I’ve been planning on writing this post for ages, but the XuQa redesign just didn’t let me spare a few minutes, but now that I have some, I shall speak.

The redesign had taken over us for quite some time, this whole redesign process started some 3 months back, and honestly redesigns are more effort and pain than first hand design, sure you already have basic elements in place, and most of the functional part + users are used to that UI. Now it’s quite an amount of brainstorming sessions that makes sure that all aspects of the present UI are covered in the new UI, unless of course something has to be cut down.

When we started the redesign of XuQa, we mostly planned on adding some features and fixing some issues which had been left incomplete or faulty by the last developers. Our goal was to fix most of the problems our users faced and make their life on XuQa simpler. I would like to give Onur and Umut a round of applause for their input and understanding of the Turkish XuQa community, Our CEO who knew exactly what we had to make right and of course our developers on the project Rahil (CTO), Ahmer (Senior Developer) & Rashid (Flash developer), our Quality Assurance Engineer Faraz. People from the management Fraz and Ahmed who made it possible that we could be as big of morons as we can be provided we pumped out our energy on this big baby whom we call XuQa.

I would also point out that Fraz currently is unstable health wise and would appreciate if you could say a small prayer for his health.

Even though the relaunch went fine, there are still little bugs that need to be squashed. In the next few days we’ll be fixing as much as we can, wish us Good luck.

Our current XuQa team consists of the following people:

• Zaki (Chief Executiove Officer)
• Rahil (Chied Technical Officer)
• Ahmer (Senior Developer)
• Shahzad Khan (Creative Director)
• Rashid (Flash Developer)
• Faraz (Quality assurance Engineer)

Thanks.

Tags: Ahmed, Ahmer, bugs, Faraz, Fraz, Rahil, rashid, redesign, relaunch, shahzad, xuqa, Zaki

I was thinking of all the things I’ve learned professionally and at what level of capability, some times even considering not to learn, all in the goodness.

A few years back I preferred to freelance rather than take up a job, now I would say I m comfortable with both. When I first started off with jobs, Hassan Sarwar was working at a advertising/web/crap company ‘Dreams Quest’ these guys were looking for a senior web designer, and so I was called in and joined immediately, I wasn’t really impressed by anything there, but just the fact that I’ll be working with a team and a friend. One fo the most important things I learned was that people there sucked big time, no kidding. I ended up quitting the job some time later, and going back to freelance, Hassan had done so earlier than me.

It was quite an experience and I had decided I’ll work with people who consider value of the work that I do.

Again while freelancing, I decided to do my blog, and put it up, Hassan at his new work place opened up this blog, and other guys at the work place noticed it and were pretty impressed ( ), needless to say I was sitting in an interview room again, only this time it was a very cool place to work. I took up the job, and still cherish the time I spent at Creative Chaos. About 9-10 months later I decided I wanted to go and work for a company that had work to do other than the websites. What turns out is that one of my other friends was working in Dubai, UAE, and these guys were looking for artists too, and since I had spread the word I was free, I was in touch with the guys again, before I could leave Creative Chaos, I had 3 more jobs at my disposal. I opted to move to Dubai, not only because it’s nice to see places world wide, but also I wanted to see the place I was born.

What happens here is not something many employers would appreciate but, I left the company (Illusio Pvt Ltd) in a month, due to a strong political influence in the company a plus the crappy political thing they had running in the company, and add bad management to that. While I was going to leave this place I had another offer from a company “Peanut labs” who also wanted me to do their website (which as of now has been screwed to quite an extent) as a freelance project, let’s go back a little on this, while I was in Creative Chaos, I did a website “TimeSvr” as a freelance project, and since the CEO of TimeSvr and another company “Xuqa” which was co-owned by Peanut labs,  was the same, he offered me a job, which I declined since I wanted to go to Dubai. So anyways coming back to where I left from, Peanut labs offered me a job, I decided to take it up (yes good money was involved in that), so I flew back to Pakistan and started off. A few months down the road and a decision is made that the whole Xuqa team and later the Peanut labs tea was being moved to Singapore (WOW going out again ), being in Xuqa, I was moved here first, been enjoying since.

