mSheikh's Event Horizon

Tire Size??

2019-08-03T15:24:00.006+03:00

1)Compound is king

2)TTSA: Total Tire Tread Area, if you CUT the tire and unroll it as a straight piece of rubber, the Bigger diameter tire will be longer.

3)In drag,you need the sidewall to squat, hence soft sidewall. but you also need the largest TTSA. that’s what Charger Hellcat comes with 27inch tall tires (275/40R20). see how TALL the dragster tires are.

4)For AutoX you need the stiffest sidewall, as the tire IS a spring and will lead to body roll. since that leads to “uneven” tire contact patch, so less grip. But the py compound is more important than sidewall....so even in AutoX, Compound is king!

5)Daily driving: Stiff sidewall is nasty in the street, so from above, a decently soft sidewall is good for straight-line AND street, and not too compromised for the street if the compound is good, the best example is Michelin Pilot 4S.....so Compound is king.

6)Realistically, Weight vs cost vs availability of good tires, 18's win in the REAL world, Make sure to stick to OEM diameter for gearing, speedometer, traction control

7)If you are sponsored or rich get 20 inch wheels. Porsche uses 21 inch wheels on the 2019 911 GT2 (again for max TTSA)

8)Get the Lightest tires, but don't get the lightest "wheels".

9)The Compound is king, in all the above

New Tires (NITTO NT05)

2016-06-06T12:51:00.000+03:00

So its time for new tires! Will try the Nitto NT05's in the front to help with that understeer! Although i will stick to factory 225/40R19 size.

Save $$$ When traveling from Bahrain to Japan! Part 2 of N

2015-02-20T13:57:00.000+03:00

in Part 1 I brought up a nice little trick that would save you a lot of money when traveling from Bahrain to Japan; it actually works from Anywhere to Anywhere given that there are competing airlines!

Now in Part 1 I brought quite an outdated example of my own trip to Japan back in June 2014. Since am all so electric because am going yet again next march here is an updated comparison with more valid numbers; "Iki sou!!" ^_^

Am taking advantage of the beginning of Year promotions from -the worlds best- Gulf Carriers; Emirates, Qatar and Etihad. The Best airline podium is always a shuffle of those names; and they happen to have the cheapest fares too!

This Time Instead of taking BAH->DXB->HND (connecting in DOH) I have some business in Malaysia so am taking BAH->KUL->NRT (connecting in DXB).

At the time of preparing for this trip (January 2015) for my given travel dates, BAH->KUL was BD173 across Qatar and Etihad. Emirates is BD189.

I was inclined to fly Qatar, because up this point its my favorite air line, but by the time I confirmed my travel dates the fees went up to BD209 ($553) and tracking the A380 routes; Emirates they would start flying an A380-861 to KUL in March!

Etihad was still BD173 but operating an old A340-500 and longer transit times than emirates made me take Emirates Much quieter and down right cooler to ride A380 ^_^.

Lucky for me I got an "emergency window" seat on the way back from KUL->DXB super sized leg room! (Refer to SeatGuru.com to get the best seats!)

Now from KUL->NRT the cheapest was AirAsiaX (yup the one that crashed not so long ago!) They had a great offer at $299 only! (BD 113!)

But when I actually added 20Kg luggage and choose a seat for inbound and outbound it went up to 1294 MYR or $360 BD135.

So in Total Its BD189 for Emirates then BD135 for AirAsiaX, or BD324 (US$859) all the way from Bahrain to Tokyo! Nice ha? vs BD500+ ($1330+) taking a single airline directly from Bahrain!

But this about to get even cheaper! Qatar has a really nice "long term" savings, sub BD300 ($795!) in total! will leave that to part 3 ^_^

Save $$$ When traveling from Bahrain to Japan! Part 1 of N

2015-01-13T11:50:00.000+03:00

So electric about finally going to Japan, for months I have been researching "A.C.T. of travel"; Accommodation, Communication and Transport.

