Am I blogging? Not really!

Free Knowledge For All

2012-01-18T04:01:00.000-08:00

"Imagine the world without free knowledge" - Pakistanis can! Here we don't have anything free - we've to pay bills even if there is no light, gas or government services even if you're a regular tax payer. Putting the cruel realities of life here in Pakistan - Wikipedia is down for JUST 24 hours.

Ohh Man! anyone here would care about this outrage - Hell No... A simple answer from a friend was, dude I'll not have CNG for car from thursday for 3 days, I will get my free knowledge from some other site. I asked him again, are you serious? the reply was, are you serious - array bhai chor kuch aur discuss kar mujay tu iss baat ke tension ho rahe hai agar yea hukumat rah gahe tu next time UPS chalanay kay lehay aik aur UPS chaheyah ho ga..

Wikipedia is world 6th most visited website by any stats, http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/ and only one in top 100 which is run by volunteers - I think, they should also join PTI as they're doing welfare work which people don't appreciate this easy. Just imagine, I asked 20 people from friends, relatives and office... Guess what how many knew this? I should not write this to show the intellect of Pakistani and especially the IT community.

What will happen here in Pakistan if someone block Facebook for 24 hours?

It is the first time, Wikipedia's english-language site has been blacked out. Wikipedia's Italian site came down once briefly in protest to an Internet censorship bill put forward by the Berlusconi government. The bill did not advance. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that the site can maintain neutrality in content even as it takes public positions on issues."The encyclopedia will always be neutral. The community need not be, not when the encyclopedia is threatened," he tweeted.

Do we understand what kind of message Wales is throwing to this world - it's simple - Free Knowledge with neutrality. Try to Absorb it!

Political Future of Pakistan

2011-10-09T01:01:00.000-07:00

Here in Pakistan, we think a lot about our future, our business, jobs and most importantly our country future. Where we're heading, every new government is taking us into deep drain of political, economic, regional uncertainty. If you see news, you would feel how this country is running? Our political parties from all quarters are just worried about their ministerial positions in government and if you ask any federal minister about his/her plan or strategy for next 3 months - they would have absolutely no clue.

The government is running on day-to-day basis, where they're addressing issues as they're facing them and forgetting the yesterday issues.

Imran Khan, chief of PTI is one who talks and acts different from others and his past shows his capability of being a good administrator and honest individual. The problem with him is he doesn’t have strong rural presence or vote bank, and most of Pakistani who vote are from this area - over 65%. And right now, the presence of PTI in next election will only hit bad to PML (N) who came to power twice since 1990 and failed to make any effective economic reforms. The history shows that only in military governments or when military head was running political governments, Pakistan saw economical and multi-dimensional social uplift overall - when Pakistanis were coming back and investing here. Now, in short is totally the opposite - people living in Pakistan are finding ways and trying utmost to leave as soon as they possibly could.

For me at least, I find it realistically difficult to see the possibilities where Imran Khan will make any impact individually but if he could join hands with anyone who've political leadership following at urban region will make the difference. PTI will and should not join hands with PPP, the party who is currently running the government and as always being labeled as corrupt and PML (N).
The only option for any political change possible for next election is with President Musharraf party, he has the political following at urban/rural region and his days were amazing and hopeful for us all.

An inspiration dies but legacy lives on...

2011-10-06T06:23:00.000-07:00

Today, an inspiration died - Steve Jobs.

What is Cloud?

2011-09-08T12:10:00.000-07:00

There is still a debate among some IT experts on definition or understanding of Cloud and how it differ from offering software as service. So what I've decided is to give an overview of cloud offering and its layer in simplest way possible. First, understand its defintion - Cloud computing is delivery of computing as a service, where shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like electricity) over a network (like grid station which product electricity or internet) so it is service delivery platform.

Now, there're 3 major layers of Cloud computing. Today, I will just explain these 3 layers briefly.

Application Layer: Software as a Service (SaaS), sometimes referred to as "on-demand software" is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally (typically in the (Internet) and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet. SaaS has become a common delivery model for most business applications, including accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), content management (CM) and service desk management.

Platform Layer: Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a way to rent hardware, operating systems, storage and network capacity over the Internet. The service delivery model allows the customer to rent virtualized servers and associated services for running existing applications or developing and testing new ones.

In other words, PaaS is the delivery of a computing platform and solution stack as a service. PaaS offerings facilitate deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities, providing all of the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet. So you're also using platform for software development.

PaaS offerings may include facilities for application design, application development, testing, deployment and hosting as well as application services such as team collaboration, web service integration and marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, application versioning, application instrumentation and developer community facilitation. These services may be provisioned as an integrated solution over the web. It facilitates deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers

Infrastructure Layer: Infrastructure as a Service is a provision model in which an organization outsources the equipment used to support operations, including storage, hardware, servers and networking components. The service provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running and maintaining it. The client typically pays on a per-use basis.

Characteristics and components of IaaS include Utility computing service and billing model, automation of administrative tasks, dynamic scaling, desktop virtualization.

So if you're offering software as a service - it's SaaS, where your customer come and use these software as an hosted offering.
Now if you add a platform, where developers, community contributors come and use this platform for development, maintenance, testing etc. of any deployed software then it's PaaS.
And if you also add hardware in your cloud as service then it's IaaS like block storage, network.

Hope, it was helpful... I will be explaining all these terms in detail in coming posts.

Movie Night or Workshop Night.. You decide!

2011-08-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

Like every alternative Saturday, the plan was in place for movie night at Cinepax but this time - it wasn't the usual day.

The Background: My 2 neighbors kids (who've nothing to do except hitting points on each other, one can't stop laughing when they're scoring points on one another) I received the call from Talha and asked - rather told me that Akbar bhai we're going to watch Cars 2 so please book our tickets for the weekend. Before booking the tickets I checked with the regular group and everyone declined as this is a children movie so decided to take my nephew - Qasim and niece - Eshal, and of course their parents were also invited. So tickets were booked for 7, but only 6 watched the movie - you can guess who didn't.

The Day: Everyone was excited (I think Osama and Talha were more excited than the children, they in fact given me 100% assurity that my GreenDoll - RIV1800 is also featuring in Cars 2) and there is a high chance that some good looking girls will come for autograph and most probably give their contact numbers for once in a lifetime ride experience on GreenDoll. So with this hope in my heart - we took off to Cinepax.

The RoadTrip: After just 2 minutes drive on main road - my ever trusted vehicle - RIV1800 stopped on main road for no reason and within 3 minutes she fixed itself (by She, I meant the GreenDoll). Rest of the ride was smooth till we reached near to the main gate.

Now here I would like to stop everyone and give you glimpse of a experience. Almost a month or two back, at the same spot a when we were entering in to Cinepax - a girl (yes a girl, who was driving alone and look for help) car was broken. I was with Irfan and Saqi... and guess what we inquired about the trouble and when she told us kay petrol mok geya hai tu bawajood iss kay kay hum mai say 2 banday bachelors thay - we didn't stop to help her... :-s because I didn't help the smart lady that day; Allah main nay mujay iss din saza de aur mere car ussi same/exact location per kharab kar de (For the record, GreenDoll is a trust worthy ride and this is the first time it has disappointed me) and for the record too: Saqi kept on saying kay mai help karta hoin and he didn't..

Trouble Time: Luckly Ali bhai was following me, so kids moved to his car and I was now alone - helpless.

Rest assured, my car was broke and guess what, not even a single male drive stopped and asked for the help BUT interestingly 2 girls drives at least stopped and asked about the trouble and one smiled (of course non helped, aur waisay bhi how could I possible get help from a girl)

Khair, I pushed my car aside and start making the call - of course my good friends responded with a BIG LAUGH kay bachoo aur ja humary beghar :-s and rest say bhai, mai tu kud biwi bachoin kay sath hoin (aik time per aik he mosebat bardast hote hai).

So then I called rescue Saqi007 and guess what he answered the call and within 30 minutes, I had a mechanic with me. Of course, Sohail was as always ready to come by for help even if he knows his presence only increase in trouble not in solution.

Long story Short and Lesson Learned:

Always help a beautify girl in trouble otherwise her curse will get you in trouble someday and surprisingly at same location
Never go in your own car to watch the movie (just get Sohail's car)
Don't pay for tickets unless you're sure to watch the movie.
Keep good relationship with your mechanics
Trust your fat friends - they'll always help you as smart ones are busy elsewhere

Apple has more cash than the federal government of US..

2011-07-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

As the BBC has reported, the software company Apple has more cash on hand than the United States federal government, according to the company's financial records.

Apple's quarterly financial report shows that the company responsible for the iPad, iPod and the iPhone now has $76.4 billion in reserve cash, while the Treasury Department is sitting on just $73.7 billion.

The feds could probably learn a thing or two from Apple's success. Congress remains embroiled in a debate over spending and whether the federal government, which currently owes trillions in debt, should be allowed to borrow even more. International credit rating agencies have threatened to downgrade the national debt for the first time in the nation's history if Washington doesn't come up with a solution to lift the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling while implementing a concrete plan to get the nation's financial house in order.

Meanwhile, Apple's financial report shows that the company's profits, even through the last recession, are booming.

NOTE: Resource taken from online website.

The Gmail man...

2011-07-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

Now the battle is on between Microsoft and Gmail - with the "Gmail Man". Last week Microsoft conducted its annual Global Exchange sales conference and successful kept every attendees (12000 of those) from tweeting or blogging about its new secrets.

On last week, Microsoft launched its "Gmail Man" spoof, which meant to spur the troops selling office 365 against Google apps, and specifically Gmail. In the video, Gmail Man tracks the keywords from your email and shows how they run ads on your inbox against it. The message was simple: Gmail cares more about advertising revenues than privacy.

Google has acknowledged that Gmail scans content and context of email as part of its ad system. And some have real concerns over G+ privacy issues.

There’s been a lot of back-and-forth between Microsoft and Google in the Office 365 vs. Google Apps cloud app-suite debate. The two have taken pot shots at their competitor’s feature set, uptime record, pricing models and more. They’ve also both taken to publicizing their respective customer wins/steals from one another.

Here is the Gmail Man video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrkAuwaoFGg&feature=player_embedded .

So bottom line is: the War is On - once again.

When Linus complains about Apple! AGAIN...

2011-07-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

Anyone who've heard or read Linus Torvalds - would know, he is pretty tuff when it comes to complementing someone's else work. Though Linux is amazing in its own but if you keep on bashing your competitor, someday it will strick you back. Recently, and previously he made a comment calling "Apple’s filesystem is ‘complete and utter crap". It's built on 25-year old technlogy that stood by the test of time, through multiple OS versions and a change in hardware technology culminating in a now UNIX-based architecutre. Mac OS X is an amalgam of FreeBSD and NexT. It's HFS+ filesystem isn't ext4 but it has its own features that are pretty good.

Here is a quick comparison between these two:

HFS+ Features

Maximum number of files per filesystem: Four billion.
Supports volume sizes to 8EiB.
Supports file sizes to 8EiB.
Journaling.
UNIX file permissions and ACLs.
Transparent Compression.
Transparent Encryption.
UNIX filesystem layout.

Ext4 Features

Maximum number of files per filesystem: Four billion.
Supports volume sizes to 1EiB.
Supports file sizes to 16TiB.
Journaling.
UNIX file permissions and ACLs.
No Transparent Compression.
No Transparent Encryption.
UNIX filesystem layout.

So, you see, by comparison on some significant metrics, HFS+ is comparable to or superior to ext4. I do find it considerable overkill on the part of both that these filesystems can address more disk space than is currently available on the entire planet. As an illustration, if you could magnetically format the Moon (1 Lunabyte (LB)) and find a USB cable long enough to reach it, you could use the Moon to store your illegally downloaded MP3s, movies and porn–for everyone on Earth.

Why did Linus make such an incredibly crazy statement? Jet lag? Hangover? iPhone malfunction?

Note: Source taken from CNET blog.

Android in serious trouble after Apple patent blew...

2011-07-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

Late yesterday an ITC judge ruled that smartphone maker HTC has infringed two Apple patents, and it seems likely that every single Android device out there infringes the same patents.

The two Apple patents that HTC is infringing are as follows:

U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647 on a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data.”
U.S. Patent No. 6,343,263 on a “real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data.”

This is a very significant development since these two patents are also in dispute between Apple and Motorola and Apple and Nokia. This decision is also landmark in that it is the first legal judgement that finds Android in infringement of third-party intellectual property rights.

Just how serious is this ruling for HTC? Very serious. The worst-case scenario is that the ITC imposes an US import ban against all of HTC’s Android products. That’s how serious this is for HTC.

According to intellectual property activist Florian Mueller, Apple is unlikely to grant HTC a license for these patents and might make a damages claim.

But it gets worse. This also has severe implications for all Android products on the market, irrespective of the maker, as Mueller also pointed out:

It’s hard to see how any Android device could not infringe them, or how companies could work around them.

Mueller has put together a chart showing how all Android devices infringe the same patents that HTC has been found infringe.

HTC claims that is has found ‘alternate solutions‘ to these patents, but Mueller isn’t optimistic:

But can those patents really be worked around? Standing in front of the Great Wall of China, you can also vow to walk around it. That doesn’t mean it’s a viable option.

And it seems that it is going to get worse as Android is at the center of 49 federal and ITC infringement suits.

Note: Source taken from CNET blog.

When you're doomed!

2011-07-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

My friends (Allah inn sab ka bhala karay) never gave me a good opinion about marriage (in fact one - Saeed offered a full support and his car keys to run away from my nikkah (marriage) ceremony - let's see it turns out to be a good decision to stay or I would regret why I didn't took the blue pill - surprisingly his car color is blue), they always have some stories or warning when we talk about marriage or WIFE :-s not be mention, the tension I've seen in my friend's face when they receive calls from their so-called better half (pata nahe who and why they started calling like this). Let's try to compare the 2 lives - bachelor and married.

