To read in Urdu (Perso-Arabic script), click here.
My new app AfsaneDB (Beta) is now in PlayStore!
Those who love reading classic literature can now enjoy literary masterpieces in this beautifully designed app.
Friday, 17 September 2021
Teri Muhabbat Ka Jaam Pi Kar - Ghazal by Shakeeb Ahmad
Friday, 28 May 2021
People I listen to...
Over the years, many have asked me to suggest what to read, watch and listen to which will benefit them. For the books, I've started writing reviews about the ones which I like.
Here, I've listed all the channels I've been listening to. The list is not complete and subject to updates. Also, names are not in any particular order.
— Shakeeb
Note: Obviously, I don't agree with everything a speaker promotes.
Philosophy, Psychology & Logic
Prof. Jordan Peterson
Steven Crowder
Vsauce
Adam Ruins Everything
Ben Shapiro
Ahmad Javaid
Entertainment
Jim Browning
Nigahiga
UFC
Mojahed Fudailat (UFC Animations)
Bad Lip Reading
Patriot Act (Hassan Minhaj)
Obayd Fox (Ar+En Vlogs)
Karan Singh Magic
Shaheer Khan
Dawood Savage
DIY Perks
IT & Programming
Fireship.io
Two Minute Papers
Code Bullet
DevEd
WebdevSimplified
Ben Awad
The Net Ninja
Srinivas Tamada
Graphic Designing
Mohamed Achraf
Logos by Nick
Politics
Dhruv Rathi
Maulana Sajjad Noumani
ScoopWhoop Unscripted
Shahbaz Ansar (ThePrint)
The Deshbhakt
Dawah & Comparative Religion
Sheikh Ahmad Deedat
Dr. Zakir Naik
Mohammad Hijab (and group)
Mufti Yasir Nadeem Al Wajidi
Maulana Kaleem Siddiqi
The Muslim Skeptic
Islam, Quran & Jurisprudence
Peer Zulfiqar Naqshbandi
Nouman Ali Khan
Mufti Tariq Masood
Maulana Manzoor Mengal (Tafseer Classes)
Maulana Makki Al-Hijazi
Dr. Israr Ahmad
Youth Club
Hanafi Fiqh
Salahuddin Saifi Naqshbandi
Mufti Saeed Khan
Scholarly Subtitles (Arabic content translated)
Tuesday, 11 May 2021
Hamare Paas Yahi Ik Sawaal Rakkha Hai - Ghazal by Shakeeb Ahmad
To read in Urdu (Perso-Arabic script), click here.
GHAZAL
English
Ise to ham ne bataur-e-misaal rakkha hai
Nigaah-e-tishna faqat poochhti hai aapse "kab?"
Hamaare paas yahee ik savaal rakkha hai
Kamaal hai, ki bas airaaz-e-lan-taraani se
Hamaare jaise divaanon ko Taal rakkha hai
Niqaab-e-rukh ko ulatiye, ke is ki shokhi ne
Hamen ajeeb si uljhan mein daal rakkha hai
Kabhi to khatm bhi hoga ye imtihaan-e-Shakeeb
Isi umeed ne dil ko sanbhaal rakkha hai
Hindi
उसे तो हमने बतौर-ए-मिसाल रक्खा है
निगाह्-ए-तिश्ना फ़क़त पूछती है आपसे "कब?"
हमारे पास यही इक सवाल रक्खा है
कमाल है, कि बस ऐराज़-ए-लन-तरानी से
हमारे जैसे दिवानों को टाल रक्खा है
निक़ाब-ए-रुख़ को उलटिये, कि इस की शोख़ी ने
हमें अजीब सी उलझन में डाल रक्खा है
कभी तो ख़त्म भी होगा ये इम्तिहान-ए-शकीब
इसी उमीद ने दिल को सँभाल रक्खा है
Meanings
Friday, 12 March 2021
App Release: OneSignal Push Manager - Secure & Free (Android+Web)
OneSignal Push Manager - Secure & Free |
This app helps you manage your app credentials and provides intuitive UI for sending the notifications to your users.
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sarbakaf.onesignalpush
Android app to manage & send push notifications via OneSignal |
Features
- Manage all your apps
- Stores all your credentials in your phone
- Offline storage, open-source and hence trustworthy
- CRUD for app info with lovely UI
- Simple notepad to save other necessary stuff
- Send notifications to any of your apps, in any segment
- From simple heading + message notifs to fancy ones, with icon, banner and extra data to pass-in the app (useful for deeplinks)
User Guide
- Get your "App ID" and "REST API Key" from OneSignal Dashboard.
- It is recommended by OneSignal NOT to save API key anywhere, therefore our app doesn't save it by default. It's optional.
- In the "APPS" section of our app (Push Manager), make a list of app names and IDs.
- In the "SEND NEW" section, fill the details and send in a segment of your choice.
- Button 1 can be used to send in a segment named 'Test', which you can configure from OneSignal Dashboard for your test devices.
- Button 2 can be used to send in a segment named 'All'.
- Button 3 can be used to send in any custom segment.
