agreed to that while we were practicing for MBA interview (5 good things about you) ; ) He always has wise opinion about things, better understanding of issues in life and really takes good care of things and people around! We’ve been running a venture since 1 year now Alhamdulillah and it is really fun working together. Basit has been always interested in core stuff and at times I feel too relaxed to even bother what’s happening on the backend. I believe not every friend of yours can become a business partner but I’m glad that we’ve been able to keep things separate both for our professional as well as friendly lives!

Before I wrap up this note, I would like to mention names of few more people who helped me to grab expertise in PHP/MySQL – Ammar Rafiq, Asim Imtiaz and Fahim Ilyas.

“A student never forgets an encouraging private word, when it is given with sincere respect and admiration.” ~ William Lyon Phelps

Few days back, while I was trying to recover one of Yahoo accounts for some important document, I came across my initial set of web templates that I designed 8 years back! It was year 2000 after summer vacations when my buddy, ra[y]za, explained me what exactly a web template is, and I felt a little interested too. He showed me one of his submissions that were live on FreeWebTemplates.com and couple of people downloaded/reviewed it too. I was into basic websites since 1999, thanks to ra[y]za again! But the idea of template clicked me as well and I designed 2 web templates.

I submitted the layouts on freewebtemplates.com and was waiting for my templates to appear in their showcase. Few weeks passed, I even re-submitted but no luck! After I had lost all hopes, the templates were just like any other spare file on my hard drive because I had designed them for community and not for any client/website. It was after 2-3 months when my friend told me “hey! your templates are online and they’ve reached 10 most downloaded templates” – I was way too happy to see the output. Not sure about the actual figure but I guess it scored 2500+ in 2-3 weeks.

When I came across my designs recently, it actually reminded me of my old layouts. But nevertheless – I really worked hard to improve my designing skills and MashAllah the result has been quite promising. I have taught Photoshop to more than 10 people, have even conducted workshops. Seeing hopeless faces in designing – I always used to tell people ‘it takes some time to move higher..‘ and same happened with me (:

Let me share my 2 layouts that marked the beginning of my precious skill!

For recent work, freel to visit my online portfolio: http://axdimensions.deviantart.com/gallery/