Azadi (Freedom): well, there is no doubt you've more freedom being bachelor - can go anywhere, anytime - all the time, unless you don't have an Army dad at home :-s if your father is/was in Army then you can feel the pain I'm referring.
FUN/Joy Factor: here I think, one has a 50/50 chance. So let's call it a tie.
Responsibility: feeling of responsibility or personality change is better at married side which again is good not to feel too happy about if you're a casual going type.
Care: You somehow tends to start care about your wife and less about your friends... waisay why you do this, when you know God has made wife to make sure you don't spend a relaxed minute in your life - this is what I think, Afif will agree but we've others like Sohail, which sometime confuses me if he is married at all - nothing has changed in his life after marriage and everything is changed for Afif... why Afif why? And we're friends like Saqi007 who're waiting for Pakistan to pass law like some in Europe and American states about marriages, maybe.. :)
Professionalism: Well, surely... you change after becoming only better-HALF when earlier you were better FULL.. ;-) You start to care more about your job security and stuff when earlier you were only cared about where to spend your money and now how to save your money..

People are right when they say, girl/woman changes in your plans of life and sometime, it works for good.

Best of luck who want to be married and Best of luck who wants to be bachelor again - of course and unfortunately you can't enjoy 2 shows in 1 ticket.

Beware of "Mouse Thieves"

2011-07-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

I am working in my current workspace from last 5 years and in just 6 months, there're 3 incidents when my computer mouse is stolen - not going missing like missing people in Pakistan. And guess what, I'm not the only victim... People have lost their head phones, pens, shoes, lip sticks, makeup kit, vanity bags etc. (The list is long for girls) but for boys - they just loss either pens or computer mouse.

You must have heard many different types of thieves who specialize in specific areas or items. But luckily in software houses, you'll not find them but thieves with multiple dimensional irritating skills - some have habit of borrowing pen and not returning it, some would come to your desk and take your notepad and will forget to return. Married people can't buy their own computer mouse, pens, note pads as they are overburdened by daily pampers purchase for kids and ever demanding WIFE... and bachelors have tendency of following the seniors.

This is unfortunate that in our society we do socially/morally offensive things without realizing how this act would affect others. I don't want to go into religious aspect of it as we first need to become human.

Just for anyone or everyone - Hamid sb. is a great guy and I can promise, he will give you 10 computer mouse if you ask him that you need to sell them to cover pampers cost or pay the rent of your flat. :)

And please stop taking my laptop mouse - this is office property and let this remain within office and don't sell it outside, I can buy at 2 rupees higher price.

Shoaib Mansoor's BOL

2011-07-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

Of course when we talk about film industry - you would either be talking about Hollywood or Bollywood (generally producing the urdu versions of Hollywood movies). But what about Pakistani productions? There're not many names in Pakistani film industry which can be compared with top film makers of the world, luckly in Pakistan, we've one - Shoaib Mansoor.

I've been watching movies regularly for 12 years now and would say, have developed a pretty good sense of movie making and its all aspects. Being able to compare movies with each others and identifying small or big mistakes by producers, directors, writers, cameramen etc., I'm able to recommend good movies to people and can easily judge whather one would like certain movie or not. So if at the end, I recommend you to watch this movie - just go to the cinema and watch it.

The story of a movie is something which many writers and directors would not even dare to touch. He has addressed so many issues in this movie that at certain stage, you actually lost track of all. From women position in society - where one curse them of being there and other depending their livehood on them. From Religion - where you interpret it for your own profit and then practice it on choices sometimes made by you or you're forced into them. From Gender, where society totally reject transgenders and how they're exploited by few sexually. From Sectarian division, where our society is still divided on pitty issues of believes which may not be of any important to Allah. From Education, Law, Ethics, Sports, Parenting... in other words, the everyday life and deals - the movie has touched so many aspects that it has become a must see for anyone who wants to see a true art movie.

If you don't like to be criticised on yourself, believes or anything that is around you then you might find many grounds not to like this movie but I'm sure, you'll still like it. :)

Movie evolves around a Hakeem sb. (sort of a doctor) and her elder daughter, the performance of both are applaudable. Plus of course, role of prostituation and religious believes have played a central role in it. How the parents are ready to go to certain extremes if someone is born transgender and above all how sexual obsessed this society is... (just want to make a point here that still, American or Indian societies are far ahead from ours but this doesn't mean we should not discourage the ills)

So, just go to cinema and watch this movie.

And one important NOTE: do not go along with children under 18, there are some touchy issues/scenes which you'll not find comfortable watching in presence of kids.

Overall, both thumbs up for Shoaib Mansoor!

Through cloud, Apple circles wagons on ecosystem: 10 proof points

2011-06-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

In a keynote speech during its Worldwide Developers Conference event, leading tech company Apple announced new features for “Lion,” the next version of its desktop operating system OS X; the next version of its mobile operating system, iOS 5; and a new service, iCloud, which stores content in the cloud and automatically syncs it across multiple devices.

In doing so, it demonstrated how quickly the company is circling the wagons on its computing ecosystem, shutting out outsiders unless they play by strict rules — and nearly doing away with alternatives altogether.

This is hardly the first article ever published about Apple’s distaste for working with partners on any grounds but those it sets ahead of time, but in today’s keynote speech, chief executive Steve Jobs made it expressly clear that if you want to reach a significant portion of the market for laptops, smartphones and tablets, you’ll have to play by its rules.

It’s good to be the popular girl, isn’t it? Here’s a list of 10 proof points, based on Apple’s announcements today:

1. Software, via the App Store. The Mac OS X App Store was announced months ago, but Apple reinforced it with numbers this time: it’s now the No. 1 channel for buying computer software, ahead of Best Buy and Walmart. With the Mac installed user base growing 28 percent year-over-year — the PC is declining — and MacBooks occupying almost three-quarters of all notebook sales, that means Apple is increasingly able to pressure developers through its App Store chokepoint, just the same as the App Store in iOS. Which means a cut for Apple and rules as to what kind of content can be sold there. That includes its own operating system — OS X Lion will be sold exclusively through this route, locking down the channel for that and making it a little harder to make a Hackintosh.

2. E-commerce, via iOS Accounts. Apple said it had more than 225 million accounts with credit cards and one-click purchasing. That’s a serious customer base for any kind of e-commerce endeavor, and it means anyone who uses an iOS device — or Mac App Store-enabled PC — is in this boat.

3. Advertising, via iAds. If you want to show an add anywhere on this platform, save for the World Wide Web (and even then, Adobe Flash just won’t do), you’ll need to use Apple’s advertising platform.

4. Books, magazines and newspapers, via iOS Newsstand. Any of these that you subscribe to, you can now do through Apple’s offering. It instantly gives publishers a way to get in front of iOS users, particularly those with iPads — under Apple’s rules, of course.

5. Music, movies and TV, via iTunes in the cloud. This is a big one: no more multiple downloads/payments for the same piece of content. My CNET colleague Greg Sandoval has been doggedly reporting on Apple’s sparring with record labels over royalties for this kind of thing — let’s just say the legal kinks aren’t all worked out — but the bottom line is that it’s the last damn time you’re paying for Led Zeppelin I.

6. Games, via Game Center. iOS is now the world’s most popular gaming platform, besting console makers by a significant margin in terms of installed customer base. And it’s social, thriving on more usage by others around you.

7. Contacts and calendar, via iOS sharing. Now you can share your contacts and calendar with other users, allowing iCal the potential to make significant inroads against Google’s offering. Still, without significant enterprise support (most shops are using Exchange or Google Apps), this is more of a consumer play — and contacts without Facebook seems to take the teeth out of this.

8. E-mail, via iCloud. MobileMe is now absorbed into iCloud. And it’s for free. Fans of MobileMe shelled out $99 a year for a suite of helpful services, including the @me.com e-mail service. Now it’s open season — anyone can have this.

9. Documents, spreadsheets and presentations head to the cloud. Pages, Numbers, Keynote — all of the files managed by these are traditionally Microsoft territory (with Google Apps leading the resistance charge) and that company has resisted letting Apple’s iWork suite make any inroads against it. But if these apps are easily available on any iOS device, can they begin to turn the tide?

10. Direct messaging, via iMessage. Think of it like BBM for the Apple set: direct messaging for iOS users only, over Wi-Fi or 3G.

11. Peer-to-peer file sharing, via AirDrop. Replacing the run-across-the-room-with-a-USB-stick phenomenon.

12. Photo Stream. Share and sync photos across devices, in conjunction with iPhoto.

So let’s review:

If you’re a business and want to sell software, music, movies, TV, books, magazines, newspapers, video games or ads to the growing mobility-minded population that also happens to be increasingly favoring Apple products, you’ll have to play by Apple rules.

If you’re one of the millions of consumers who use an iOS device and want to send a short message, e-mail, photo, file or business document of any kind — or want to buy something online — Apple has solutions that are not just available, but preferred on your chosen ecosystem. You have to go out of your way to find an alternative, assuming it’s available through the channels I’ve outlined above — after all, Apple’s the gatekeeper.

It’s a services world, baby, and you’re just livin’ in it.

Note: Source taken from CNET blog.

now it is OUR WAR! Part-I

2011-06-04T03:06:00.000-07:00

Pakistan has lost over 35,000 lives in last 3 years after engaging itself in partial war-like situation with extremist working inside and outside Pakistan. These people have died in parks, masjids, churches, temples, imam-barghas, shrines, market places, on roads - in other words, just name a place and situation and you will find people here in Pakistan have shed their blood and they're still called by rest of the world that they're not serious in this war or have not done enough.

I wonder how they want us to do enough?

After 9/11, there was a continuous debate among intellectuals here in Pakistan whether to declare this Afghan war against Taliban and al-Qaeda as ours or keep our distance from it. I was of option earlier, it was not our war - the mess is created by America and it should be solely its responsibility to clean this up.

Unfortunately, we had two terrible incidents in month of May, first of Osama bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad and then attack on Pakistan Navy base in Karachi. Of course, many would argue how could Osama be in Abbottabad - living so near to PMA Kakul and without coming into ISI or other intelligence agencies radar. Yes, there is a possibility some elements might be helping in his 5 years presence there but in general, we must understand... after this bloodshed, many in Pakistan stopped backing Osama and so as America as it keeps on violating our airspace.

I'm personally least bother, if Osama was there or not? I just don't want to get myself into this debate... For me, being a Pakistan - the one who thinks he is a die-hard Pakistani, a nationalist - who've been supporting Army, our institutions from day1, can't undertake this predicament that we can't do anything if someone violates our airspace or land from western borders. Give me break - we're a nation of 180 million people and we can't do anything... Yes, maybe we can't as our politicians and Armed officers are more concerned about their children future in abroad then of 80 million young Pakistanis living in Pakistan - I will come to this point some other day.

The 2nd incident was attack on PNS base in Karachi, they took down two of most expensive spy planes P-3C and guess what like every bad boy in classroom - TTP declared they're responsible. Just to recap for those who don't know about TTP involvement in Pakistan... they're doing everything which could help our border enemies to laugh on us.

You know what is the solution of both problems? if someone ask me for one-single solution... I would say, fire the top lots - we should at least first 50+ people from junior most military officier to senior most. This would've been the clear message for all, that if Americans can find Osama here and if few TTP members can invade a base then we should better not have them.

Cloud Hosting

2011-03-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

When looking at Shared Web Hosting services a proper Cloud infrastructure does present some unique advantages. While much of this is seamless to the end-user the provider is able to offer a better, more scalable, and more reliable service. By having multiple servers running on the backend with a "floating" infrastructure your hosting account is not tied to one physical server as it is with a traditional shared host. Servers going down have very little (temporary) or no effect on your hosting. Growth of an environment is much more managed by the host as that environment is floating and can easily be scaled up and migrated to faster and more powerful physical servers without the need of a traditional, time consuming, invasive migration.

There's multiple network connections, multiple storage locations for redundancy, ease of management as in a virtualized environment a provider will be able to manage, modify, grow, enhance, replicate for development, and various other tasks much quicker and more effectively.

Now with Cloud Hosting, there are also many "levels" of service just as there is with traditional hosting. Ie: Shared (aka Cloud Web Hosting), Dedicated/VPS (Cloud Servers), and full on private complex clusters (Virtual Private Data Center/Private Cloud). It's up to the provider to decide which levels of services they are able to provide you with but the capabilities of Cloud Hosting are rapidly growing.

Cloud have many advantages:

Faster loading/performance: as your site(s) are served from multiple locations VS. Being in only one NOC
Redundant back-ups: since copies are stored on that vast network again VS. Being on one server somewhere
With a single server: if it crashes a RAID arrayed backup could/should step in, with a better quality host.
And much more ECO Friendly.

A good reference that explains cloud in much simple way, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFVuJfex4l0&feature=related .

Reference: resource taken from WHT

Can Ireland be next Test Cricket Playing Nation?

2011-03-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

After the surprise win over English early this week, if you see them batting against India - they are actually planning like professionals and settle team. I would definitely like to see a competitive team giving a real test to Indian bowling and batting line up. They lost 2 wickets early; let's see if they can come out of this trouble.

Best of Luck to Irish team... we certainly want to see a well-tempered team in International arena who love to beat these Brits. :)

Another side thought; last time when they beat Pakistan; our coach couldn't take this defeat... let's see what happens to Andy Flower?

Let's talk more about iPhone...

2011-03-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

Guess what, Apple has now iPad2 to astonish the world of IT and people who're looking to surprise the world with wonders. Those who've used or experience of running iPad1 know what kinda tool Apple has made, it was fast, slim and have more features than any of its competitors.

Now before talking about iPad2, do you know that over 100 million books were downloaded from iBooks service in less than one year and with over 200 million accounts with registered credit card numbers on Apple stores (iBook, iTunes and App Store). And just to give you the idea on its achievement - Apple has paid out over $2 billion to developers cumulatively.

