You are not allowed to twitter. Thats what twitter just told me when they suspended my account. Reason, I violated some of their terms, which was not stated. Now, I tried contact their support for about a week, no response. Well then I went over to Izeafest, and didn’t get a chance to write this post. But it was retarded because I took so much freaking time out to follow people, and I had like 1700+ followers. Anyways, since no one was replying, I deleted my account!

Because, I don’t want you guys to follow me at a place where I can’t even update my self.

Here is the New link to my twitter – Syed Balkhi’s Twitter Page

Follow me at twitter everyone. Twitter is growing rapidly, but their terms are getting ridiculous. They are nofollowing the profile page, you can’t follow more than 2000 people etc etc. I think we should all just join Plurk instead.

But if you are still on twitter make sure you follow me.

I am sure you guys see those promotional videos on youtube. People just steal one of the random beats, and match it up with text in the images. Well, I decided to take it one level up. I got Dpizzle aka David Pegg, member of Balkhis and Uzzz Productions, to write an awesome song for this website.

This song was recorded from an apartment can you believe that? Yup, David is my roommate, and they are starting their own band. We are working on their website, so it launches the same time as their album. Any who, If you guys were thinking that I played that Guitar. Nope, not that good yet.

But cut to the chase, he wrote me a small piece of promotional song and matched it with the video. So check it out.

Lyrics:

Do you want to be a blogger?
And make your website really cool?
Get a million hits from Google,
And take the other clowns to school.

Do you wanna get rich,
And make a killing?
Learn to brand yourself,
And get to selling.
Well if you really want to
Learn to do these
Check us out online
And go to Balkhis.

Better SEO
And web designing
How to use PPC
And advertising
Make happen using Wordpress
CPM and Affliates

Do you wanna get rich,
And make a killing?
Learn to brand yourself,
And get to selling.
Well if you really want to
Learn to do these
Check us out online
And go to Balkhis.

Do you wanna get rich,
And make a killing?
Learn to brand yourself,
And get to selling.
Well if you really want to
Learn to do these
Check us out online
And go to Balkhis.

If you really like the video and want something for your website. Their band will be more than willing to help you. Send me an email through Balkhis, and I can get you in touch with them.

Don’t forget to social bookmark this song, and add it to as much places, so it get some attention around the blogosphere

Well, As I have mentioned in my few posts before that Balkhis Crew was working on a redesign for this site. We have finished the work. This theme comes with alot of new editions. My goal is to constantly update the site and get rid of all the technical issues that my past theme had.

I am sure you guys are probably wondering why the change in design?

Problems with the Old Design

1. Not Compatible with All Browsers – Firefox 3 had some minor issues with the design. IE 6.0 was a mess.
2. Slow – Past design was using alot of images therefore the load time was high, so some of my audience were unhappy about that.
3. Issues with Padding – As I was using word limit plugin to display the excerpts from each category on homepage, sometimes due to the use of images, the padding wouldn’t work out right.
4. Multiple other minor problems.

I would like to thank all of my regular users who has supported me with their honest feedback and reviews. There were some other sites that pointed out my mistakes as well. Thanks alot to Nabil for bringing the load time of all sites together, so I could see where I stood among the rest.

I am open to all feedback. Even though we have tested the design extensively, certain things can only be tested with a live display. So I would like to apologize in advance for any inconvenience during our upgrade and fixes. Please use the contact form to report any problem.

Usually, I like to code my personal projects in private place, but this time was a bit different. I went through this design step by step, teaching some of my friends who wished to learn html and wordpress. It was a pleasant experience, I think it would be fun if I get to do that with a group of around 15 – 20 people. We got alot of feedback while we did that. Every minor bug was detected because there were many different eyes, but I think there is always something that is left out and thats why I depend on you guys.

