Naweed's Thought

Being Part of Guinness World Record!

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 20:07:55 GMT

Being part of a Guinness World Record!

In August 2025, Cognizant assembled the world's largest online generative AI hackathon, producing 30,601 working prototype projects.

An official GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS adjudicator confirmed Cognizant's achievement in the category of most participants in an online generative AI hackathon, not only achieving but smashing the previous record.

In addition to setting a world record, the event also generated 30,601 ideas and working prototypes submitted by associates worldwide. Submissions ranged from an HR wellness companion app for busy professionals to an app that checks brand compliance and corporate identity in support of a company's marketing efforts.

My project was related to AI Buddy for Gen-Z and newer generations, who, in most cases, will turn to online resources to generate ideas and stay entertained. Making Agentic AI act responsibly and guide users to more productive entertainment without sounding authoritarian was the key goal of my project. I utilized the Loveable.dev platform, integrating it with Supabase and OpenAI LLM.

It makes sense to embrace and integrate AI tools within your workflow to acknowledge and prepare for the change that is likely to happen soon, rather than later.

I am excited and feeling amazing after receiving the official branded certificate from Guinness World Records & Cognizant today, as a participant of Vibe Coding Week 2025, for contributing to the record-breaking attempt! Thanks to our CEO, Ravi Kumar S , Executive Members, and Vibe team for organizing such a program.

I can't wait to explore and integrate AI tools in my Agile, Scrum, Project, Product, and program practices.

#Cognizant hashtag

#GenerativeAI hashtag

#GuinnessWorldRecord hashtag

#VibeCoding hashtag

#Loveabledev hashtag

#OpenAI

The Magento 2.4.4 Preparation

naweed.qadir@itdsl.co.nz (Naweed Qadir) — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 12:16:20 GMT

Following the Adobe guideline

Magento predominantly runs on Linux environment although you will find various deployment tutorials for Windows as well. It's not the OS but the services apps that is essential can be found for both the OS. You will often see advertisement of Linux as the platform that powers Internet. Same goes for Magento as well.

As for eCommerce - Magento has established itself as a prominent platform specially after Adobe acquired it in 2018 for $1.68 Billions! After the acquire Adobe started integrating their cloud services in the commercial tier Adobe Commerce. But at the same time the free version - Magento Open Source also enjoying premium updates like recently integration of PayPal Commerce which initially was launched for the paid version.

From my experience, Magento has become choice of platform for many large retailers besides small and medium ones. Before pandemic and post pandemic Magento is seeing a huge rate of adoption of it's platform across the globe. The need for Magento professionals also grew tremendously over the last 5 years. I would suggest getting your hands dirty understanding the platform from setting it up to how it manages the products and customers through it's Admin portal as the starting point. If you are a developer then understanding its file structure and PHP language will definitely help.

OS Selection

Web Server

Scripting Language (Server Sided)

Data Base

Search Engine

That's my list of supporting applications that I will be deploying chronologically on Ubuntu server before deploying Composer. Magento introduced this software in it's ecosystem when it got inundated with queries around how to manage various installation packages and dependencies. In short Composer is a dependency manager for Magento 2.x. Composer reads a composer.json file in Magento’s root directory to download third-party dependencies listed in the file. Composer will consume composer.json file to install new modules to your project. Though Magento comes pre-installed with many modules you can install new ones on top. Composer can also be used to update your modules to later versions. It will pull latest code from location specified in composer.json file.

Installing .deb file or downloaded applications in Ubuntu 21.04

naweed.qadir@itdsl.co.nz (Naweed Qadir) — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 23:01:05 GMT

Problem installing using default Software Install

There are many application which cannot be found in the Ubuntu Software Center but available as a download from the respective sites. For example, I wanted to install Google Chrome and Google offers Chrome for Ubuntu or Debian. Clicking on the link automatically triggered the default installer "Software" or "Software Install". From Ubuntu 20.x there has been an issue around opening .deb file or downloaded Ubuntu application.

Resolving the Issue

Open Terminal and run the following command -

sudo apt install gdebi-core

Once installed use Gdebi now as the package installer.

To install the downloaded Google Chrome installer (file name is google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb), open the Terminal. Go to Downloads folder and execute the following command to install Chrome -

sudo gdebi google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

Once the application has been installed it should appear in the Applications.