How many iPhone are sold yet - 100 Million... and with over 15 Million iPads

iPad2 is dramatically faster. It has a new chip called A5. It's dual-core, so we get twice as fast performance on the cpu and nine times better graphics performance. There's also a gyroscope, which the iPhone and iPod Touch also have. iPad 2 will have the same battery life as the first version, but will be 33 percent thinner. It is 13 mm thick to 8.8 mm thick, which is .5 mm thinner than an iPhone4. It's lighter too than the original iPad -- 1.3 pounds, down from 1.5. The new iPad is a little rounder. And it comes in two colors. "We'll be shipping white from day one," he says, referring to the elusive white iPhone.

Price starting from $499, available in 16, 32 and 64 GB version, wireless and non-wireless. There is an accessory cable for HDMI out, for connecting the iPad to displays. Also comes with smart covers available in polyurethane and leather cases but in many colors. iOS 4.3 that will make safari runs must faster.

Now Apple has iMovie with improved offering. You can play Piano, Hammond B3 organ, guitar - in other words, anything...

So personally, I think Apple has made another mark in post-PC era - first iPod, then iPhone and now iPad. What's next?

Land on "Zarmina" Goldilocks for Sale - invest now!

2011-01-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

If you’re having any difficulty in buying property here on earth, eBay offers an unique opportunity to buy the land outside our solar system http://cgi.ebay.com/Gliese-581-g-Zarminas-World-Extrasolar-Planet-Property-/150536510033?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item230cacda51 .

The scientist who discovered Gliese 581 g nicknamed it 'Zarmina' after his wife. We wish to honor that name. We feel it embodies the mystique of the place, and that just makes it sound like an awesome planet. Yes. Plus, it's going to look great on a brochure.

P.S. Don’t waste time, right now they’re just running promotional price of $20/10acres.

For further details, you may like to read http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/breakingorbit/2010/12/goldilocks-planet-for-sale-on-ebay.html .

A tribute to Pakistan Air Force

2010-06-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

This email was forwarded to me earlier today, thought I should add this in my blog as it is:

RJAF and PAF were flying under a joint command. Flt. Lt. Saiful Azam became the only pilot from the Arab side to have shot down 3 IDF/AF (Israili Airforce) aircraft within 72 hours and also the only pilot to have shot down 3 different aircraft types of the IDF/AF. He was, subsequently, decorated by Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan.[19]

During the war 16 PAF pilots volunteered to go to the Middle East in order to support Egypt and Syria but by the time they arrived, Egypt had already been pushed into a ceasefire. Syria remained in a state of war against Israel.

On 23 October 1973, PAF pilot Flt. Lt. M. Hatif on deputation to Egyptian Air Force (EAF) was flying a EAF MiG-21 in a defensive combat air patrol (CAP) over Egypt when he was vectored towards an intruding Israeli Air Force (IDF/AF) F-4 Phantom. In the ensuing dogfight, Flt. Lt. M. Hatif shot down the Israeli Phantom. [35]

Eight (8) PAF pilots started flying out of Syrian Airbases; they formed the A-flight of 67 Squadron at Dumayr Airbase. The Pakistani pilots flew Syrian MiG-21 aircraft conducting CAP missions for the Syrians.

On 26 April 1974, PAF pilot Flt. Lt. Sattar Alvi on deputation to No. 67 Squadron, Syrian Air Force (SAF) was flying a SAF MiG-21FL Fishbed (Serial No. 1863) out of Dumayr Air Base, Syria in a two-ship formation with a fellow PAF pilot and the Flight Leader, Sqn. Ldr. Arif Manzoor. The Ground Controller, also a PAF officer, Sqn. Ldr. Salim Metla, vectored the two PAF pilots to a formation of 2 Israeli Air Force Mirage IIICJs and 2 F-4 Phantoms that had intruded into Syrian airspace over the Golan Heights. In the engagement that took place at 1532 hours, Flt. Ltl Sattar Alvi shot down an Israeli Mirage IIICJ using his MiG-21’s R(K)-13 Air-to-Air Missile.

The pilot of the downed Israeli Mirage was Capt. M. Lutz of No. 5 Air Wing, who ejected. The remaining Israeli fighters aborted the mission. The 2 IAF Mirage IIICJs were from Hatzor AFB and the 2 IAF F-4 Phantoms were from No. 1 Air Wing, Ramat David AFB, Israel.[36][37]

Flt. Lt. A. Sattar Alvi became the first Pakistani pilot, during the Yom Kippur War, to shoot down an Israeli Mirage in air combat.He was honored by the Syrian government.[38] Other aerial encounters involved Israeli F-4 Phantoms; Pakistan Air Force did not lose a single pilot or aircraft during this war.

A trip to Peshawar and Tribal Area!

2010-05-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

3 weeks back, I planned a trip to Peshawar along with Sohail and Tahir for Billie's wedding, at last he is getting married (I wish him best wishes for a very happy life). I was to be picked up by Sohail and as usual, he was late.. We stayed there in Army mess and later that night attended Billie's Barat, he looked surprisingly smart with traditional Pushtoon turban. :)

Next day, we decided to go for a trip to Peshawar bara market and I will recommend anyone to go there with any fear especially those who're looking for good quality stuff at cheap rates. It's the nearest you can get to smuggled stuff in legal way so if you're there in Peshawar, go to bara and do visit that "sitara market" (it's at the end of bara and just after 100 yards ahead, the tribal belt starts - Jumrod to be specific). I found that market the rich place with so ma ny replicas of almost every thing. I bought few knifes, gazettes and some tools at very reasonable price. I must say the price of these items in Islamabad might be 2 or 3 times. I later went there yesterday with Asghar bhai and Sohail, this time we actually spend good time in bara shopping, there is lot to buy from this place, we're able to identify few good places for different purchases and hopefully going to get much better price from these shopkeepers in next visit.

In last visit, we went to tribal area as well with Tahir's cousin. We didn't get the chance to go far as we have a brave company with us - Sohail.. We entered in Jumrod agency and for first time in my life, I get the opportunity to see Khyber gate (for more information about Khyber pass, visit ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass ) it's a very nice place to visit only if you don't have fear of being kidnapped or tortured to death or eaten alive by pathans ;-). We, being Pakistanis need so much positive publicizing to come back to the stage where foreigners start taking as normal human beings..

In my opinions, Pakhtoons are very honest and brave nation, they've a such a huge pride of being Pakhtoons that one can't even express in right way. They're traditionalist, remarkable hosts, amazing friends, unmatched fighting force and above all loyal to his family which no other in part can be... and I'm sure they must have same feeling for their land too (that's why no one has ever able to ruled them). Tahir cousin took us to the ride and showed us around, everyone there was holding a gun or had it under his shirt. They're brave people and maybe the reason is that they feel they've nothing to lose.. the only thing, they fear to lose is their "pride and self-respect" and that's why they die over dishonor.

In simple, if I've to tell someone to go to tribal area or not... I would say, it's must place to visit but as they say, "while in Rome, do what the Romans do"... so make sure you wear and look like them and don't act like one who disrespect them.

Have a safe journey there.. I'm sure you'll and do share your experience with me.

iPad hits the market: Strong weekend Sales

2010-04-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

Apple's iPad is out for sales and as expected breaking the sales estimates, a record sale of over 700,000 pieces by Saturday afternoon, doubling the earlier estimates of Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster as around 300,000 iPads.

That’s a mighty big jump - but it makes sense. The iPad hype machine was in full force leading up to the actual release of the device. For months, there was speculation about what Apple’s newest device category might be. And then, following the official announcement, there was a waiting period that allowed the marketing machine to build up to this past weekend’s actual release. And we’ve seen before that economic conditions don’t really come into play when it comes to Apple’s latest and greatest.

Now, what I'm waiting is for an opportunity of getting hold of this magical device, as Jony Ive, SVP Design at Appl has put it: when something exceed your ability to understand how it works., it sort of become magical.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

Why a General is more Influential than a Politician

2010-02-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

I was reading an article and there was reference of Gen. Kayani (Pakistan Army Chief) as one of the most influential person in 2010, he was rated over US President Barack Obama. I'm personally in favor of a dictator running Pakistan who at least gives us right of speech, expression and justice, at least for the time our nation is educated enough and we've enough swing votes in polls that we, as a nation, can throw anyone out in next elections, if they don't deliver what is promised.

And I'm not sure if this time will ever come in my life-time... So what I've to settle for now? The fact of the matter is, I, along with millions of so-called educated citizens of Pakistan are confused, absolutely confused. Even though we convince ourselves everyday that we've the absolute key for changing fate of this nation (only if I'm giving power to run it)... Ironic, isn't it... So we're not settling less than having everything first in our hands and then we'll share our vision with fellow countrymen.

You know what this proves: this only proofs one thing, we're absolute coward and 3rd-class citizens... and we don't deserve to be calling ourselves 1st-class citizens and that's why, whenever get any chance, we would sell our skins/souls to get painted as 3rd-class citizen of any developed country... Believe me, we can give tons of reason for this as well.

And this is why, a general is still more influential than a politician as he at least he stands for something.

Google entering in DNS Game..

2010-02-01T12:13:00.000-08:00

Google aimed to speed up DNS request, as they're joining hands with Neustar UltraDNS to proposed a extension to try to build some geographic awareness into the Domain Name System.

Google and other companies interested in the Internet's addressing system have proposed a technology they hope will get Net users to nearby servers more quickly.

The technology in question is called the Domain Name System, which resolves alphabetical Net addresses such as CNET.com to the numeric addresses actually used to reach the appropriate server. Google's interest in DNS is so strong the company launched its own service in an effort to lower some of the delays that can result when the network equipment most proximate to a Net user doesn't have the numeric address for a particular server immediately on hand.

The move is interesting not just because it has the potential to speed up a very common chore--DNS resolution queries take place many times a day as a person surfs the Web, sends e-mail, and performs other tasks on the Internet. It's also intriguing because it shows Google's desire to gradually re-engineer the Internet, not just provide its own services. The company also is active in developing and promoting a variety of Web standards.

The process of finding the correct numeric address is called DNS resolution, and it can involve a request hopping several steps from server to server trying to find the right answer. The problem is that sometimes by the time the answer is retrieved, it comes from the far side of the planet and gives a geographically inappropriate answer. In general, the farther away a server is, the slower communications with it are.

Think of it as looking up an item's price in Auckland and getting the answer in U.S. dollars instead of New Zealand dollars. Sure, you can do the math to get the local answer, but it's an extra step.

This is where Google and Neustar UltraDNS come in. They proposed a DNS extension Wednesday to try to build some geographic smarts into the system.

Specifically, the proposed extension, called Client IP information in DNS requests, would send along the first three quarters of a user's Internet Protocol (IP) address with the DNS request. The last quarter would be lopped off to preserve some privacy, but the first part should be enough to geographically target the answer in some cases. As designed, it would for example return the address for Google's Dutch server, not Google's California server, to a person in the Netherlands who needs to reach it.

Next up: evaluation of the proposal. "We plan to continue working with all interested parties on implementing this solution and are looking forward to a healthy discussion on the dnsext mailing list," said Google Public DNS team members Wilmer van der Gaast and Carlo Contavalli in a blog post about the proposal .

Note: Source taken from CNET blog.

And Yes, Apple did it again...

2010-01-29T14:42:00.000-08:00

Why these Apple guys don't stop impressing me... Recently a new buzz was around especially in tech community that how Apple going to stop Amazon from selling more Kindles (already sold over 2.3 million so far and plan to ship another 4 million for year 2010).

After seeing the new Apple tool - iPad with multi-touch screen, one could easy comment on iPad sale and it's effect on Kindle. I could see the difference in terms of user experience and superior technology which iPad is bringing in this domain. Apple is taking book reading to new level, improving multi-touch accuracy, incorporating back lighting with LED with IPS technology (which is premium display technology), with efficiency up-to 10 hours battery time.

The iPad obviously does more—games, music, email, video and yes books. The iPad is aimed at netbooks and e-readers. As they say, "the best way to experience the web, email, photos, and video. Hands down". You can now access over 140,000 Apps availalbe on AppStore.

In simple, when something exceed your ability to understand how it works, it sort of become magical and that's exactly what the iPad is... (SVP, Design - Apple)

You must see the official iPad video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZJIXI-Nv2g .

Google's showdown with China..

2010-01-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

On the surface, Google’s threat to shut down its China operations after a cyberattack on its infrastructure looks like sheer business lunacy. How can the search giant give up on the world’s biggest growth market? It’s easier than you’d think.

First, the background. Google in a long blog post detailed how it suffered a cyberattack that changed the company’s outlook on China. The key points (Techmeme):

The attack was coordinated and focused on 20 large companies and some appear to be confirming that they were also involved.
The aim of this attack was to get the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
The attack also focused on U.S., China and Europe-based Gmail accounts that supported human rights in China.
Google is way public about this attack and its reaction to them.
Google says it won’t continue to censor search results and may just shut down operations in China.

Reading all of this laid out in a blog post can be summed up in one word: Wow. Now let’s look at how Google arrived at this big decision, which could result in a complete pullout. Why would the Chinese government give a hoot if Google leaves the country? If Google departed, the Chinese government’s chosen champion—Baidu—will lock up all the search share. Baidu already has 63 percent of the Chinese market, according to comScore.

So let’s look at some of the calculus behind Google’s big decision on China.
- Google’s currency is user trust.
- What happens in China can hurt Google’s other businesses.
- Google doesn’t have as much to lose in China–at least today
- There may be a regulatory payoff.
- Google’s threat to leave China may be a bluff.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

Just missed heaven.. Twice

2009-12-17T12:35:00.000-08:00

Today, Saqi007 first showed us the path to heaven and then when he was about to take us there, decided to steer the wheel just enough that we missed to direct flight to heaven... (though I'm not sure if we gonna get direct flight or some connecting ones :D)

Now the exact details: today me, Saqi007 and Bhatti were traveling on RIV1800 to attend one of afridi's proud son and our colleague, Tahir Afridi (I doubt if anyone be proud of him besides himself or Suleman) On our way, we were going at high speed touching 80km/hour on single road, when suddenly out of no where (like in every Pakistani road) a steep road depression appears and for some reason, Saqi007 decided to steer car wheel to left where on road side, there wasn't any protection.. when we were about to loss control of car and take direct flight to heaven on Hazrat Israel's hands, he decided not to give us honor and corrected the mistake... RIV being a namak-halal car, responded, and with little skid, saved us from not lossing control and going off road in ditch..

