Grateful

I cannot find the closest English word to “syukur” and I don’t think “grateful” really represents what I am feeling now. Indeed, Allah says:

And (remember) when your Lord proclaimed: “If you give thanks (by accepting Faith and worshipping none but Allah), I will give you more (of My Blessings), but if you are thankless (i.e. disbelievers), verily! My Punishment is indeed severe.”

(Ibrahim 14:7, Dr. Mohsin Khan translation)

Besides saying syukur, doing your best in the things you have been made responsible with is also the way to express your syukur. Also, be consistent in performing solat dhuha and don’t forget to give sadaqah to the needy.

I know it is going to be challenging in some years ahead, but insha-Allah, we have chosen this path and this is it! No turning back and we are all behind you, Sayang!

On another note, if you have free time between 6.05 to 6.55 p.m. everyday, do tune in to TV AlHijrah and please watch an Indonesian comedy series titled Islam KTP. It is packed with life lessons and the best thing is they have made it into jokes. We both like watching it while relaxing after work, cooking and playing with Omar. Whenever we suddenly burst into laughter, he usually joins too!

The Book Depository

The Book Depository (TBP), now an Amazon subsidiary, claims to offer free worldwide delivery. It is stated on the company’s website FAQ:

Delivery is FREE on all orders. This applies irrespective of your location as long as we ship to your country.

Of course, the delivery costs are actually already embedded in the price. To illustrate, I recently purchased these six totally non-academic books from TBP:

• Vortex by Robert Charles Wilson
• Year Zero by Rob Reid
• Redshirts by John Scalzi
• The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible by Jack Campbell
• Midst Toil and Tribulation by David Weber
• Alif the Unseen by G Willow Wildson

It is known that the price quoted depends on your IP address, which tells your geographical location. On my PC at home with our UniFi connection the books cost £81.30. However, Afi still has access to her UK university network via VPN. On her PC, the same books cost only £69.41. Try guessing which price I paid. Translated into our local currency the difference is almost RM60! Was I cheating? I don’t think so; I was just taking the company for its words.

By the way, Amazon UK, which offers free UK deliveries, sells the same books for £67.34 for delivery within the UK and £90.77 for delivery to Malaysia. So it is still cheaper buying from TBP. I didn’t check how much the books will cost from Amazon USA.

All About Blogger

Got this from Blogger Buster:

The original is 1600×600px large so click above for full size.

When They Insult Our Prophet

I thought about writing about it, but here Nouman Ali Khan says it better.

Smartphone

I have been asked why I don’t have a smartphone*. The short answer is I don’t need one. I was then told that I only said that because I don’t currently have a smartphone, and that I would realize the “need” if I have one. HUH? Not needing a smartphone doesn’t mean that I don’t want one. It’s just that there are many other things that I need and want to buy before I’ll even seriously think of buying a smartphone. Besides, my two-year-old not-so-smart mobile phone works just fine at the moment.

I know that a smartphone can do a lot of wonderful things. But that’s the thing—I don’t need my phone to do a lot of things, wonderful or otherwise. I just don’t like the idea of having a multitude of functions crammed into one handheld device. The idea is by having a smartphone that can take pictures, record movies and navigate you don’t need to have dedicated still and video cameras and GPS navigator. While convenient, you are also creating a situation where you have a single point of failure.

Perhaps it’s also worth noting that I don’t always carry my mobile around with me. At home and at work, for example, unless I’m expecting an important call my mobile phone is usually left in a drawer in silent mode. I don’t imagine it will be any different if I had a smartphone. On the other hand, there’s almost always a PC on in the house for getting onto the Internet. We also have a tablet.

So again and again we return to the question of need. I don’t need a smartphone at the moment. For that matter I doubt that I’ll ever really need a smartphone. Having said that, if my mobile phone were to die on me tomorrow and I have the extra cash, I just might buy one. But I’ll keep my compact camera, video camera and GPS navigator.

* My current mobile phone is a black Sony Ericsson Elm. Afi has one in pink.

Family Pictures

Among the things we wanted to do during Raya was to take pictures of the whole family. Of course, it was easier said than done. Getting everybody at the same place at the same time seemed almost impossible.

Nevertheless, we managed to take this picture on 26 August at Seri Kembangan with everybody present! There is another picture with everybody all prim and proper looking at the camera but we like this not-so-ready one better.

On the other hand, my brother-in-law was absent in this picture taken on 1 September in our bare living room. That is Omar looking sleepy from missing his afternoon nap.