Will get to A and C in later posts perhaps, but what was really remarkable how much money I saved in T, Transport. like BD200 (U$500) in the Air ticket alone!

The basic idea is that we have awesome air carriers here in the GCC, Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad. And the optimum situation is when aggressive companies eager for growth are adjacent to each other; COMPETITION!

So I found out that traveling by Qatar Airways from Dubai DXB, is way cheaper than flying Emirates from Dubai AND flying Qatar from Doha DOH. Stop here and think about it, taking a Qatar Airways flight from DXB-> DOH + DOH->TYO is cheaper than DOH->TYO alone! mind boggling!

(TYO is the Airport code for TOKYO, BOTH Narita NRT and Haneda HND, so if you dial in TYO you can search for flights to both airports at the same time ;) )

To an extent the other way around works too, Taking Emirates from DOH->DXB->TYO is cheaper than Qatar from DOH->TYO alone, and DXB->TYO!!

And the best part? all the combinations above are cheaper than BAH->TYO! ^____^

let me give an example with numbers, although note that this was between January and April 2014 to travel at the end of June 2014, but still valid to an extent till now (will update with new numbers soon).

BAH->NRT $1540 (quite an absurd number)
DOH->NRT $778 on Emirates
DXB->HND $809 on Qatar

Actually I took a DOH->KIX, KIX is Osaka's international airport because my meetings start there and it was $762! I wanted to delay activating my rail pass, by landing at Osaka instead of Tokyo then taking the train to Osaka, but will leave the details to another post as I saved another awesome some with the Railpass!

In fact, in mid march Emirates DOH->NRT was down to $666 once! Thats less than HALF the ticket from Bahrain .. O_o!

Of course you would need to go to DXB or DOH from BAH and thats like this:

To Doha:
BAH-> DOH is $124 on British Airways
BAH-> DOH can be as low as $140 with Qatar if they have an offer goin on

To Dubai:
BAH->DXB is $200 on Emirates
BAH->DXB is $135-160 on FlyDubai

*In the case of FlyDubai you need to take a 5 minute/AED40/US11 Taxi from -now renovated- Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 where Qatar fly's.

I never knew about this, but I stumbled upon it when I used SeatGuru.com, I went there to lookup which aircraft/airline combination had best seats that suggested "near by airports"

I knew when I was supposed to be there, so I gave in a window of prior dates that I might travel on (you know the +/- 3 days you may choose when looking online),

In an nutshell, Use SkyScanner and a Japan Railway Pass, stay tuned about the latter

Sales Strategy 2/N

2013-01-05T21:49:00.001+03:00

Well, am a -opencl- nerd. Trying to sell things is is like trying to talk to aliens. So i went out looking, and I ought to, since I've been told so many times is that "you can never have a better sales man than the one built the thing in the first place, YOURSELF!"

Many sales concepts out there just make perfect sense. these are my notes for my company's business plan. You will notice that am "talking to myself" through out the text.

Yeah its also the second out of N number of blog posts, don't know how much I would be putting online, will do as much as I could. (this was the "Accidental" first one)

So lets get started, first is an obvious one, just know who are you talking to....

Understand the Customers Needs

Prospective customer needs to be sold 2-3 on benefits instead of the 100 features you (as a developer) so passionate about

GO TO THE CUSTOMER

o Not doing so you will miss:

1. Opportunity to connect directly and initiate a long term relationship with the customer (Specially the “early adopters”)

2. Opportunity to have direct feedback from the customer, which is the best source for recommendations to improve a young startup’s products or services.

Always Follow up!

· You have to be shameless about it ( ;) ) Don’t worry about intruding on the prospects ( ok not a lot ;) ) or be afraid that being too persistent will make you loose the deal.

o If a customer says No because you followed too much they weren't going to close the deal anyway!

o Keep up with them until you get a “yes” or a “no”, simple as that.