The beauty of this trip wasn't that we missed the heavenly trip once but twice... both the time, brilliant Saqi007 tried and then failed to give me and Bhatti (you can not define Bhatti in simple words, he is nice and courageous fellow with a wonderful heart)

Ohh one more thing, if you plan to go to Terbella, please be sure that you gonna encounter speed breaker after every 5KM, so don't get frustrated.. and one more thing, no suicider can reach there as he gonna blew himself up on one of these speed breakers... :D

By the way, the best fish I've ever eaten is from a road-side hotel there... If you ever go there, do try their BBQ Fish.

Cloud Computing: what it is actually?

2009-12-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

I wasn't actually sure what value "cloud computing" is to bring into IT services when we already have taken software to service level.. but there was always had the over-sight of buying a service but not using it, which means you're paying extra for something you're not using.. and this is where "Cloud Computing" comes in to save your bucks. So in other words: it is a service where you "Pay As You Grow".

A technical definition could be: Cloud computing is Internet- ("cloud-") based development and use of computer technology ("computing"). In concept, it is a paradigm shift whereby details are abstracted from the users who no longer need knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them. It typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet.

Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers. These applications are broadly divided into the following categories:
- Software as a Service (SaaS),
- Utility Computing,
- Web Services,
- Platform as a Service (PaaS),
- Managed Service Providers (MSP),
- Service Commerce, and
- Internet Integration.

Here I would like to share one of the best explanation of "Cloud Computing" available over internet, do visit this video tutorial to understand what value this new idea of service can bring to reliable and cost-effective online services, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdBd14rjcs0 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFFApphXtk&feature=related

Microsoft Exchange 2010 buzz grows louder...

2009-08-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

The release-to-manufacturing (RTM) buzz around Microsoft Exchange 2010 is starting to grow louder from various partners and customers it could be finalized any time now, maybe even before this month is up.

Exchange Server is directly and indirectly at the crux of a number of new and recently announced products from Microsoft. The company’s Mac Business Unit announced on August 13 that the 2010 version of Mac Office will include Outlook, rather than Entourage, as its new e-mail client. The next Mac Office release also will feature improved Exchange and Exchange Online connectivity, the Softies said. (Microsoft Mac Office customers who need better Exchange connectivity now can use the just-finalized Entourage Web Services, Microsoft officials said.)

Additionally, Exchange ActiveSync licensees Nokia and Apple are both expected to tout the ability of users to sync with their corporate mail systems as part of their forthcoming Nokia Mobile Office and Apple Snow Leopard releases.

As many as 1 million testers have been test-driving the public beta version of Microsoft’s on-premise Exchange Server 2010 product since April of this year. Another 5 million or so testers have been working with the cloud-based complement in the form of Outlook Live, which is a slightly modified version of the Exchange Online product.

The Exchange team has said to expect the product to RTM before the end of 2009. More recently, company officials said to expect Microsoft to “launch” Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 and Exchange 2010 together via a series of “business launch” events, which kick off in the U.S. on November 9.

The Exchange 2010 release includes new, integrated e-mail archive functionality; the ability to see text previews of voice mail; a new “Conversation View” feature; customizable call-routing menus; and a “MailTips” feature designed to help stamp out e-mail “faux pas.”

More than a few testers report having been impressed with the Outlook Web Access (OWA) improvements that Microsoft has made as part of the 2010 release. The new and more robust OWA supports Firefox and Safari.

Exchange 2010 is a 64-bit-only release. Other caveats: Users who want to run Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 together must upgrade to Exchange 2007 Service Pack (SP) 2. And Exchange 2007 also won’t work at all on Windows Server 2008 R2, so users who want to run Exchange on the latest and greatest Windows Server release have no choice but to upgrade to Exchange 2010. In-place upgrades from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 seemingly are prohibited.

When asked Microsoft officials whether Exchange 2010 is ready to get the RTM designation real soon now. A corporate spokesperson replied: “We have said that Exchange 2010 will become available in the second half of 2009. There’s nothing additional to share at this point.”

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

The 62nd birthday of Pakistan

2009-08-13T14:21:00.000-07:00

Not sure what it was like exactly 62 years before; what a farmer was thinking of new country who lost land in partition, what were the feelings of 7 year old girl whose father is killed just a week before and her mother is trying to tell her that they would be moving to new village in Pakistan, I wonder what would a mother felt for this new born nation who lost her only son killed by sikhs, I wonder what father would be thinking of future of his new born son, I wonder what the independence fighter was thinking at this time and I wonder.............. what Quaid-i-Azam would have been thinking.?

Is this the country they all looked and scarafice for...? Is this the president we wished to have for this country? Is this the state of affairs we wanted for our country and for us?

So many question could be raised and yet the answer would be simple.... I JUST LOVE THIS COUNTRY.. not matter what it has to offer... Our love to this country is like a monther's love for his only child...

Gwadar may lose business to Iranian port of Chabahar - Part 2

2009-05-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

The Chabahar Port and Chabahar Region
Chābahār (Persian: چابهار), previously also Bandar Beheshti, is an Iranian city and a free port (Free Trade Zone) on the coast of the Gulf of Oman.

Chabahar is situated on the Makran Coast of the Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran and is officially designated as a Free Trade and Industrial Zone by Iran's government. Due to its free trade zone status, the city has increased in significance in international trade. The overwhelming majority of the city's inhabitants are ethnic Baluchis speaking the Balochi language.

Economic significance
Chabahar is the closest and best access point of Iran to the Indian Ocean. For this reason, Chabahar is the focal point of Iran for development of the east of the country through expansion and enhancement of transit routes among countries situated in the northern part of the Indian Ocean and Central Asia. The hope is that with the development of transit routes, and better security and transit services, the benefits will reach the area residents.

Chabahar's economic sectors are fishery industries and commercial sector, fishery sectors with largest amount of country's fish catch, mainly located out of the Chabahar Free Trade-Industrial Zone. Growing commercial sector located at free trade area with high potentiality to turn to a place that would connect business growth centers in south Asia (India) and Middle East (Dubai) to central Asian and Afghanistan market. Government plan to link Chabahar free trade area to Iran's main rail network which is connected to central Asia and Afghanistan would provide more capability for Chabahar to foster faster logistics sector that is a basic to achieve better position comparing to its competitor (Pakistani port of Gwadar)

Chabahar Port a symbol of the new Iran-India strategic alliance
India is helping develop the Chabahar port and that would give it access to the oil and gas resources in Iran and the Central Asian states, in this it is competing with the Chinese which is building the Gwadar port, in Pakistani Baluchistan.

Iran plans to use Chabahar for transhipment to Afghanistan and Central Asia while reserving the port of Bandar Abbas as a major hub mainly for trade with Russia and Europe.

India, Iran and Afghanistan have signed an agreement to give Indian goods, heading for Central Asia and Afghanistan, preferential treatment and tariff reductions at Chabahar.

Work on the Chabahar-Melak-Zaranj-Dilaram route from Iran to Afghanistan is in progress. Iran is with Indian aid upgrading the Chabahar-Melak road and constructing a bridge on the route to Zaranj. India's BRO is laying the 213-kilometer Zaranj-Dilaram road. It is a part of its USD 750 million aid package to Afghanistan.

The advantages that Chabahar has compared to Gwadar are the greater political stability and security of the Iranian hinterland and the hositlity and mistrust that the Pakistani Baluchis hold against the Punjabi dominated Pakistani Federal government. The Baluchis consider Sino-Pak initiative at Gwadar as a strategy from Islamabad to deny the province its deserved share of development pie. They also look with suspicion on the settlement of more and more non-Baluchis in the port area.

The Chabahar port project is Iran's chance to end its US sponsored economic isolation and benefit form the resurgent Indian economy. Along with Bandar Abbas, Chabahar is the Iranian entrepot on the North - South corridor. A strategic partnership between India, Iran and Russia to establish a multi-modal transport link connecting Mumbai with St. Petersburg. Providing Europe and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia access to Asia and vice-versa.

NOTE: The resource taken from wikipedia.

Gwadar may lose business to Iranian port of Chabahar - Part 1

2009-05-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Gwadar Port that was envisioned to become a trans-shipment port and shipping hub for the landlocked Central Asian States (CAS), Afghanistan and Western China may lose this opportunity to the fast developing Iranian port of Chabahar, a Gwadar Port official said.

The Gwadar Port is yet to become fully operational. The running of the port affairs was given to Port of Singapore Authority (PSA), one of the biggest port operators, so that it will fetch considerable business for making Gwadar Port a success.

The PSA has not fulfilled its business plan of making the port fully operational by 2008. The PSA says the government has failed to provide basic infrastructure including road and rail links that are the main impediments in Gwadar Port development.

To ensure that the port stays a viable destination the Gwadar Port official suggested resuming container business immediately even if in small amount through PSA or if they fail through own resources.The government should bear the cost of road transportation to resume export activity from Gwadar Port, he said.The official suggested restricting PSA to the present terminal and the areas adjacent to the terminal handed over to them may be retrieved and handed over to Gwadar Port Authority.

The official further said that master plan of Gwadar Port need to be approved, presently it is approved in principle but nothing so far has been done. Master Plan will protect the entire east bay and coastline east of Surbandar. By securing Master Plan, the basic theme of converting Gwadar Port into a hub port will be secured.

In order to attract sustainable business like Afghan Transit Trade or container cargo at Gwadar Port, one of the viable options is to complete road connectivity of the Port with Chaman and Afghanistan followed by shifting total or part of Afghan transit trade to Gwadar Port.

The land required for Free Zone has been dropped due to its high cost (Rs 6.7 billion). It is suggested that the concerned agency at the Federal Government level may be requested to remand the case to the District Government authorities for review and submission of a workable plan, the official said.

The construction of East Bay Expressway may be undertaken on a fast track as the present arrangement for passage of the cargo truck within town has lot of repercussions. The concerned agency may be directed to execute the development work on priority.

According to government official it is justified to extend Rs.585million subsidy to the Gwadar Port to make it viable. Government supported Port Qasim for ten years to make port fully functional, he reminded. Similarly this will help the Gwadar Port to operate and serve the basic purpose of the port and generate revenues and job opportunities for the people.

He further stated that Stevedoring/Clearing/Ship Agency License to be given to locals and training should be given to the locals in cargo handling to reduce their grievances.It is learnt that Port of Singapore Authority is trying to attract Afghan Transit Trade and get mining sector to export copper and chrome from Gwadar Port. In this regard PSA is briefing the government of Balochistan to work on connectivity.

It is also said that PSA is pursuing the government to add Gwadar Port in Afghan Trade Notification so that some trade should be started from Gwadar as well.However ports and shipping industry shows reservation on PSA’s role and said that PSA submitted plan for 40 years specifying business in Gwadar.

According to the PSA business plan the port was to be operational by 50 percent in 2007 and 100 percent in 2008 and had indicated business comprising of coal and container cargo.The plan also indicated approximate revenue generation for Gwadar Port Authority during the period 2007 and 2008. But PSA, so far relied totally on TCP to have business and lucrative subsidies. It has totally failed in bringing in business to Gwadar Port specially containers.

However PSA says that ports are not run in isolation, port are catalyst for trade and in the absence of basic infrastructures, free zone industrial areas and most importantly the connectivity links to the ports which are major hurdles in running the ports. PSA has fulfilled all agreed requirement but government so far has failed to fulfil the agreed requirements of the ports.

NOTE: The resource taken from thenews.

Afghani Food...

2009-05-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

After over 7 years I believe, entered in a Afghani restaurent though there was nothing purely afghani as such except they were playing afghani songs and waiters were afghani too... Last time I went to "Kabul Restuarent" in F-7 and turn out to be worst experience of all, maybe it was the food we ordered or maybe because I was paying :)

We started off with normal order but end up ordering on each serving of "Kabli Palow", and one each serving of Afghani tikkah and Afghani kabab. This was maybe 3rd time, I was eating kabli palow, if you like sugar in rice then must try this. They have carrots cooked with raisens, which leaves a sweet taste in thin cutted carrots slices. Then kuftay is offered which can be mixed with these rice to reduce the sweetness of rice, if you mix rich with it, you might like it for sometime.

I wasn't sure it either Afghani tikkah or Afghani kabab but one of them was very tasty, so if you're there next time the hint to order right tikkah or kabab is to just ask this to customer... bhai sb, wo kon say kabab ya tikkah hain jis ke sekh per tamator bhi lagay hotay hain :D .. hain agar wo iss baat ko sunay kay baad aap ko aik ghoore maray tu mai kuch nahe kah sakta ;)

First time in restaurent they were playing music in right volume for sometime.. Its a nice spot to visit if you want personal attendence as we were the only visitors there at that time ;). The food turn out be not as bad as I first thought...

And for the first time, took kawa after food in Afghani or I should say Iranian style - white gole (sugar) under my tongue and drinking tea. Do try this if you're in some Afghani or Iranian restaurent, surely it would be good experience.

NOTE: Another blog on food.... Please stop it man!

Steaks inside CAVE...

2009-05-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

Let me start this blog by saying; there are couple of good steak houses in Islamabad and let's say CAVE is one of them. Maybe not only because of food taste but the arrangements they put in for nice, cozzy cave-like environment. Though the music they were playing was good but the volume again was too high. The table attendent was very helpful in selecting the food of your choice, though it is bit tricky process to order one unlike other Pakistani restaurents.

Now to order steak, you start first selecting from their 3 classic cuts:
a. House Sirloin
b. Club Steak
c. Tenderlion Stea
Then you move on to pick any two of fresh made sides from:
a. garlic mashed potato
b. baked potato
c. creamed spinach
d. sessional vegetables
e. cruncy or cruncy onions rings
f. french fries ...

Then you've to decide, how you want your steak to be cooked as medium rare, medium, medium well done, or well done. Though I tried two different steaks (not that I eat both of them, actually just took the bite from other), and there was no difference of cooking at least. I ordered well done (rather very well done) and other ordered medium - I didn't see any major difference, so it turn out to be more like menu part rather a practical one :).