Ubuntu 21.04 on Surface Pro 4 - Wifi and Bluetooth Issue Resolved

naweed.qadir@itdsl.co.nz (Naweed Qadir) — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 21:54:47 GMT

Surface Pro 4's Hidden Issues

When Microsoft first brought out their own hardware I was thrilled and I thought like Apple device, Windows finally will work without any issues and we will start getting Windows upgrades for free. I should have known it's Microsoft after all! I am not those kind of guys who would blindly support any particular brand without even trying out various other brands. I am not writing this to start another argument on who's the best between Microsoft, Apple and Linux. I am writing because I literally felt betrayed by the company who I have been supporting from the day of Windows 3!

Back in October 2020 my Surface Pro 4 which I bought brand new in July 2017, started giving problems which includes the Type Keyboard keys showing double characters (pressing letter P produced P7) and Mouse Cursor/Screen Issues (top left side of the screen has square/round ghost mark and cursor getting stuck there). At the same time my CPU fan was running most of the time (very noisy) and the back of the unit literally felt very warm. I take very good care of my devices and weekly I will clean them so there was no dirt or mishandling issue here. I could not work at all due to those issues.

I immediately started checking the Microsoft support forums including their official ones. I tried their fixes and even factory reset my Surface few times. But everything failed. Finally the Microsoft support person on their forum mentioned that since Surface Pro 4 warranty has expired they can't do anything. The conclusion was that the device is having hardware issues and I should simply retire and buy a new one.

My Surface Pro 4 is a Quad Core i7 with 8GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. I don't think it was ready to retire! Out of curiosity I installed Linux Desktop distro Fedora 34. Although Fedora GNOME desktop don't support touchscreen or camera but all my other problems just disappeared. No cursor issue, no ghost round or square blocks in the corner of my screen, my Surface Type Keyboard is flawless and there's fan noise as the surface was cooler!!! Fedora 34 had another issue with WIFI password. So I decided to try the Ubuntu's latest distro 21.04.

Ubuntu worked great and gave same results - none of the issues I mentioned above with Windows existed. Most of my work is browser based so I had no issues with applications.

After couple of days I found that the WiFi and the Bluetooth is no longer working. Practically the OS wasn't recognizing those devices. I checked several forum and discovered I am not alone. The solutions that worked for me is below -

Resolving WiFi Issue

The culprit in this case is the Power Saving mode which disables the WiFi module automatically.

Even though in Power setting I have ensured Automatic Suspend is off but after few rebooting Ubuntu disabled the WiFi module.

Run the following command to edit the WiFi configuration file -

sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf

This will open the configuration file - change the value from 3 to 2. 3 is disabled and 2 is enabled.

Reboot the computer. The issue has been resolved.

Resolving Bluetooth Issue

The Bluetooth module getting permanent disabled is a bug that was reported back in Ubuntu 16.x. The same trial and tested approach works for this issue.

Open the Terminal and execute the following commands -

sudo rmmod btusb

sudo modprobe btusb

Reboot the Surface and switch on the or connect Bluetooth device. Problem should be resolved.

Goodbye WordPress - Cloud Host Solution

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 17:35:54 GMT

Cloud based Website Builder with Google Pagespeed

My of my clients are ex-WordPress users who were once sold to this platform for better performance and most importantly for being SEO super friendly. But at the end - users looks for a platform which will be either managed by professionals and very easy manage their contents including publishing.

Few of my clients were originally Wix user who later was told that Wix is not business focused and the organic or paid SEO ranking is not possible in that platform - instead moving to WordPress will resolve the issue. Those clients of mine realized a bit later on, that the move was much worse than what was originally intended. Those clients of mine were after a very well designed, colorful website with drag and drop contents creation. The theme in Wordpress needed to be professionally extended to support those required changes and then when a new update came - it broke the site!

I am not against WordPress. In fact I used to use WordPress and even worked on customising few of the themes for my clients. You can run WordPress on a $5 per month hosting making it one of the cheapest Content Management System. It needs to be patched regularly as well as upgraded. If someone is tech savvy and will be able to manage those maintenance job then it's up to you. Nowaday our drag and drop CMS is intricately built with SEO options which has site and page covered.

If you are struggling with WordPress content management and maintenance of the site then please reach out to me - the content management system and the tools that I incorporate within the site has undergone various changes, making it one of the easiest intuitive content management system for general business users.

In last 12 months I ensured my clients had zero downtime making me proudly present to them 100% uptime in the annual report. With WordPress or similar solution it hasn't been possible due to the fact the way the solution needs to be kept updated. You also need to see that WordPress platform is an open source platform and thousands of developers are developers are providing their own solutions. You definitely can enhance the functionality with the help of developers but it will have its own challenges.