- Notepad can be used to jot down & save other necessary stuff.
- Profit?
Questions, suggessions and contributions are welcome.
The app is also available as a webapp for testing purposes here: https://onesignal.netlify.app/
Shakeeb Ahmad
Thursday, 31 December 2020
My New Year Resolution for 2021
Off you go 2020! Quite a year it was, wasn't it?
It started with the best thing happened to me till date, the journey to the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia, for 'Umrah. It was overwhelmingly wholesome. Alhamdulillaah! [1] I'm yet to document the experience, but I do have the poetry ready, which you will see on the blogs soon.
Then just about a month later, the covid pandemic started and finally the lock-down. Ramazan [2] came and went by, we couldn't offer prayers in the mosques. Eid-ul-fitr was same. So was Eid-ul-Azha. [3] Sad sad times those were.
It did bring some positive changes too. We had a lot of free time. People actually started working on things they were passionate about.
Resolutions
First of all, note that making resolution DOES help. 10/10 recommended. It keeps you focused. It gives you a list to work on. It tells you where to concentrate your efforts.
When you make one, it might not seem realistic at first, even to yourself. Rather, specially to yourself. But the motivation and consistency it provides easily make you more productive than you were before.
The key is being motivated. They say, around 90% of people who make resolutions drop them by the end of January. You don't want to be one of them.
2020
Even when a lot of things which were in the resolution of 2020 are still in pending, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I did finish off.
The only thing I miserably lagged in was "writing" stuff. I put more effort in development and left the actual writing behind. I miss it.
2021
- Releasing new apps consistently, many of which are in the queue right now, about ready for production
- Hifz (Memorizing Quran)
- Publishing book-reviews on blogs
- Finishing incomplete Novel, Translations, Books/Booklets etc.
- Magazines - Sarbakaf and Personal Bi-Weekly
- Publishing Videos
- Interviews
- Portals Management
- + Resolutions from last year
Last Words
As I'm writing this, the third decade of the 21st century is on the verge of knocking the doors of times - bringing joys and cries, hope and despair, turning the pages of everyone's destiny.
I don't know what this new year will bring, but I am nothing but my dreams. I will continue chasing after them.
________
Footnotes
[1] Alhamdulillah - An expression loosely equivalent to "Thank God", used for gratification/achievement. See Alhamdulillah.
[2] Ramazan is considered a holy month, 9th month as per Islamic Hijri calendar, which is observed worldwide as a month of fasting. See Ramadan.
[3] Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha are the 2 major Muslim festivals celebrated worldwide.
iPhone Users! Here's a Web App for Qaafiyah Expert
Tldr;
The Web App and its Journey
Right from the beginning when I launched an android app for Qaafiyah Expert (an app to assist Urdu poets with rhymes, meter, dictionary, diary, designing and much more), people were requesting the same for iPhone users. As I was using the cross-platform approach for the app, building the same thing for iPhone wouldn't have taken so long. But the problem was, apple AppStore's pricing. I couldn't afford it. Well, most of us can't.
Anyway, after some research on pricings, I decided to go for a PWA (Progressive Web App), which is an installable app, but you don't need to pay a single penny to Google or Apple whatsoever.
It does bring some drawbacks, but there are alternatives for most of the incompatible native-app functionalities. For a naïve user though, PWAs and native Android/ios apps are indistinguishable. For instance:
- Visiting a Progressive Web App asks you to "Add it to Home Screen", which is alternative to "Installing an app"
- It does have an icon, just like a native app
- It can work offline using service workers etc.
If you are an android user though, I strongly recommend the android version, which has some cool extra features and obvious UX advantages.
Once again, here's the link to the web-app:
Hope this will assist in your poetry-writing journey.
Rab raakha! 👋
Thursday, 24 December 2020
Rekhta Content Scraper by Shakeeb Ahmad | For Programmers Only
Note: This is not yet available for non-programmers. Soon I'll make an easy-to-use version for all, iA.
This scraper with Node.js works for both prose and poetry. Check the GitHub repo for installation instructions.
You would need a text file with all the links you want to download the contents from. To get the list of links, you could manually collect all which interests you, or use the following to scrape all links from an author/poet page.
Bookmarklets - One Click Solution to get the links etc.
Rekhta loads 50 links at a time, and if user scrolls, it adds more content to the DOM. This extra fetch has not been automated in my code yet. (Well I tried, but parsing it wasted so much time that I preferred using manual scroll. Just let the page load, then press "end" on your keyboard. Wait for a moment, it will add all the remaining links.)
Anyway, once you have the complete list on the page, you can use the bookmarklets below to copy all of them with a click.
I've been testing this in browser console for a while now, i.e. open browser console, then paste the script, then change the page text to only what I need, then select and copy them manually.
Later on I decided to use magic of bookmarklets to automate these tasks I've been doing repeatedly:
- Copy all the links from the Poet/Author page.
- For LitUrdu specifically, turn them into an "object" with required properties (title, author, link, description, text) and copy it.
- Use the "object" to automatically fill-in text-boxes on new Blogger post.