Now comes the steak which I choose, I went for "Cave's Royal Steak", flame grilled topped with spicy sauce (it was flamed and definitely spicy... mera tu nahe pata per Khan sb. was burning like hell :) and Asif was just looking at steak, I think planning whether to take the risk of taking bite or not...) But one thing is certain, the taste was good and I liked every bite of it with french fries) I, this time took beef after a long time not chicken :D .

If you like spicy then try ordering Cave Sizzler and Twin Steak which comes as grilled cut in two, one topped with mushroom and other with creamy black peppercorn sauce (the spicy sauce).

In short, nice spot to be with anyone.. Just don't forget to select the right table to avoid loud music. :)

"Bubblo" is gone... at last!

2009-04-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

With staying over 2 years, he at last left me or I should say taken away from me. He served me with honor and dignity; never fell apart when I'm on it. I was his 3rd or 4th owner but maybe the best one in all, the proof of his loyalty towards me is that he never died on me... True subordinate.

He was old but stylish, expensive to maintain but not heavy on my pocket (as company was responsible for its maintenance;) ), multi-dimensional and multi-purpose (from Ansar to highest management, everyone has one way or the other has benefited from his services), last but not least many become trained drivers with his help.

Another introduction of Bubblo could be that he was daring friend of bubbly; I wonder what she would do without him... I tried getting feedback from bubbly's current owner and he thinks, without him, she might loss the interest in her life and spirit. :S

Now those of you who're not familiar with this Bubblo and Bubbly term, well these are two cars... One which was my official car and other is Tahir's (earlier owners was famous dirt-track winner - AbdKhan, who almost accident her over 10 times, ab pata nahe yea bubbly kay chal challan aysay thay yea iss kay driver kay, her ache ghari ko dekh kar uss ke taraf kichtee chali jati thi, for accident of course :) aaj kal ghare Tahir kay pass hai aur us kay chal chalan ka sab ko idea hai.. ;) ). Bubbly kay karnamoo say tu aap sab wakeef he hoin gay, those of you who're not familiar with Bubblo's activities... One thing which you must have noticed all the time, that Bubblo was also parked behind Bubbly. Inn douno ka pyar jo sacha tha.. :D And this simply was his only activity :)

Now as Bubblo is retired from his services, I will be driving a more sophisticated and fresh blood car, which we call here "RIV", now what this stands for? let this be secret for time being...

My best wishes for Bubbly and its new adventures.

Is it Afghani or Pakistani Food...

2009-04-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

If you love taking food that looks like Afghani but taste like Pakistani food then try visiting "Baithak" in blue area, Islamabad. One of the best cuisines of Islamabad, there you get both variety and taste under same roof. Though one might not find it very lavish and decorated but its a worth spending dinner place. If you're sitting at ground floor, high volume music might over-kill your taste buds :)

Today while coming to office from blue area in evening, encountered a pretty strange incident which I've saved for some other day :)

Now about the food, if you're first timer there then order "Tawa Chicken", you might love this.

But today, we ordered "Chill Man Biryani", this is their house speciality and taste good, and Cheese naan for starter - recommended for those who're on dieting but want to taste something good.. I wasn't on dieting or anything, so it was a starter for me at least.

Then comes the "Reshmi kabab" as side dish, its with boneless chicken cubes, marioated in some 'secret recipe' of their (at least what they claim, not sure what is so special but again this was good). This is one of the dash for 2nd visit of Baithak, order "Gosht-e-Bedamijaan" now on menu, they advertise following recipe boneless mutton and mutton machli cooked in almonds, mushrooms and gravy flanored with cream and yoghurt... Actually this dish is cooked and offered with chicken only...

So if you plan to spend a night with different taste then do try this cuisine.

The Power of NO!... Part 1

2009-04-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

On March9, 2007, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said "NO" to then President Pervez Musharraf's request that he resign, and his defiance sparked a revolution of lawyers who refused to allow guns to drown out the voice of the law. Justice Chaudhry said: "I felt that I was only doing the duty of my conscience." But as the rule of man threatened to overwhelm the rule of law, his defiance guided Pakistan's march to justice. "It was the proclamation of a new manifesto for Pakistan, a declaration that the pursuit of justice can not be subverted."

Quaid-i-Azam in his speech on Criminal Law Emergency Power Bills on Feb 6, 1919 said:
"No man should lose his liberty or be depreived of his liberty wihtout a judicial trial in accordance with the accpeted rules of evidence and procedure... the powers which are going to be assumed by the executive, which means substitution of executive for judiciary, such powers are likely to be abused, and in the past we have instances where such powers have been absused... there is no precedent or parallel that I know of in any civilized country where you have laws of this character enacted...
it imperils the liberty of the subject and fundamental liberties of a citizen."

Some declared this decade the era of independence of judiciary and it was achieved in what Helen Keller best discribed words "We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough".

TomTom pays Microsoft and settles patent-infringement dispute

2009-04-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

Microsoft and TomTom have settled the patent-infringement suits (and countersuits) between the two vendors, Microsoft announced March 30.

Microsoft is not paing TomTom, but TomTom is paying Microsoft an undisclosed amount as part of the deal. Here is Microsoft’s official statement:

“The cases have been settled through a patent agreement under which TomTom will pay Microsoft for coverage under the eight car navigation and file management systems patents in the Microsoft case. Also as part of the agreement, Microsoft receives coverage under the four patents included in the TomTom countersuit. The agreement, which has a five-year term, does not require any payment by Microsoft to TomTom. It covers both past and future U.S. sales of the relevant products. The specific financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.”

There has been much speculation that TomTom was unwilling to license at least four of Microsoft’s patents because of incompatibility of those licenses with GNU General Public License terms. But TomTom officials have declined to discuss the case publicly in any way over the past month, so no one knew for sure.

Microsoft’s statement specifically mentions that TomTom is taking pains not to violate the GPL version 2 terms via the new licensing arrangement forged between the two companies> TomTom is removing from its products the functionality that seemingly infringed on Microsoft’s file-allocation table (FAT) patents:

“The agreement includes patent coverage for Microsoft’s three file management systems patents provided in a manner that is fully compliant with TomTom’s obligations under the General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2). TomTom will remove from its products the functionality related to two file management system patents (the “FAT LFN patents”), which enables efficient naming, organizing, storing and accessing of file data. TomTom will remove this functionality within two years, and the agreement provides for coverage directly to TomTom’s end customers under these patents during that time.”

Bottom line: TomTom — unlike some other companies developing around Linux which have signed patent-licensing deals with Microsoft — isn’t licensing Microsoft’s FAT as part of this agreement.

What’s your take? Is the settlement good or bad for Linux vendors who might be in Microsoft’s sights?

NOTE: Source taken from ZDNet

I see blood on streets now, what you see?

2009-04-05T03:54:00.000-07:00

Got up late this Sunday, had few things planned for the evening and dinner. When I come downstairs, only plan I had in mind was how much to eat in lunch as today one our favorite Sunday food was prepared. I walked into the lounge, saw a head line something like "20 killed in suicide attack on imam bargah in Chakwal" (now death toll has risen to over 30), my first thought was... Not again! Though, this is becoming a daily routine but one wish to see people smiling and enjoying their lives on TV not death. The unfortunate fact is not even a single missing day, you see TV reporting deaths across Pakistan.

Few facts, Do you know:
- What effects will have it on new generation, especially children aged between 7-12, at this age they learn and build personality from their surroundings and experiences.
- What effects it will have on youth, they want to see a bright future ahead (they always have ambitious goals) to play a constructive role for their community and country. Patriotism is always at pick in this age.
- What will happen to those, who're building their career, they're the most delicate ones… Most in this age are either experience a bitter reality of life and sometime they become over sentimental and disappointed to see chaos, destruction, lawlessness and discrimination in society. The research shows they're the most unhappy age-group in this world.
- Then comes the lot, who is recently married and have couple of kids... At this stage of life, you're most venerable to leave your homeland or lost the love and passion for the country. Because right now, you're not focusing on yourSELF but children you've and for their future, you're always willing to compromise yourOWN.
- Those who've married children, either telling their sons and daughters to leave the country for better future or either telling them to do everything possible for secure future. They're venerable to force their children to leave something big for something small (money).
- Senior citizens, they're the only hope of putting pause to everyone’s live. They always have some stories to tell to their grand children of good old days, if they're optimistic then they would tell them that time will come back, we only have to work together and love each other for what we're... not to hate for what we aren't.

The tragedy of today's Pakistan is that a Muslim is killing other Muslim for the name of Islam. And the biggest tragedy of all is "we remain silent to everything".

I regret to write about deaths, dishonorable acts, mayhem, tragedy but what else I should write, when I only see this around me...

My Islam, Your Islam, their Islam... How many Islams are there?

2009-04-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Islam has given right of property to women when girls were buried alive on their birth, Islam gave woman the right to testify when they were not considered the entity of any value; Islam even gave her the rights either she wants to give birth and feed her own child or not. This is where Islam has put “aurat” (woman) over 1400 years back.

Islam gave her voice and status to speak up for herself. Iqbal once said, if Muslim women knew the rights given to them by Islam, their husband would ask their permission first before even leaving home. And now where we stand today? In confusion, either to portray us as moderates for western world or fundamentalists for Islamic world.

Islam was and is a progressive religion; just compare teachings of Muhammad (PBUH) which were introduced almost 1400 years back with Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism. Islam was way ahead in terms of giving rights to woman, labor, deprived, prisoners and pagans even. Now we live in a society were Muslims are killing other Muslims in name of Islam and jihad (holy war).

Today, a disturbing video showing a teenage girl being flogged by Taliban fighters has emerged from the Swat Valley, offering a shocking glimpse of militant brutality in the once-peaceful district, and a sign of Taliban influence spreading deeper into the country.

The two-minute video, shot using a mobile phone, shows a burka-clad woman face down on the ground. Two men (one who might be her brother) holding her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whips her repeatedly.

"Please stop it," she begs, alternately whimpering or screaming in pain with each blow to the backside. "Either kill me or stop it now."

A crowd of men stands by, watching silently. Off camera a voice issues instructions. "Hold her legs tightly," he says as she squirms and yelps.

Reached by phone, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan claimed responsibility for the flogging. "She came out of her house with another guy who was not her husband, so we must punish her. There are boundaries you cannot cross," he said. He defended the Taliban's right to thrash women shoppers who were inappropriately dressed, saying it was permitted under Islamic law. Later he said, the Swat girl would have been stoned to death if the Qazi had been present.

He claimed that girl had the illicit relationship and that’s why she was awarded punishment of less than 40 whips and both the man and the girl confessed their sin prior to the awarding of the punishment.

No matter whatever the case was, publicly humiliating the girl (female) in front of “na-marams” is totally unacceptable and non-Islamic. Don’t forget, in our society woman is given/offered more respect than in western countries, we respect and honor all relations associated with females whether that is mother, sister, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, and daughter.

Drone attacks on our sovereignty or...?

2009-04-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

This question has always come to mind that how is that possible the Americans keep on attacking our sovereignty and we keep quite. There is huge probability that our government and our defense forces want Americans to clean our dirty laundry. If we do, that might result in re-precautions which we can't control like extensive terrorist activities throughout Pakistan. At least for time being, we can claim that we're not involved and blame Americans for violating our boundaries.

Simple fact, which we should not forget is that we want to wipe out these militants and control this sudden surge of militancy through out Pakistan. Unfortunately FATA or tribal agencies are not in our control; even so, our cities like Attock, Gilgit, D I Khan, Parachinar etc. are going through everyday violence. When we're not in position to control violence in main cities then controlling it outside almost becomes impossible.

Today, a suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles at an alleged hide-out connected to a Taliban leader who has threatened to attack Washington, killing 12 people and wounding several others. This time again, we had the official condemnation followed by "nothing".
The attack came a day after Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a police academy in the eastern city of Lahore, saying it was retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on militant bases on the Afghan border.

The point is that we need to once for all declare, what we want for our nation. As Albert Einstein said, “Not until we dare to regard ourselves as a nation, not until we respect ourselves, can we gain the esteem of others, or rather only then will it come of its own accord”.

A trip to "Chilla Gahh"...

2009-03-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

After working on the short movie last year - The Job Opening, this time we decided to work on a documentary. There were multiple destinations in mind but then decided to opt for something which I've not heard off even living in Islamabad for over 18 years. The place is "chilla gahh" at 1 hour distance from imam Bari's (r.a) shirine, it was the place there he worshiped called chilla of 12 years continuously in a deep cave. it is a great place for his devotes

A Brief Introduction
Bari Imam (1617 to 1705), whose real name is Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi, was born in 1026 Hijra (1617 AD).His father, Syed Mehmood Shah, shifted his family from Jhelum District to Baghan village, presently called Aabpara. At that time, it was a barren land. Soon after the arrival of Bari Imam’s family, his father started farming and also kept some animals. Shah Latif helped his father in grazing the animals, but left his father at 12 and came to Nurpur Shahan. From Nurpur Shahan, Bari Imam went to Ghaur Ghashti (now known as Attock) where he stayed for two years for learning fiqh, hadith, logic, mathematics, medicine and other disciplines, because at that time Ghaur Ghashti was great seat of learning.
He was the first spiritual guide of Gohail Shahi as well. As Gohar Shahi states in his book about Bari Imam that at the age of 34 Bari Imam appeared before me (Gohar Shahi) and said: "My son your time has come, your must go to the shrine of Sakhi "Sultan Bahoo" Sahib to receive the Sacred Inner Dimensions of Spiritual Knowledge."

It is said that Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, who was devoted to spreading his empire, originally built the silver-mirrored shrine of Hazrat Bari Imam [RA]. It has been renovated and is now is maintained by the government.

Now the Trip
The Sunday, as usual is a busy day for me... Start off early (at least, tried), went out with greatest living mother - my mother. Came back, rushed to office to get some print outs about Bari Imam then received the call that curtain tailor is here, so rushed back to home and after long discussion and confusion, decided for the design which isn't so far used in any home window.