If you’re thinking why I wrote this.. just cause I felt like it

Tags: creative chaos, dream quest, dubai, game ventures, good, illusio, jobs, karachi, office, Pakistan, places, singapore, work, world, xuqa

This weekend was awesome, we crossed borders on foot.. and we shifted our apartment !

Most of the Game Ventures team (except, Siddharth and Pete) went to Malaysia for Lunch. It was at Nandos, ok so why didn’t we have Nandos in Singapore..? Because we don’t freakin have Nandos here :S

So anyways, I had to stay up all Friday night, just so I can wake every other guy, to go to Malaysia, because we had to go at around 12pm, but obviously that didn’t happen, we left at around 1pm.

Since we went to Johor Bahru, which is the nearest to Singapore, it felt like I was in Dubai again. Thankfully it wasn’t Anyways we went to where Nandos is, just to discover it’s no more there. So we then called up Zaki’s friend who told us where the other Nando’s is..

Cutting the crap.. we had the best lunch since we had been to Singapore. Thanks to Ahmed on quite some note, because thats why we came here. Any how, we then left to roam around the city, we ended up to some mall and spent like a lot of time there, and I was like really effed up in the mind.. why because I hadn’t freakin slept

Then later that night, Weng had come, so me, Saad, Zaki, Zulfiqar and Weng went of for dinner while the rest of the guys headed off for Singapore, there we had some Shish, but obviously I didn’t and the light food was awesome which was Saate and some other malay/sing food.

Then Weng dropped up to the Customs at Malay, from there we walked, and walked long, really long, to Singapore, which is awesomeness !

Then we come to Sunday, we shopped kick ass today, lots of stuff since we had to move, and  we went to IKEA, Best Buy, Bess Point, and God know’s where else..

We had the last signing thing happen and then we cooked, or lets say, Fraz and Ali did, and the plan was to make Karahi Chicken, or Biryani, but due to the lack of Na’an, they ended up making Karahi Chawal but it tasted good.. like F**k freakin good !

And now we are sitting are a**es.. going to sleep after doing our accounts

Tags: apartment, food, frakin good, fun, malaysia, move, nandos, shift, singapore, team, travel, walk, week end, xuqa

I m not going to write much on my life in this post, I m going to write about Tea Break here.

For me the project Tea Break started when Asim Imtiaz and me used to sit only rooms apart and me and Zair sat inches apart in Creative Chaos. Asim got me into this project since he had seen me working on freelance projects that had turned out beautiful. Anyways the moment Asim told me about the idea, I knew I was going to be a part of it, but I never got to make the design of the first version since I was busy with some stuff, and Zair managed to bring the first design online.

The second design we pushed online, which is still online as I write this post, was made by me, I did the design and most of the front end code, then Asim had all the development fronts covered, Zair helped me a tiny bit with the CSS, and Ammar was the mastermind when it came to market our little baby that was Teabreak.

There was a launch party held when we pushed this major update on the website, and I got to meet some really awesome people that includes Madam Jehan Ara, Ramla Akhter, Munir Usman, Imad Qamar and some I knew from before like Dr. Awab Alvi (who I believe is more blogger than a doc ).

We had many updates to follow after that and we covered many blogging events after that, and the response had mostly been awesome, except some tid bits. When ever I got to speak about Tea Break I did so and people got excited when I told them that I designed that website.

Later after quite some time had passed, we thought we needed to upgrade it a bit, and we starting taking feedback from users and also started building up a database of our ideas and new requirements. During this time, I flew to Dubai, where I had no access to a personal computer, only my office iMac, I obviously wasn’t allowed any work on that, so Tea Break suffered some development time on that, but it wasn’t long till I realised Dubai wasn’t the place for me, so I flew back when I had an offer from this another company ‘Xuqa‘, and the thought that it’s a game development company made it even better, so any how, I flew back to Pakistan, but even then due to my work hours I still wasn’t able to work on Tea Break, then the company decided that all it’s employees are going to be moved to Singapore, which is obviously super nice , so we moved here and again, lack of time followed me, but any how, I found a week end and finally did a design. It looks good to me, but sadly due to the amount of work I already have, I will not be working on Tea Break as of now.