Project Documentations

Thu, 21 Mar 2019 16:40:30 GMT

Sharing project resources

One of the biggest challenge I faced when I formally started to manage projects was the lack of resources around project related tasks management and record keeping. One of the first thing that every PMs advised me to ensure communication related to daily Scrum, weekly report and status to stakeholders should be created following easy to understand format. At that time I realised it was kind of close secret how successful PMs have designed these formats. Over the years the attitude has changed and now we are so connected that PMs feel socially responsible to encourage and help fellow PMs to excel in the management of projects.

I have received help and also came across various authentic sources to access templates which can cut time and made me more productive as I did not have to reinvent the wheel. In spirit of helping new PMs to excel I will be publishing templates of various project related reporting, analysis from this week.

Goode Brothers - Email Hacked

naweed.qadir@itdsl.co.nz (Naweed Qadir) — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 05:00:02 GMT

Customers have received Fake Invoices!

If you are a foodie like me then I am sure you have visited Goode Brothers at one of their three outlets. They have amazing Italian food delivered straight from their live kitchen which you can view from your table.

But this discussion is not about their amazing food but their management of their Customer Data management service. Like all other customer and member of their loyalty program I received an Email outlining business's one of the worst nightmare - losing Customers details to Hacker!! Breach of personal information is a huge thing and I don't know whether they understand or not. Nowadays keeping customer data is a big responsibility and there's legal implication if the data is compromised.

Their Email read -

"Mondays aren’t usually our favourite day of the week, and we definitely didn’t have a goode one on Monday 23rd July.

If you follow us on Facebook, you will know by now that our email database was breached, and you may have received an invoice from us as a result.

Since then, our email service provider has had our account paused while they investigated further. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to contact you, but we’re pleased to say we’re now back and confident our partners have done everything they can to investigate and safeguard our database.

We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused throughout this period, and if you’d like to chat further please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us."

Don't be like Goode Brothers and make sure your Email and CRM are well protected behind well reputed cloud infrastructure. This is why I always reiterate to my prospective clients when they are trying to fit in cheapest solution from some local provider.

Windows 10 - Windows Reborn

naweed.qadir@itdsl.co.nz (Naweed Qadir) — Sat, 04 Aug 2018 13:18:20 GMT

Microsoft finally found an Operating System to grow...

It's not that Microsoft always get things right! But it seems like with Windows 10 - they might have finally got it right with their most popular product. When there's still a battle between Mac OSX and Ubuntu Desktop (not to mention Chrome) - Windows still is a major player in the desktop market. With the Surface - it is trying to come up in the tablet arena as well which is dominated by iPad and Android tablets.

They took a new approach in rolling out the new OS - surprisingly it is free and will come automatically as an upgrade. We all thought Windows 8.1 will have SP1 - instead SP1 became the new Windows. As a Windows user I have to appreciate Microsoft's vision. Apple always offers their OS to their customer free but you have to remember it is because their users have to buy Mac hardware. Microsoft don't have exclusive hardware other than Surface - so it's not the same as Apple. But definitely Microsoft's new CEO made a big impact and will win back lots of disgruntled customers.
In my experience the installation was very straight forward specially since it was an upgrade from an existing 8.1 Professional installation. Instead of waiting for my automatic update - I used the Windows 10 Download Tool from Microsoft's site. Microsoft customers downloaded 14 million copies of the Windows 10 upgrade on the first day of availability - this is 10X more downloads then Windows 8 had. This alone should convince you to upgrade your existing Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 systems.

If you have 4GB or more RAM and a 64bit supported processor - you should install 64bit version of Windows 10 else 32bit will obviously will do. None of the application had any issue nor the any hardware. I have to say it was the most clean hassle free upgrade experience for me after Windows XP. In fact better than Windows XP.

I typically noticed performance gain. User experience wise I love the layout and the access to applications. Although Cortana is not available for most languages but I hopeful it will arrive for my English New Zealand very soon. The new browser Edge seems to be very responsive and works well with all sites. The new snipping tool-set within browser is a great idea.

Don't wait for the automatic roll-out - give it a go now.

Answer to Your Windows Blue Screen Error

naweed.qadir@itdsl.co.nz (Naweed Qadir) — Sat, 04 Aug 2018 13:14:04 GMT

Windows is innocent - the culprit is third party device drivers!

Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSD) has been a biggest joke amongst Mac and Linux users for a long time. Little did we know that it's not completely Windows OS's fault rather it's the third party device drivers and tools written to support various hardware and services were the root cause of the problem. But obviously users blames Microsoft for not scrutinising those buggy application and allowing them to distributed through their updates or through the vendors.

But there's also a common cause - specially after people upgraded from Windows 7 to 8/8.1 and recently to Windows 10 discovered the BSD problem again! During the online/manual upgrade process some file gets corrupted and also some doesn't get replaced with newer version which should have happened during the upgrade. To address this issue Microsoft has a Windows built-in tool called System File Checker. It is a utility in Windows that allows users to scan for corruptions in Windows system files and restore corrupted files. If a Windows Resource Protection (WRP) file is missing or is corrupted, Windows may not behave as expected - some Windows functions may not work, or Windows may crash.

This how you can run the System File Checker tool (SFC.exe);

Windows 10, Windows 7 or Windows Vista

To do this, click Start, type Command Prompt or CMD in the Search box, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow.

Windows 8 or 8.1

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search. Or, if you are using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, and then click Search. Type Command Prompt in the Search box, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow.

sfc /scannow

At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

sfc /scannow

The sfc/scannow command will scan all protected system files, and replace corrupted files with a cached copy that is located in a compressed folder at %WinDir%\System32\dllcache.

The %WinDir% placeholder represents the Windows operating system folder. For example, C:\Windows.

Note: Do not close this Command Prompt window until the verification is 100% complete. The scan results will be shown after this process is finished.

Outcome

After the process is finished, you may receive one of the following messages:

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
- This means that you do not have any missing or corrupted system files.
Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.
- To resolve this problem, perform the System File Checker scan in safe mode, and make sure that the PendingDeletes and PendingRenames folders exist under %WinDir%\WinSxS\Temp.
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log.
- To view the detail information about the system file scan and restoration, go to How to view details of the System File Checker process.
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log.
- To repair the corrupted files manually, view details of the System File Checker process to find the corrupted file, and then manually replace the corrupted file with a known good copy of the file.

Make Your Points with FONTS...

naweed.qadir@itdsl.co.nz (Naweed Qadir) — Sat, 04 Aug 2018 12:31:55 GMT

In today’s digital landscape - more than ever - people are aware of typography, design and how the world looks around them.

From the day Apple Macintosh came out with their desktop publishing solution I was very inquisitive about the beauty of typefaces. From typewriter days to the Macintosh - it was a huge leap and finally we could create eye catching art work made with typeface or fonts. Gradually font designer or artists became popular with their creativity and foundry.

The open-source type movement is about giving tools away, about ending the monopolies on creativity. I remember how I desperately requested Adobe for student discount for a publication which I believed would have stood out just by using a specific font. Open-source has opened the door for not only desktop publishers but the web designers as well. That translates to thousands of fonts made by talented, professional, hard-working designers from around the world. Here are the few prominent open-source free font resources which you can straight away use in your projects.

Google Fonts

Google’s all about making things easier. Their fonts team has collected hundreds of fonts for web and print design. They make it easy for normies and professionals alike, and all the fonts are open-source. That means you can customize them, publish them, or share them however you want.

Typecast

Signing up with Typcast gets you over 3,650 licensed fonts, which are free, which is great!

Urban Fonts

Are you sitting down? Good. Because you’ll need to calm yourself before you learn that Urban Fonts has nearly 8,000 free fonts to choose from. Now, don’t go downloadin’ all at once, they have plenty of categories to let you search smarter for those awaiting gems.

For Business...

Fontfabric

Launched by designer Svet Simov, Fontfabric is an independent type foundry that creates high-quality fonts for whatever web or print destinations your heart desires. In addition to the freebies, Fontfabric’s paid fonts are definitely cheap enough to deserve a look at them. Bonus is - their fonts can be used for both personal and commercial projects!

Font Squirrel

It’s on you to look into the licensing for any font you use, but FontSquirrel wants to help. All of their fonts are free for commercial use, organized in an easy-to-use format, and pre-selected by professional designers. They’ve done the work for you!

Font Cab

All you business peeps, rejoice! FontCab’s fonts are all free to use for commercial purposes. FontCab makes it super easy to find fonts by what you’re working on. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of options, just explore categories like “Cartoonish,” “Decorative" or “Futuristic.”