As soon as he left, Tahir came out, not to mention that Billie chicken-out of this plan (reason - I should rather not mention here). We rushed to market to pick second film for our other cam-recorder, just as backup plan. Picked Sohail, who after sitting in Bubbly, opened up the sandwich box and start eating ;).

We reached to Bari Imam Shrine, paid a visit there, filmed a bit and then moved on to our destination - chilla gahh.

First we thought it wouldn't be a difficult trip and we will reach at top in no time... but when we started, we were unable to anticipate the distance that we might have to cover and it was never ending hiking :). The fun started, when we reached almost to half-way, not to chilla gahh but "langer khana" and tell this to Sohail, you must have seen his face at that moment. :)

At one point, I literally thought of going back but for love of documentary, decided otherwise. I was walking after a long time, so stamina was out of question. I like taking physical pain, so started enjoying walk and view after sometime. Took some interviews on my way to langer khana, this is an interesting spot, where you will see people sitting and queued up for "mannats", had another detailed interview with munzim of this langer khana. Then me and Tahir without waiting, move ahead to Chilla Gahh.

Before, I tell anything about the Chilla Gahh (which is a cave) where Bari Imam prayed for over 12 years. I would just say, this is unbelievable that someone could stand there for entire day, not to mention Bari imam did it for almost 12 years. One can only go into this cave side-ways, you can't turn back 180 degree, it is astonishing that someone could go through such intense physical endeavor to achieve his ultimate goal - his God's blessing. The baba (or fakir) who stand there is someone you can talk and pass good time, if you're some scientific guy then better not talk with him because sometimes he go beyond logic and sense :)

There is some interesting story of tiger and elephant (I believe snake too), we interviewed him and got some of his insight on how he came here and stayed here for over 26 years now. You would see many of these people in different parts of the world, where their ultimate goal is to serve the people who come to pay visit to sufi saints like bari imam. They've always some interesting stories to share, do talk with them if you get time and courage. They would try to look mysterious and divine, maybe some of them are but not this fella we talked at chilla gahh (this is my opinion, you reserve the right to reject it).

I'm becoming strong believer of this rhetoric (at least for time being), that why struggle to live our life here, when we can live forever hereafter.

Do they want to bring war inside our cities?

2009-03-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

Today I planned to write about our Sunday visit to "Chilla Gahh", Bari Imam but today in morning something happened and decided to write about it. Later today or some other time would give full detail of exhausting but wonderful hiking trip.

Early morning around 7:30 AM, police training school in Lahore was under attack by dozen of terrorists (who might be fighting a holy war of some kind) killing over 15 and wounding over 50. The latest news is that this operation is over now. No question about the incompetence of our intelligence services where over dozen armed men can enter and create this havoc.. Luckily this time they're able to capture few but there is no confirmation from the operation in-charge though TV channels showed a arrested terrorist.

Now the government need to rethink once again about security situation of Pakistan and Punjab in particular, keep in mind that since the governor rule is imposed, two major incidents have took place in heart of Pakistan - Lahore. And ironically both the times main casualties were of security personnel. Are we so ill-equipped that our police can not defend some handful terrorists, remember these are the same people who've defend us from looters, thieves, decocts etc.

Where we would stand if our protectors can be protected.

Pakistani Food Chain - Savour Foods

2009-03-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if you ever visited a place full of people all the time and ordering the same food every time they come to that restaurant... If not then "Savour Foods" is that spot, go there once and see that almost everyone will be ordering the same.

This restaurant is a good success story for any one who wants to start off with no serious investment, the owner of Savour foods did the same and today now owns 4 successful restaurants.

Anyways, now about the food, the specialty is nothing but simple "Pulao Kabab", but I always order Special where I've option of selecting chicken pieces of my choice. This is one restaurant in Pakistan, where you will find people from all walks of life - rich, poor, CEO, the niab kasid... I mean everyone. They all come for the love of food and simplicity which it has to offer.

There is nothing special or different about this pulao kabab or special, you would get the same taste whenever you come.

So if you're visiting from outside Islamabad and Rawalpindi then do visit this place for lunch or dinner. You might not find it a lavish place to take someone special but you would certainly find it worthy of every penny.

Pakistan Day for Pakistanis

2009-03-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

Quaid-i-Azam on Chittagong, March 23, 1948 said, "The story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement, is the very story of great human ideals, struggling to survive in face of great odds and difficulties".

And this is my story and this is your story; and unless we don't succeed, our country can't.

Pakistani survival is very much dependent on its citizen's well being, no nation can survive or strieve unless they all have common goal for it. We can not split ourself in Punjabis, Baluchis or of any origin if we want to move forward as one soul and body. Quaid-i-Azam rightly said in reply to the Civic Address presented by the Quetta Municipality on June 15th, 1948. "We are now all Pakistanis--not Baluchis, Pathans, Sindhis, Bengalis, Punjabis and so on--and as Pakistanis we must feet behave and act, and we should be proud to be known as Pakistanis and nothing else."

Long Live Quaid's Pakistan.

Dinner with Italian Food

2009-03-22T01:24:00.000-07:00

Every weekend, I've regular dinner some place with college buddies, colleauges and friends. Thought why not write about it? Islamabad do have places for good food and drinks, of course not in comparison of Lahore or Karachi but still it has something good to offer from desi to internation food.

Almost all fast food chains are here in twin cities including some new domestic chains. We've a restaurent in F-10 Markaz - Italian Oven, though it said to be "Italian" by name but actually offer more international and local food than Italian :).

I've visited this restaurent numerious times in past and as they've long list of offerings, one could easily try out new dishes with totally a different taste and ingredeints. Yesterday, I first took the fruit salad and then ordered "Chicken Maskava", it is chicken stuffed batter fried top with florentine sauce, the sauce was amazing. I took the serving the french fries - my favourite of course. If you're found of well-cooked dinner than it won't be a bad idea asking for well-cooked chicken and you would loved it with sauce.

So next you're there, do try... Chicken Maskava.

Yesterday, had late night dinner with Sohail because of some family commitments. And it was very long time I had a good chat with this very good friend of mine (who mostly don't know what to say and where; but speaks damn good ONLY WHEN it's directly related to him or his business ;) otherwise bhai saab is very "bholo palwan") and this time, I enjoyed food and talk with him, maybe because he didn't talk about business yesterday... just kidding yar!

Judiciary restored once again...

2009-03-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

“We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our property and our liberty and our property under the Constitution”.
Charles Evans Hughes quotes (American Jurist and Statesman. 1862-1948)

Today every Pakistani should be proud of the fact that we've first time achieved something for our nation which wasn't expected from us. We in past, never stood by anything and never fought for just cause that ended in success. The always went through half way, never able to go to the distance to achieve our objectives and goals. Never behaved like a nation, never worked as one unit, never felt as Pakistani... I'm hoping this change, this time will bring positive change for every Pakistani.

Long Live Quaid-i-Azam's Pakistan.

Is this attack on Pakistan Cricket or Pakistan?

2009-03-03T04:09:00.000-08:00

A commando like operation started and ended within 30 minutes, leaving us with long trail of debate, finger pointing and dead bodies. The future of Pakistan cricket is at stake now, the irony of this matter is that few months back when Mumbai attacks took place on Nov 26th last year, Pakistan was asked for soul searching and today when we’re attacked, India is advising us for another soul searching…

Pakistan these days is facing Political, Judicial, Economic, Security and now sport crisis. How fragile this country really is? This country is now a center point for any kind of politico-socio-economic crisis, any research student would love to visit and to learn, how possibly a country could stand against all these crisis?

My opinion; this attack is an open war on Pakistan and Sri Lanka; the issue should be taken up to international level. Let’s take a brief pre-tour analysis, do we know India used all its diplomatic strength of highest level to convince Sri Lanka not to tour Pakistan. Earlier they tried to isolate Pakistan politically when Mumbai attacked took place and before tour started, used all their diplomatic strength to isolate Pakistan sport-wise.

Match was immediately called off and players were flown off from stadium by PAF helicopter for flight to UAE and Pakistan cricket team is there at air port to see off the SL team.

Few Question:

Why suicide jacket was there? Were they trying to give impression/deception that internal elements are involved in this attack, remember suicide bombers do not carry jacket, they wear it to be used.
At number of occasions after Mumbai incident, Indian think tanks suggested that some lesson should be taught to Pakistan and today’s attack seems to be an absolute play-back of Mumbai attack
Dozen people were involved in today’s attack, suicide attacks are never carried out by that many people who’re operating carrying suicide jackets but not using it. And this isn’t a trademark of extremist operating in Pakistan.
Is this retaliation of Mumbai attack? Huge possibility that some element of Indian backing is involved, a clear message to Pakistan and Sri Lanka is sent; we can response to former and always listen to us for later.
Is there any possibility of Tamil Tigers? Very unlikely, Tamils have only operated once outside SL killing ‘Rajiv Ghandi’ mostly because they don’t have enough resources to operate outside.
Is this the same network that operated in Mumbai? I don’t think so, mostly it seems to be a response of what happened last year, this isn’t a Pakistan styled operation where mostly attacks come in form of suicide bombing. The network has some linked to India and our government whether they’ve any proof or not, should raise their fingers to Indian. Last year, when Mumbai incident took place, it was Pakistan whose image was degraded and today; it’s again Pakistan who is facing the music. India is telling us what to do and what not to do? Someone rightly pointed out that our house isn’t in order, how could we defend ourselves from outside threats.
The future of Pakistan Cricket? It is bleak and not sure if anyone will be ready to tour Pakistan in near future. If any country that could visit Pakistan under these circumstances that could either be Bangladesh or SL itself
Why Indian media always play role of devil for us? The media represent the psyche of the nation, no matter what we do, I’m afraid we might never make good friends with Indians. We’ve always tried to have bilateral relations on balanced grounds but all our efforts are considered as our weakness. Another wakeup call for our government to rethink their strategy in dealing with India.

Having said everything; above all, this was a security lapse. Only few days back, all top security officials were reshuffled by the Governor and this also effected the operation of the police responsible for providing security to this players. Only handfuls of security personals were there at that time of incident and guess what, we promised Sri Lankan a VVIP security protocol. Where they were, guarding Governor House?

Who is responsible: I will only point finger to Governor or head of province. The police officers with their capacity defended and lost their lives. They were outnumbered by these terrorists, who operated freely and at will. They came, they killed and they left. We didn’t anything to stop it or even apprehend them later. All police officials were their on scene after the incident was over and no one bothered to aggressively go after them.

Tribal or Taliban elements are not involved in it for multiple reasons. First, they don’t have any direct reason to destabilize the Punjab government or Pakistan Cricket. Secondly, they don’t operate the way this operation was conducted. Third, the operation was carried out like commandos; look at the video the way the carried out all this. Fourth, their faces where more like Punjabis than tribal’s.

This indeed a very sad incident that could have far reaching consequences for Pakistan, and Pakistan cricket in particular. Now the biggest question remains, how to control this monster or menace of terrorism was once knocking at our door and now on its way to destroy the real foundations of this country. The only way out is to understand the importance of being one nation and to be one - Pakistani.

small effort, big change

2009-02-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, your minor act could play a major role in someone's life. Your extra money, time could save someone's education or future. Your slight attention could bring smile on someone's face. Your support could help someone rebuild his career. Your few sentences could shake someone's life for good. Your gental touch could make all the difference in someone's feeling.

I sometime feels what I'm doing with my life, what I had plan and where actually I'm heading? How could one possibily live life for himself when people out there needs him for their survival, maybe we don't care anymore. But what I've witnessed today, one could easily comment, we're not emotionally dead.

Google Latitude launches; Social networking meets maps

2009-02-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

Just in case you have ever wanted to know your friends’ precise movements–every location, every right turn, every trip to Starbucks–Google has launched Latitude, a new feature for Google Maps that runs on your PC and mobile device. Latitude is more evidence that social networking tools will increasingly be layered on top of existing apps.

The early reviews are good (Techmeme). Google Maps gets social. And more importantly, Google has done the social networking thing on its own terms and from a position of strength (Maps, see Google Mobile blog).

Link Google Maps Latitude up with Twitter and Facebook in some mashup and I’ll be able to tell when my friends hit a public bathroom in Grand Central. Great isn’t it?
I have to wonder. I sat through an information security conference at Wharton last Friday and was struck by the privacy concerns around social networking. Big point: If you’re hometown, birth date and name are all on Facebook for the world to see an intuitive hacker could get guess the first five numbers on your social security number rather easily. What happens when that data is scraped in some algorithm?

Right now Latitude–and other features of its ilk–are nice toys. Increasingly I wonder about potential privacy issues.

Needless to say Google has addressed those issues:

Latitude is a new feature for Google Maps on your mobile device. It’s also an iGoogle gadget on your computer. Once you’ve opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you. So now you can do things like see if your spouse is stuck in traffic on the way home from work, notice that a buddy is in town for the weekend, or take comfort in knowing that a loved one’s flight landed safely, despite bad weather.

And with Latitude, not only can you see your friends’ locations on a map, but you can also be in touch directly via SMS, Google Talk, Gmail, or by updating your status message; you can even upload a new profile photo on the fly. It’s a fun way to feel close to the people you care about.

Fun aside; we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we’ve built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application. Everything about Latitude is opt-in. You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see. For instance, let’s say you are in Rome. Instead of having your approximate location detected and shared automatically, you can manually set your location for elsewhere — perhaps a visit to Niagara Falls. Since you may not want to share the same information with everyone, Latitude lets you change the settings on a friend-by-friend basis. So for each person, you can choose to share your best available location or your city-level location, or you can hide. Everything is under your control and, of course, you can sign out of Latitude at any time.

Those settings are critical. After all I’d rather not let the world know I’m in Rome and my house is unattended for two weeks. That’s just me. The folks that worry about this stuff may tinker with Latitude, but shy away (it’s going to be a great teenager tracking device in the future). The rest of the folks that Twitter every movement (even bowel once in a while) will find Latitude impressive.