So help me get this site to the next level. Did I mention with the rate Balkhis is going, I should get around 35,000 uniques this month

While the title of this post seems a little bit unrelated right now but after reading this post you will see my point. Lately, I have been very stressed out. Why? Because I am overworking myself. This Blog, Local Business, other projects and more. In the past few days I saw myself a bit unproductive. My work rate was slowing down. Creative ideas wasn’t hitting my mind. Until my mom and friends pointed out my daily schedule and how it is getting weird. Than I started analyzing myself. I came up with the list of my unhealthy habits that is effecting my productivity in blogging and working online. Good thing is that I caught myself early before the damage can be severe. Read the tips so you can avoid these things.

1) Lack of Sleep – Sleeping was not something that I was considering as a necessity. With excessive amount of work and meetings, I was postponing blog post and other work to later in the night when everyone else is sleeping. Now my schedule was something like this: I work in the day such as go outside and meet clients. I come home work on the computer a bit. Take care of designing orders. At Night I work until 6 a.m or so. Thats actually the morning. I take a nap and get back up around 10. So in 24 hours, I was only getting 4 hours of sleep. Yikes.. 20 hours of hard work. VERY Unhealthy.

2) Caffeine Intake – is also something that I was heavily relying on so I can continue my normal routine. I was drinking atleast one energy drinks a day. Sometimes Redbull other times Monster. I was drinking nearly 24oz. of Soda. 2 cups of Coffee in the morning and one cup in the evening. That is alot of Caffeine there!!! I was up all day running around, and I crash sleep for 4 hours. But during the caffeine intake there was another thing that I was lacking. I wasn’t getting hungry…

3) Anorexic Behavior – Well since I was taking so much caffeine, I wasn’t eating alot because I never feel hungry. So I have coffee than I have soda, no space for food. I was only having one real meal in the day. Which was impacting my attitude alot. It was fine for a first few days, but than I was losing energy.

4) Unhealthy Diet – Aside from one real meal. I was eating alot of snacks. Ofcourse Junk Food. Sometimes it was choclate, other times chips, doughnuts, french fries. Nothing really healthy. I wasn’t eating these foods while I was relaxed. Usually these were my breakfast. Except for French Fries, but the rest was my breakfast which I was having in the car.

5) Lack of Exercise – I wasn’t moving alot. I get up and use the computer, leave for the meeting which I drive to. Than I meet with clients in their office so I sit there. I come home and have lunch. Than I get back to work, and I am still sitting. All the Junk food, no exercise. I am starting to gain weight. Feeling sick to my stomach sometimes.

6) Lack of Social Life – While I was continuing my routine, I was losing my social life. The most social thing I did was Plurk. Most of my plurks were about myself having headaches. If my friends or family comes over, they never really find me in a good attitude. I was always exhausted. I was not going to alot of places. And if I did go, I was busy with phone calls. So I was constantly stressed.

7) Avoding the signs – I was avoiding every symptom my body was trying to give me. I would crash every night badly. I was feeling sick to my stomach almost every day. I have headaches all the time. I couldn’t think of creative ideas when I was designing.

All came down to me breaking down. I had a headache all day, not feeling good. I couldn’t work straight. Couldn’t write a good post. I am not talking to anyone in the family. Until my friends and my mom started asking me whats going on. You haven’t been eating lately. You are acting different. Than I started looking into my daily life style, and I found all of the problems above.

I wasn’t being very productive at what I was doing. My blog posts were suffering. I was pushing myself to do too much. I started slowing down. I got back to my normal routine and things started to get better. Than I wrote two successful posts back to back. One was 13 ways I used to promote my blog to success, and the other was about Vlogging 101 – Guide to make all type of Videos.

Now I am on routine which I will try to balance from now on. Here is what I think is necessary for a webmaster to be productive

Good NIGHT Sleep – I noticed that when I was getting night sleep it is much more relaxing. Because people in the house are not making noises. Specially because I have a little brother who is 4. So I can’t have a restful sleep during days. Therefore Night sleeps are necessary.

Well Planned out Meals – Personally I think the food pyramid is BS. So just pick your meals wisely. Some proteins, fruits, carbs. Have atleast 3 meals in day on the right times. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Snack here and there.