Even though it’s been an awesome experience, I m going to go off the Tea Break experience, since I believe my work (both, paid and for Tea Break) was being effected, I could concentrate on only one thing at a time, and I chose money ( ) , no I m quitting Tea Break at least for a while due to the amount of work I have here at Xuqa (now Game Ventures), also since I couldn’t dedicate any time to Tea Break, I didn’t want it to suffer any more because of me. I m sure the rest of the Tea Break team will find an awesome designer to fit into place. I might join Tea Break at a later stage, but for now I m not working on it, I need to focus on my office work first.

It has been an awesome journey with you guys (Asim, Ammar, Asadullah, Zair), I wish you all the best for the future of Tea Break and it’s child projects.

Tea Break is and will always be in my heart and mind, it’s one of the best things I have done

Tags: ammar, asadullah, asim, awab, awesome, break, deisng, designer, development, game ventures, imad, jehan, loose, main, munir, quit, ramla, tea, team, win, work, xuqa, Zair

I had been pretty much been occupied with a facebook application our team here at Xuqa had been working on, and it’s very much near completion now. Things are progessing nicely and design and development is getting closer to the polished stage. We’re left with the Quality Assurance department. After that we’re good to launch.

After that, we’re hoping to start off with our multiplayer game, I should tell you all our games are multiplayer, but the ones that we’re going to bring out soon are awesomeness. We’re building bigger things, and this project might take ages to complete, but it should be there, and we’ll make lots of money while we’re at it..

Also since we sit our asses off in our appartment/office, I’ve decided to get exercising, since it’s a necessity now, I have a really big, no, HUGE tummy. I eat alot? oh yes!

Anyways I m missing mom quite, it’s also her birthday tommorrow, so I need to call her on the right time too, hope I do that.

Peace.

Tags: app, deadline, design, development, exercise, facebook, fun, games, sports, ui, work, xuqa

I never blogged about this, but around the time I joined Xuqa, I was also working on a website, Peanutlabs Media, which after some backend development by the Peanutlabs team went live recently.

Let me tell you, it’s a rather simple website, and contains simpe and bsic info about what th company does, it’s nothing too flashy or iconic, and really nothing out of the box or new. But I wouldn’t say it’s bad, it’s good as long it serves it’s purpose, and as long as the people who’re paying the bills are happy, and that they are.

Also a simple note, I m not taking anymore freelance projects, but if you want to get some projects done, I m sure I can hook you up with the right people, or maybe serve as the middle man

Tags: freelance, launch, media, off, peanut labs, projects, website, xuqa

It’s been a couple of days since I had landed in Karachi on the 1st November, and since then I’ve become pretty busy here, yes I also found a better job, which is more relevent to my experience as a web designer.

Not only that, but i’ve also been offered alot of jobs since I came back, and most of them were of great value, but I had to point myself to one direction, so I opted joining Xuqa. It’s an online gaming company, which means I’ll also be learning a good deal of flash, so I can be a part of the game development team, which is good. I m hoping to master the Actionscript area mostly.

Other than that, I went to visit my old office Creative Chaos, and had some good time spent there, met the old folks, maaaaan I miss that place.

Anyways, I was late yesterday at my work place, and I then I saw one of my former collegue online, who was also at her work place, fortunately she lives near my house, so I asked her if she could drop me near my place, to which she agreed, I’d like to thank her for that.. many many thanks. A million thanks.

Oh I’d also like to tell the world that my Dubai trip was good, awesome with the people at the office, and my relatives, but otherwise Dubai is not a place to live, atleast for a guy like me, I m not a fan of too much luxury and honestly Dubai is a place for tourists..

Any how, I’d like to thank these people from Illusio: Mr. Ronaq, Shuja, Mansoor, Babar, Shahzeb, Saahir, Riaz (boy oh boy), Murtaza, Naeem, Murtaza, Aurangzeb, Sajid. Thank you so much.

Oh and I’ve been talking to lady ‘M’ recently like 10 minutes for two-three days already.

The rest all seems cool for now, I hope to have a good time at Xuqa. Got to hit the sack now.

Tags: babar, back in karachi, creative chaos, dubai, love, mansoor, memories, miss, murtaza, naeem, peanut labs, people, riaz, ronaq, saahir, sajid, Seher, shahzem aurangzeb, shuja, thanks, xuqa