NOTE: Resource taken from ZDNet.

Change Now, or Never

2009-02-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

In muharram, I realized that one should do something within his power to at least help someone get education. You would see many in Pakistan who would commit to do good and in fact at times, speak louder than you, maybe just to convince everyone around that they're more keen in making difference than anyone on this table and make no judgment on his/her commitments.

Most of us want to be a contributing factor or I should say influential factor, all of us wants to lead but non wants to follow. We (including me) wants to achieve everything without experiencing the effort or dedicating required to reach our goals.

We set long term goals but miss our milestones completely. Rethink.

The Murree Trip

2009-01-19T04:02:00.000-08:00

The plan was something like this:
- We will leave for Murree at 6:00 PM on Saturday, Jan 17th., have dinner at Mall road and will stay in Punjab Hut and next day a trip to Ayubeya, PC Bhurban (Golf Club) and Patriata was also planned in this trip, on our return to Murree on Sunday, Jan 18 we'll again have a dinner at some place in Mall road.

Now this is what actually happened (I'll write it in detail so get a mug full of hot coffee and enjoy)

I would divide this trip in following parts:
1. The Plan
It was late Friday night, around 2:30 AM that Tahir said, Shirazi bhai: I'm not sure if office one-day trip will go or not, why not plan one of our own. I had some commitments for the weekend but thought WHY NOT!, so he called Sohail, Billie and Asif. Out of all, Sohail as usual came up with an excuse from this advanture trip (fearing that we might be going on his car ;) ). Anyways, all 4 of us were ready for this trip, expecting some good time.

2. The Night before "The Day"
Now starts the first 12 hours of our trip, Asif was supposed to pick us in his car ["Mian Jee", that's what he calls it and don't know why this Male name; why not Suzzy, Pinky or Bubbly for that matter ;)] . My plan was to inform everyone at home around 5:30 so new ideas could come up from there :). After telling everyone at home my plan, Tahir called and told me that Asif is on workshop fixing his car, this was annoying especially at this 11th hour. Anyways, plan was to go ahead so I waited home then after a while I receive another angry call from him, saying that we must postpone this trip and bla bla (or I should say Rora Rora - as he is Pushton). Anyways, I decided to cool him a bit so we should be in good mood before the trip start. So I went to the office, reaching there I realized Asif is in office and Tahir seems to be in OK mood (though playing game), long story short we had a go ahead. Now they were to pick me around 8:00 PM, I went home and waited for them. By the way this was the 4th time, I left home for Murree :) for ths particular trip, I came back to home and my niece (Laraib) said "Aap wapis ah bhi gahay"? that was sarcastically said because she was bit annoyed of me going out and coming in again and again. Anyways, I waited again and after 10 minutes delay they came.. Now this time, I said everyone Allah Hafiz and left. We only went 3-4 KM away that requirement of digial camera came up, again we went back to my place for picking the digital camera (which by the way, only took 3 pictures in entire trip), imagine me, entering home for 5th time without even going 10KM away from home, this time everyone looked at me with surprise that what is going wrong here... This time, I will not write the expression I got from everyone, one could easily imagine... especially from Laraib :D

At that time, I already started having bad feeling about the trip... But whats the fun if you only have good feeling about any trip ;)

The trip started, we reached Punjab Hut on time using new road to Murree (I won't recommend anyone going on that road when its showing), checked-in there, it was a nice guest house running under Punjab Regiment administration. We first decided to have walk (go on foot) for dinner (Murree mall road was almost 5-6 KM away) then after analyzing the weather by our Tour Encyclopedia and guide - Billie, the Doug - we decided to take car instead. Thanks for this Billie that has saved us from Tahir's misadventure program ;).

After reaching there, it took us some time to get parking in right middle of Mall... The one thing you would notice in Murree is that you would see more Lahories there than natives ;)... So chachora pun is all around, but not all Lahories are chachorays - some of them are "SUPER CHACHORAYS" ;). It is just a joke about Lahories, honestly like Pakistan they're the real life of Pakistan - heart.

We did some shoping for dry food, cloths etc. After short-listing over 10 restaurants, we decided to enter in only one that was now open (the funny part is all restaurants start closing one-by-one during our short-listing) :) Anyways, we had food, exchanged jokes, sms etc. Also made tiny tony plan for Sunday, and of course cursed each other that it not too cold here and its not snowing - what the hell!

Anyways, after having dinner around 12:30 AM midnight, we again had a walk in rain and coffee. Decided to heads back to Punjab Huts and have some cards game. On our way, snow fall started (my first 1mm snow experience). We had a good time there, shouting and taking pictures in weirest angles :), then called AbdKhan and updated him on snow...

We reached Punjab Huts and found that light is gone, ironically we asked earlier one of their staff about it and he said "sir, pechlay 2 months main, idhar light sirf 1 ghantay kay lehay gahe hai". Now we returned to play cards, there was no light... We then went out and have some dry fruits in cold which we bought from Murree Mall road for around 350Rs., the reason for writing the price is that we ate almost 200Rs. dry-fruits standing on that poor guy's stall without paying him for anything ;).

3. "The Day"
- Planned trip to Ayubeya
We planned our trip of Sunday for Ayubeya, Patriata and Bhurban. We slept for 3-4 hours and staff came to wake us up for early breakfast which we told him to bring around 8:30 AM (one important thing, this might be the only mess in Army where kitchen opens around 8:00 AM otherwise you can get breakfast as early as Fajar prayers), we had breakfast and then suddenly snow fall started for 20-30 minutes followed by rain, the weather was turning out to be great so we decided to have coffee before we leave. And there was a James bond pursuit of a girl by one of our trip-mate :) Obviously nothing happened at the end of the day.

We left Huts around 11:30 and went straight towards the Ayubeya, snow started on our way there and only after 6 KM away from Murree, we had to stop at a spot where our car was skiting to much. So we had a break there and enjoyed the snow and everything. Then we decided to go ahead by foot and see all those people who've come from different parts of Pakistan (by people, one can guess what I meant ;)) Around 2:00 PM, we decided to go to PC Bhurban side, at that time everything was OK but suddenly show started and everything changed.

- Record braking Snow Fall
The best and most intensive snow fall, I've ever experienced. In less than 2 hours, we had around 10-12 inch snow and it was still going on... Our car was now stuck, the good news; we were not the only one. Only 4X wheelers and cars with chain rolled around tires were doing well. Asif did a pretty good job trying to keep his car on road, we spend next 2 hours pushing car and then walking on snow... It was one of the most delightful daylight moments and I loved it... Peaceful, calm, fresh and above all "very quite", there were only three people walking on that road and it was snowing. On could even hear the snow-flakes coming down, it was the silence that made our day.

At last we reached Murree, Asif was already there on his car (the delightful moment for him was driving car on 60KM on his heavy snow, that crazy fellow drived his car on 3rd gear... oops! what he was thinking? At least I would not be wasting this moments getting him out of some ditch) Anyways, we postpond our plan for having dinner in Murree though I was in mood of sticking with plan but after seeing everyone's face, decided not to raise this option.

- Traffic Jam
From Murree to Islamabad, it generally takes 40 minutes at max and on Sunday, it took us over 7 hours. It was cold but we enjoyed it, the worst part of this entire trip was rackless driving or I should see irresponsible driving of our citizens, because of double lane: almost over 2 thousands cars have to wait over 7 hours in bad weather. Like always we were running short on fuel ;) I was sitting on most confortable seat on the car, being the senior most, I earned it :).

- Accident
At main signal of my home, we were standing at the signal. Suddenly a taxi banged into us, the hit was so hard that I was holding my wallet and it slipped out of my hand. We went out; Tahir was for first 2 minutes, storm on that driver and Asif was surprise and shocked, not because of anything but why on standing car? I'm impressed with his good nature of not taking these troubles way to serious. In short we (Asif) decided not to get any money from him considering he was poor and could hardly afford his own demage. By the way, the car was badly hit from rear but luckly it was merical that nothing serious happend.

Salient Features of this Trip:

- First time bought bakery chips for 40Rs/pack :)
- First time, I saw such an extensive snow fall
- My longest wait in traffic jam, around 7 hours.
- Longest time that took me to reach Islamabad from Murree, around 10 hours.
- Meet two minor accidents.
- First time, didn't helped people in trouble... Maybe because we were badly caught in snow as well.
- I bought my first Chitrali cap and Billie promised me another (which I know is a gollie) :)

Quaid-i-Azam

2008-12-26T11:22:00.001-08:00

To achieve your own dreams it takes a lifetime but to achieve the dream of millions, it’s a feat only a few can perform in the history of mankind. And Jinnah was one of them. And to achieve that one has to rise above the fear and display courage. The ability and skills which he manifested in the process of creation of Pakistan and the fight he carried in all quarters, with reason and logic to bring the dream of a lifetime for millions of souls was unsurpassable. We will always remain in debt to this man and those millions of sacrifices.

The best way to sum-up his life would be in words of Stanley Wolpert: ‘Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.’

Can you feel the pain...

2008-11-04T14:18:00.000-08:00

I feel the wind blowing again
telling me that summer is goning

I've seen the world going apart
its my love that stood tall again

My faith is what I'm left with
dusting my soul from bottom again

Looking for the freedom which I've lost
reasoning myself that shackles will break again

Late last night, when world was sleeping
I dreamed my love calling me again

Can you feel the pain, I am going through again.

US President: Who would be better for tech, McCain or Obama?

2008-11-03T12:43:00.001-08:00

In terms of rating the candidates on my top five issues, I would give John McCain the nod for being the stronger candidate in R&D tax cuts and H1B Visas, while I think Barack Obama would be better when it comes to Net Neutrality and Green tech. That leaves Broadband development as the tie breaker.

Obama has a broader vision for broadband by thinking of it as the next standard utility, like electricity and the telephone, but McCain has a track record of smaller legislative victories that have helped drive progress. Ultimately, I think this issue hinges on which candidate will better foster an atmosphere of true competition in the broadband business, and neither of these two inspire a lot of confidence there.

McCain thinks the free market alone will solve most of the problems and Obama relies too heavily on government regulation and intervention, when what’s needed is just-enough government regulation to ensure free market competition.

However, since McCain has presided over massive consolidation in the broadband market, and Obama is more likely to bring back and enforce the Clinton-era 1996 Telecommunications Act, which forced the telecoms to open up their lines to smaller resellers, Obama wins this one by a nose and that also gives him the overall nod as the candidate that could potentially have a stronger impact on the technology industry.

There are also a few other secondary factors that help tilt this in Obama’s direction:
- If elected he plans to appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
- His first sponsored bill that became law was “Google for Government,” which shows his interest in technology
- In a recent interview Obama said he’d like to take what he and his team have learned about using technology in the campaign and apply it to government. He was primarily referring to electronic communications.
- The fact that he’s talked about making electronic medical records a key part of his health care plan (as a way to drive efficiency) shows that he generally views technology as a powerful enabler

This is not an official TechRepublic endorsement of Senator Obama. I would not expect anyone — even techies — to base their vote on the next U.S. leader solely on these issues. However, for those of us who make a living in the technology space and have so much invested in its future development, we should all be well-informed about where the candidates stand on the legislative, regulatory, and investment issues that will dramatically affect the technology industry in the critical years ahead.

NOTE: Source taken from ZDNet.

Apple beats estimates; credits iPhone sales

2008-10-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

Apple reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per share, on revenue of $7.9 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $1.11 per share on $8.05 billion in revenue. (statement) The company credited the strong quarter partly on iPhone sales - “We sold more phones than RIM,” CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement, about Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry.

Still, investors are looking ahead at the holiday season, asking if a new line of iPods and a refresh of the MacBook line can counter the global economic slump and uncertain consumer confidence. The company provided a wide range for its guidance, putting revenue at $9 billion to $10 billion and earnings per share to $1.06 to $1.35. In a statement, company CFO Peter Oppenheimer said, “Looking ahead, visibility is low and forecasting is challenging, and as a result we are going to be prudent in predicting the December quarter.”

In the same quarter last year, Apple reported earnings of $904 million, or $1.01 per share, on revenue of $6.22 billion. Gross margins were 34.7 percent, up from 33.6 percent for the same quarter last year.

CEO Steve Jobs made a rare appearance on the conference call and addressed the folks on the call with his take on the success of the iPhone, growth of the App Store and his general thoughts on the downturn. “We are not economists,” Jobs said, noting that the company also isn’t sure of the impact of the bumpy economic conditions. “We read the same newspapers you do.”
Other highlights from the quarter:

- The company sold 6.9 million iPhones, taking the company passed its goal of 10 million sold for 2008 - with two months left in the year. The company said iPhone is now 39 percent of the total business.
- Apple shipped 2.61 million Mac computers, a 21 percent increase over the year-ago quarter. It set a company record for a single quarter.
- More than 11 million iPods were sold, up eight percent from a year ago. The company said it was record for a non-holiday quarter. It’s market share for portable music players remained above the 70 percent mark.
- The iTunes store has more than 65 million active accounts and a catalog of 8.5 million titles. It has just added more television shows, renewed its content deal with NBC and added high-def programming.
- The company has $25 billion in cash and zero debt. In a call with analysts, Jobs hinted that the financial position gives the company the “ability to invest our way through this downturn.”
- The iPhone App store expects to see its 200 millionth application downloaded by tomorrow, 102 days since the July launch.

Shares of Apple were down 7 percent in regular trading, closing at $91.49. The stock mostly recovered in after-hours trading, jumping to more than 7 percent in active trading.

NOTE: Resource taken from ZDNet.

Gartner ITxpo 2008: The top 10 IT products

2008-10-21T10:57:00.000-07:00

This article was co-authored by Bill Detwiler, TechRepublic’s Head Technology Editor.

Over 100 IT vendors did their dog-and-pony show for the 2008 ITxpo at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando on October 13-16. TechRepublic scoured the show floor and came up with our list of top 10 most important products.

Gartner Symposium ITxpo is now one of the largest and most influential trade shows in the IT industry due to its focus on IT decision-makers, Gartner’s popular thought leadership sessions such as its list of the top 10 technologies to watch over the next three years, and its keynotes from top technology executives such as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Cisco CEO John Chambers.