Exercise – Exercise keeps your mind fresh. It gives your body the workout it needs and keep you in good shape. So you will not have overweight problem. I am sure if I had continued my schedule, you would see me as another obese person. Than I will be blogging about how to loose weights and things that I am trying. lol

Socializing – Family time with family is a must. You don’t know how much you miss when you don’t interact with your family. Alot of my post ideas come from my family. Like this one was suggested my mother. Socializing with your friends is another thing that is needed. You need to go out and have fun. Can’t work all day. Relax your brain a little.

Limit your Caffeine intake – Caffeine is like something that your body just want more and more. Today one red bull might be enough, but tomorrow you would need 2 to do the same amount of work. The synergistic effect comes in play. I am not saying don’t drink coffee because I know I can’t operate without it, but limit your caffiene intake. Don’t drink excessive amount of sodas because you are gaining alot of useless calories also.

Do the following and you will see the difference. Now I find the energy to write longer and more useful posts. Better quality because I have the energy to do so. Try it yourself if you don’t believe me.

Disclaimer: I am no health professional. I am just sharing my experience with you guys so you don’t do the things that I have done. For health advice please consult a professional. While I understand I am pursuing a career in medicine, I don’t have my degree yet, and for me to give health advices is against the U.S Law because that is practicing medicine without a license.

Oo if you guys didn’t know, I went to Island of Adventures in Universal Orlando. It was a family trip. We left on Friday and came back on Saturday night. It was heck of a day. We stayed at a motel for the night.

Since we were on a trip that I will be blogging, I thought of wearing my cool shirt that says: “I am Blogging This” which was sent to me by Market Leverage. I wore it all day at the park. Believe it or not, everyone asked me whats my blog and if they will be in the picture lol. One time the guy at the Jurrasic Park Ride who was checking the belt said if you want to read the review of this ride, he will be blogging this so check out his blog. So I will add a review for that ride All to all Market Leverage got good promotion out of it. (Thanks ML for the cool shirt, if you dont mind send me a few more because I wear this one alot hehe )

Alright, well I got my tickets online for $52 at Ticketmaster using a cool coupon which was through a membership so I can’t give that away I went on the following rides: Hulk, Dueling Dragons, Jurrasic Park, Spiderman, Popeye and thats all ….

Yeah do you know why? I was dumb enough to not buy the $45 express pass in the morning. Later on the day, I thought its a waste if I buy it now. Each line had a wait of about 45+ minutes. It was fun though because all guys with me made a big noise in the line.

Lets review all the rides:

Hulk - was had a pretty cool start, but after a while it got boring.

Dueling Dragons – Is a good one. Fire and Ice two dragons. Ice is a bit rougher so I liked that one. Tip: sit on flip flops if you are wearing those otherwise they will drop.

Spiderman – Much better than Back to the Future. Very Very cool ride.

Popeye – Prepare to be Soaked. Hope that you get a good side, so you are only wet not soaked.

Jurrasic Park – Its full of surprises. I loved the ride. First time it didn’t work well, so I complained and got to ride again without standing in a line. Which was cool. I rode all together 3 times on this ride. The surprises didn’t get old.

As for the meals, I got a $22 unlimited one adult meal plan. It worked at 4 fast food places in 4 different Islands, so you have food wherever you go. I paid $9 for unlimted refills. The best thing I did for myself. You walk so much that you get thirsty. Get your drink for free. Otherwise the price for water was $2.75 for one bottle, or 2 for $5 which is insane. If you didn’t buy a meal plan than you have to get the other glass with discounted refills. The glass is $7 plus $0.69 cents per refill.

O O did I mention. I got a Picture with Spidey

It is a well recommended place to go. Don’t go there on the weekend because it is more crowded than usual. If you do end up going don’t be stupid like me..BUY the Express Pass and avoid the lines. Get there early. Go on all the rides I went on because they were all fun. Take an extra pair of clothes with you incase you are wet which you will be. Let me know if you ever go. And believe it or not I do wear all the shirts that I get one time or another. So if you want me to advertise your brand send me a shirt.