Track the Sales Funnel

· Having the process of a “ sales funnel” is critical. Metrics to measure/track include: calls, emails, connections to decision makers, qualified leads, closed deals (deal value and time to close)

A Lower Price NOT Always better

· It’s a lower “barrier of entry” for you customers, but at the risk of “diluting the value” of your product/service. Moreover, ultimately you need the price of your products to support your business.

o “Sell the value and not the price tag”

o “Every entrepreneur needs to be a successful sales person”

Actually 'Ask' for the sale!

· As simple as that. Building a relationship with a customer with all that calls and all that emails; It’s easier now to ask for the sale from your new “best friend”. That would actually steer things in the direction you want.

Source

What occurred is the BEST of what ever that was going to occur

2012-11-27T20:33:00.002+03:00

A couple of days ago I've noticed a twitter conversion about that nostalgic feeling when you hear an old track or see a show that you used to love (أموووت في"الحصن"!!لوول (

Conversion took a, what felt quite awkward to me; "sad" route that, such nostalgia hints the feeling of getting old and that good memories "are history" ... i thought … "O_o??"

1-Long ago i heard this quote over the interwebz, "Don't be sad it’s over, be happy it happened!" ... it’s beautiful and kinda relives one's inner conscious from the mentioned "negative nostalgia" and inverts it into a nice "+ve" feeling, and I like that!

2-Not just that, I also thought -as a Muslim!- is that "الخير في ما يختاره الله" loosely translating that (with my far-from-academic-spoken-Arabic-slang into my purely-technical-non-acadamic-again-enlg1sh) to "Goodness is in Allah's Choice". Basically, what ever happened to you, either you perceive that as good or bad yourself, it was THE best option for you, whether you see the point of that or not now. Which is even more beautiful! Think about it, who’s got the “holistic” view? Domino effect, anybody?

3-And also as a muslim, I always wondered how Allah (SWT) describes the life after death sometimes in the "past tense". Mr.Tariq Suwedan made an awesome explanation is that if Allah (SWT) created everything, hence Allah (SWT) also created the concept of "time"! By induction this also answers the quite simple question of if Allah (SWT) created everything, then who created Allah (SWT)? well Allah (SWT) created the concept of that everything "must be created" or needs a starting point. So both concepts (time and creation) logically do not apply to the creator! Note that am no sheikh or religious scholar so this is my own thoughts here and i might be waay off. But the point is.....

4-Since Whatever Allah (SWT) destined to you is always the best (point 2), and what you actually liked, "happened" (point 1) and with the logical induction (in point 3). At any point of the future or the past anything turns out to be the best option! Hence, no regrets what so ever (the past) and no worries what so ever (the future).

But nnnoooou! Make no mistake! This doesn't mean that life is all rosy, no difficulties WILL occur or perhaps we don’t make bad decisions and must learn from them (past)! On the +ve side this also gives this massive "hope". but again this new found energy must be funneled into "better planning" (future).

So yeah we must "believe" but we also must be "practical". Lose either ones and it’s a recipe for going ...i don't know backwards or downwards or even worse, a convoluted mix of both :p

5-There is a saying in Arabic (which I don’t know its source, but am quite fond of!) "ما كان ليكون إلا ما كان" which again means (with my loose Arabic and English) "Nothing would have happened BUT what actually happened" so nothing else better or worse would've happened. (well maybe it would’ve in a parallel universe or an other dimension but am no quantum physicist :p or maybe this parallel thingy is just a BAZINGA! ). With the conclusion in point 4, you can morph that into the more beautiful "ما كان ،أفضل ما كان سيكون" or "What occurred is the best of what ever that was going to occur". now read that again and think.....

Finally, am just putting down what ever I had buzzing in mind about the subject, I like what happened, love to revisit it every now and then, and can’t fricken wait for whats to come ….

Sales, the way it should be

2012-11-26T14:34:00.002+03:00

I came across this Harvard Business Review's (HBR) and i LOVED IT. am always "disgusted" by how Sales people approach me and how they ALL just care about getting as much as possible out of my wallet; and they get none usually, but this! This is different, and below are the most important points i believe from the article (i think i copied half of it ^_^)..

Summary:

It’s common wisdom that you’re more likely to make a sale if you build rapport with a customer. Instead of focusing on the transaction., emphasize the connection by doing these three things:

• Be generous. Go into each meeting with a list of five ways to make the prospect successful. Don’t worry about what you’ll get in return. Instead think of it as good sales karma for which you may be rewarded.

• Become a trusted adviser. Stay focused on your customer's success, not your quota. Give the best advice you can give, only recommending your product when it's a great fit for their situation.

• Believe in the ask. If it’s generous, with a low barrier to entry and huge opportunities for return, then you’re much more likely to forge a trusting relationship.

Important Notes from That Article

a sales call is a success if it advances your customers' cause and builds the relationship, not just if it closes a transaction
go into each meeting with a list of five ways to make the person you're meeting successful. That's what's going to arrest people's attention and make them willing to develop a closer relationship with you

Research the person! You're looking for personal reasons to care. Find a way to introduce something that leverages your shared interests.
Talking about them will make you human,not just a sales person pushing a service or a widget

Mind you, they're not all personal. At least one should be purely professional, even if not related in any way to what you're trying to sell. For example, find out what the analysts say the company's goals or "big bets" are and what they have to achieve. [awesome! point]
Essentially, the key is to stay focused on your customer's success.
..retaining the trust you've developed by recommending your product only when it's a great fit for their situation.
During a lull in the conversation, just ask: "You know what I do. How can I be of service to you?"

If they reply "Tell me a little bit more," they've opened up the whole dialog about your products
Leaving it open ended gives the client the opportunity to shape the discussion so that they'll never feel pushed.

And Finally ..

Moving from relationship building to selling boils down to asking two questions:

Have I been truly generous to this individual, and earned enough trust that they're ready to listen to my "ask"?
Do I 100% believe in the value of the solution I'm offering? If the answer to those two questions is yes, you'll often find a transaction further deepens your relationship with your customer.

This definitely going into my company's sales strategy!

Enthusiasm Killer, Killer Enthusiasm

2012-11-17T19:22:00.001+03:00

..was kinda annoyed several days ago by something totally unrelated to work, so I wasn't exactly in a perfect mood>>

With that said, I personally really like how my teammates are hyped about my new start up RAIKOM (BigData "side project" I "found myself" working on) but with my a fore mentioned attitude I nearly killed such enthusiasm in an occasion on that night.

So I thought, I had to fix that, the most important thing to a start up is not the idea, not the investment; but rather the entrepreneurial spirit or simple the enthusiasm. Idea's change (or rather pivots), money comes eventually but the essence of having your own way is the best part!

To Co-founders...

You two need not to “ask for” anything that you believe that it is appropriate and you feel enthusiastic about. So be assertive. You want something, even if somebody -or everybody- disagrees on initially that shouldn't make you feel down or discouraged.
You think it must be done, reason us into agreeing with you (but don’t be a dictator; Most scary dictators are women by the way! kidding :p).

........Work should be fun, before anything else!

To fuel your enthusiasm...

...which is believe me, if just one is radiating with enthusiasm "infects" others too! One should work on one or too aspects that he/she is would go "banana's" in excitement beside the actual grunt of building a start-up which is not always exciting; specially if its the initial incorporation / governmental work!
Basically what would be the most exciting thing that you could be engaged to at work? Got that in mind? Now do it!

True you might not be able to embody that dream for a while, as your just starting now, but who cares! I really love building computers, and I always have a “configuration” of my perfect PC, always update it for fun, and when Its actually time to build one I have a well-rounded plan. In fact that made me adept enough in building machines I can now configure servers for different kind of usages, I never thought I would need that someday but here I am with a natural "thing" for building machines!

Come at me bro....

And how about this: 2 days ago we met some mentor in a dinner event (YAL GEW ... Google that :p ) and he told us that a start-up should always have multiple added values, ultimately those should also be advantages over competitors too.
Thinking of it as a competition where you are confident that you're going to implement some aspects that you can excel in (even though you might just not recognize those yet).
Make no mistake, I don't mean being over-confident with an "empty magazine", rather knowing that you still have tricks up your sleeve, which are probably a fruit by your expertise of the start ups concept or perhaps some unfulfilled need that you can address. Now its all about proper execution!

.......Its a challenge, but that’s the cool part!

مصادر معلومات في مصر

2011-02-08T02:45:00.000+03:00

مصادر معلومات في مصر

Engineers grow nanolasers on silicon pave way for on chip photonics

2011-02-07T15:42:00.000+03:00

Engineers grow nanolasers on silicon pave way for on chip photonics

This with Hybrid-Silicon = Terahertz GPU's?

HOW TO: Design & Program a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business

2011-02-04T22:41:00.000+03:00

HOW TO: Design & Program a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business

This is another Business Lighthouse Article!

The Social Media Revolution – Spotlight on Egypt | The Social Media & Personal Branding Blog

2011-02-04T17:14:00.000+03:00

The Social Media Revolution – Spotlight on Egypt | The Social Media & Personal Branding Blog

"The voice of the Egyptian people was never louder – thanks to social media!" great Read!

Seven Signs You May be a Bad Manager

2011-02-04T00:05:00.000+03:00

Seven Signs You May be a Bad Manager

this crucial! many mistakes are done without us actually knowing we are committing it! must read!

Turbo Tech 101 - Tech-Knowledge - Import Tuner Magazine

2011-02-02T23:39:00.000+03:00

Turbo Tech 101 - Tech-Knowledge - Import Tuner Magazine

Ever wanted to know how that "boost" comes from? nitty and gritty details inside!

How do Small Businesses Waste Money? | VizWorld.com

2011-02-02T23:38:00.000+03:00

How do Small Businesses Waste Money? | VizWorld.com

This is just very crucial to know for any start-up!

Online Gaming Tips for Newbies

2011-02-02T01:20:00.000+03:00

Online Gaming Tips for Newbies

newbies? just make sure you NEVER encounter Meh! HaRR HaRR

10 Things You Don’t Know about Managing Your Business Operations Risks

2011-02-02T01:17:00.000+03:00

10 Things You Don’t Know about Managing Your Business Operations Risks

Gedit OpenCL Syntax Highlighting - Blog - StreamComputing

2011-02-02T01:16:00.001+03:00

Gedit OpenCL Syntax Highlighting - Blog - StreamComputing

really handy!

The humble beginnings of Android | Portable Village - global village in a mobile edition

2011-02-02T01:16:00.000+03:00

The humble beginnings of Android | Portable Village - global village in a mobile edition

The Best Egypt Protest Signs From Around The World: Pics, Videos, Links, News

2011-02-01T14:39:00.000+03:00

The Best Egypt Protest Signs From Around The World: Pics, Videos, Links, News

Egyptians have the best protests ever! Egypt for The win!!!

Scientists store data in bacteria

2011-02-01T14:38:00.000+03:00

Scientists store data in bacteria

Now this is interesting!

one more MS 70-643 admin!

2011-02-01T14:18:00.001+03:00

Felt nice to have the "You have Passed!" earlier today in the Prometric Room!
but honestly, i don't thin i would ever put this expertise in effect, am not going to work as an Admin no more! this stuff is BORING!!
me = OpenCL!!!

Create a cloud server using Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud | Runmap Global

2011-01-31T00:29:00.000+03:00

Create a cloud server using Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud | Runmap Global

YouTube - World Builder (high quality)

2011-01-31T00:28:00.000+03:00

YouTube - World Builder (high quality)

awesome AR video

YouTube - Spoof on US State Departments Position on Egypt

2011-01-31T00:15:00.000+03:00

YouTube - Spoof on US State Departments Position on Egypt

Man this is SOOOOO REAL!