On the show floor, Bill Detwiler and I looked at nearly every one of the vendors in order to find the solutions with the most potential to impact businesses and IT departments. We put a special emphasis on products that were new within the last couple months or are scheduled to be released within the next couple months. In a few cases, the most interesting products were not new, per se, but were new to us and not as well known across the industry.

See Top 10 IT products: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=10502&tag=nl.e539 .

NOTE: Source taken from ZDNet

OK, now OpenOffice is definitely good enough

2008-10-18T03:16:00.000-07:00

There is a reason that the OpenOffice.org 3.0 servers are struggling to keep up with demand. OO.org 3.0 really is a serious upgrade over version 2.4 and makes NeoOffice irrelevant for Mac OS X users (previously, OpenOffice only worked within X11; While NeoOffice did a great job porting OO.org to native OS X, OO.org 3.0 works out of the box in OS X as a native Aqua application).

Last week I asked if OpenOffice was good enough. The general consensus? OO.org is good enough to start a flame war, but we’re not really sure if it’s good enough to be a serious competitor to MS Office.

Now that OO.org 3.0 is out, I’m having a much tougher time seeing both sides of the issue here (I actually like Office 2007/2008, by the way; I think they’re slick, well-polished, and highly functional). I had never liked the OpenOffice equation editor; this version brings a very nice graphical and text-based hybrid editor to us math teachers. Mail merge was clunky in OO.org; this version brings a mail merge wizard and improved label templates. Outline numbering tended to be a bit kludgy for notetaking in OO; this version improves the stability and interface of outlining.

Annotations are now incredibly easy to add (Insert, Note) and Office 2007/2008 formats are supported across the board. While Microsoft has dumped VBA support in Office 2008, OO.org users can run Visual Basic scripting, as well as Python and Javascript.

I’m not actually bashing MS Office here. It’s a great suite and they still have something that OpenOffice lacks: Publisher. However, Publisher was lacking on the Mac platform anyway and *nix users haven’t had access to MS Office (including Publisher) without some serious Wine work. Speaking of Access, OpenOffice continues to bring a solid database offering to all platforms. Is it as powerful as Access? I don’t think so (let’s face it - Access 2007 rocks). However, Mac, *nix, and Windows users can all interchange databases and use OO.org Base as a front end to a variety of data sources (including MySQL).

OpenOffice.org is not a clone of Office 2007 (good call, Sun). It’s a full-featured suite that gives us everything we need from MS Office and the world of productivity software while keeping the bottom line quite a bit more reasonable (you don’t get any more reasonable than free).

Yes, OO.org has been good enough for a long time; the latest release should leave little doubt for any users who had been on the fence.

NOTE: Resource taken from ZDNet

Why QA is important?

2008-10-05T03:43:00.000-07:00

Quality assurance, or QA for short, refers to planned and systematic production processes that provide confidence in a product's suitability for its intended purpose. It is a set of activities intended to ensure that products (goods and/or services) satisfy customer requirements in a systematic, reliable fashion. QA cannot absolutely guarantee the production of quality products, unfortunately, but makes this more likely.

Two key principles characterise QA: "fit for purpose" (the product should be suitable for the intended purpose) and "right first time" (mistakes should be eliminated). QA includes regulation of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components; services related to production; and management, production and inspection processes.

It is important to realize also that quality is determined by the intended users, clients or customers, not by society in general: it is not the same as 'expensive' or 'high quality'. Even lowly bottom-of-the-range goods can be considered quality items if they meet a market need.

Total quality control

Deep analysis of QA practices and premisses used about them is the most necessary inspection control of all in cases where, despite statistical quality control techniques or quality improvements implemented, sales decrease.

The major problem which leads to a decrease in sales was that the specifications did not include the most important factor, “What the specifications have to state in order to satisfy the customer requirements?”.

The major characteristics, ignored during the search to improve manufacture and overall business performance were:

Reliability
Maintainability
Safety
Strength

As the most important factor had been ignored, a few refinements had to be introduced:

Marketing had to carry out their work properly and define the customer’s specifications.
Specifications had to be defined to conform to these requirements.
Conformance to specifications i.e. drawings, standards and other relevant documents, were introduced during manufacturing, planning and control.
Management had to confirm all operators are equal to the work imposed on them and holidays, celebrations and disputes did not affect any of the quality levels.
Inspections and tests were carried out, and all components and materials, bought in or otherwise, conformed to the specifications, and the measuring equipment was accurate, this is the responsibility of the QA/QC department.
Any complaints received from the customers were satisfactorily dealt with in a timely manner.
Feedback from the user/customer is used to review designs.
Consistent data recording and assessment and documentation integrity.
Product and/or process change management and notification.

If the specification does not reflect the true quality requirements, the product's quality cannot be guaranteed. For instance, the parameters for a pressure vessel should cover not only the material and dimensions but operating, environmental, safety, reliability and maintainability requirements.

NOTE: Source taking from Wikipedia

Political Harmony... is it insight?

2008-09-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

Pakistan has faced political crisis from the day of its inception; the Quaid died just over an year after independence, the first prime minister was murdered in 2 years time and then started the pendulum of one government taking oath and within an year another takes its place. It continued till Ayub Khan took over. In his 11 year, there was political stability but he wasn't a elected member so the progress made in his regime reduced it to none - at least politically.

Then came another civilian role and then a military take over by Gen. Zia (who many in Pak Army believe don't even deserve to be even promoted to Major level). Anyways, his mysterious death opened the way for Benazir government and then another to-and-fro motion of regime change started which ended with Gen. Musharaf taking over as role of Chief Executive of Pakistan.

Look at the irony of this country; our military governments were more stable than our political governments...

Now after learning a lot from their mistakes - both PPPP and PML(N) have realize that from there conflict only one organization takes the benefit (though at least that's what they think) . So now there survival in longer run is only possible if they don't give any reason for people of Pakistan or Pak Army to get annoyed with their policy. Unless and until our politicians, beaurocrats and military don't feel that their prime responsibility is to serve the people not their personal interests; only then we can see progress and political harmony.

September 6 - Defense Day

2008-09-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

I am bit confused today; today is September 6 and officially it's defense day of Pakistan which I've celebrated throughout my childhood with the high spirits of defending my homeland from all evils coming from inside or outside. And how can I (we) forget the war heroes who sacrifice their lives for our better tomorrow (they were my childhood heroes and today is no different).

I'm not writing this blog to honor those who fought for defense back in September 6, 1965 but another political defense day approaching us today. Yes, today our assemblies will decide next president of Pakistan - the symbol of federation, unity. The tragedy is one who was considered to be most corrupt in Pakistan almost 10 years back, will going to win this election. I voted for PPPP in this year election but never wanted Zardari to contest for President; he is no match to his predecessor - Gen(R) Pervaiz Musharaf.

I am not sure how to celebrate this day; my cherished defense victory or prepare myself for another defense day?

Chrome hits with DoS vulnerability...

2008-09-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. Restart now? While Google’s Chrome team is cheering, Rishi Narang from Evil Fingers is typing and releasing a proof of concept for a denial of service vulnerability that is successfully crashing the Chrome browser with all tabs. According to Narang’s advisory :

“An issue exists in how chrome behaves with undefined-handlers in chrome.dll version 0.2.149.27. A crash can result without user interaction. When a user is made to visit a malicious link, which has an undefined handler followed by a ’special’ character, the chrome crashes with a Google Chrome message window “Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. Restart now?”. It crashes on “int 3″ at 0×01002FF3 as an exception/trap, followed by “POP EBP” instruction when pointed out by the EIP register at 0×01002FF4.”

Nothing’s impossible the impossible just takes a little longer.

Whenever a new product is in its introduction stage, it would logically attract a lot of attention from security researchers trying to a make a point that it’s vulnerable, and that some of the vulnerabilities are pretty trivial. For instance, yesterday David Maynor from Errata Security pin pointed possibilities for exploitation in Google’s Chrome, saying that :

“Google just released Chrome, their own web browser. We decided to run it through Looking Glass and it doesn’t look half bad. They at least have ASLR enabled on a few of their libraries, no NX though. Chrome is not as bad as some apps I have seen but that is not saying much.”

What’s important though, is whether or not the browser release would also start attracting the attention of cybercrimals. Being anything but old fashioned, they too do their homework and take into consideration the market share of a particular browser in order to increase the impact of exploiting it. Consequently, for the time being the level of exploitability of Google’s Chrome is right after Opera’s from the perspective of the malicious attacker taking into consideration Chrome’s non-existent market share.

Would the level of exploitability change? In the fist quarter of 2009, Google would presumably release stats of the number of people who downloaded Chrome, demonstrating nothing else but the introduction stage of their browser. The question is, how many of those who downloaded it would actually stick with it, and would companies embrace it if it does gets popular enough, potentially increasing the exploitability level of any upcoming vulnerabilities?

Considering the fact that according to public statistics of usage share of web browsers, IE6 users are just as many as IE7 ones, converting from Firefox or IE to Google’s Chrome is not going to happen overnight.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

Pakistan Richest...

2008-08-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

An email is circling these days about the richest Pakistanis ( http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/12/08/pakistans-rich-list-of-2008 ) and first thing you'll notice after going through with this list is not how they've struggle to achieve this but how easily they might have done that... I am not suggesting that it was walk in a park for them but reality is, they got all this money not because they worked hard with dedication and honesty, or there was a vision behind all this...

The lot includes Politicians, smugglers, land mafia owners... Not all of them are corrupt, many in this list are from honorable families (meaning those who've done something for this country as well) like Muhammad Ali Habib family, he gave Quaid-i-Azam Rs 80 Million cheque in 1948 when Pakistan government was penniless owing to delay in transfer of Pakistan’s share of Rs. 750 million by the Reserve Bank of India.

There are other good names as well but reader like me, will immediately realize that why so many politician or corrupts are listed there, why?

Musharaf, not leaving Pakistan

2008-08-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

Another question which was raised after Pres. Musharaf resignation on August 18, how soon he will be leaving Pakistan like all other premiers? So far, my predictions about him never have gone wrong except the time he resigned. Maybe I was the first one who suggested in a gathering when he was promoted as COAS of Pakistan that if Nawaz Sharif try to remove him then he will not going to sit back like his predecessor, he will going to kick back and kick back strong.

I didn't predict this because I knew him very well but for two reasons. I never wanted Army to keep quite, if he tries this misadventure again and secondly, I've learned from somewhere he was a trained SSG and likes action... And what happened afterwards is now part of history as well.

The irony of this country is that whenever a coup takes place or new government comes (we curse the old and put welcome the new with flowers), moreover we put such high ladder of expectations for them that just after couple of years or say months, we start criticism them for not doing anything.

Anyways, my main topic is whether he will leave Pakistan or not... My opinion, I doubt if he will.

Is Zardari making right choice?

2008-08-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

In some on my past blogs, I clearly stated earlier when there were rumors of Zardari putting his name as Prime Minister of Pakistan, and I was certain that this move will never help PPPP as party because the role played in India by Congress leader - Sonia Ghandi is increasing the popularity of her party by working behind the scene and strengthening party base throughout India.

Though one can not match the positions in which Zardari is currently in; there were over 30 active cases running on different courts in Pakistan including charges of murder, corruption and mass misconduct during Benazir two terms of PM. Ironically, all cases were made during Nawaz Sharif government. All political cases were withdrawn after introduction of NRO and only thing which can save him from anyone challenging this presidential order is, if becomes the president of Pakistan.

As Supreme Court of Pakistan can not call President, so any case which might come in-front of Chaudery Ifithar (once he is reinstated) challenging NRO or re-opening of Zardari cases, it will be disqualify itself as no hearing can be conducted on sitting President.

Whether this is a good move or not? Whether he deserves the presidency or not? Without going in to any details, he should have put PPPP and Pakistan's interest over his own...

My President Resigned Today...

2008-08-18T01:21:00.001-07:00

Bad day for me and for my country!

President Pervez Musharaf resigned today, I wasn't expecting that but at bottom of my heart knew, he was left with no option but to resign (otherwise he would have invited more destabilization economically and politically). Many in Pakistan were jubilant on his decision but for me, it wasn't. He has done more good to Pakistan than any other politician or army ruler (except for its founder).

My best wishes to him and hope that he will not leave Pakistan and face all charges laid against him. He was a true spirit behind Pakistan's successful economical and political strength shown in last 8 years. He is a fighter and let history remember him like that as well.

Long Live Pakistan!

Restoration of Judges

2008-06-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Currently Pakistan is going through some strange times, there is continuous struggle of lawyers against Nov 3 President Musharaf active of removing Justice Iftikhar. Today a long march which started 3 days back from Karachi reached Islamabad. Most of political parties participated in it (incl. PML(N), PTI, JI), theoretically the long march was expected to be the biggest in Islamabad's history as three major political parties were fully supporting the lawyer's initiative but only 50-60K people participated in it, though people came from all walks of life, age and area.

PPP never supported this movement as they've different plans for restoration, without going into the details of it. I think PPP would never like to give PML-N credit for judges’ restoration that's why they're keeping distance. They want everyone to realize that without PPP, they can not achieve any of object set by any party. In other words, they're the boss.

Education - does it bring any change in life?

2008-06-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

Many suggest that education changes the way one live or at least think. An educated man is more responsible and has awareness of his rights. He can play more productive and constructive role in building himself, his family, society, city and ultimately the country. He will respect other's right and can stand by his own. He is tolerant and progressive by nature, who respects other's religion like his own. And above all, he is more humane.

If education plays such an important role then why it’s not free in our country? Why education standards are deploring with time and why education is polarizing in faster pace than ever? Why books are no more part of our lives?

Why we take good education for high salaries but not for knowledge?

Democratic dream ticket... Is Obama aiming for it?

2008-06-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

At last Hillary Clinton has conceded defeat but only after everyone convinced her that there is no way she can be nominated from Democratic ticket as Presidential candidate. Though she still claim to have 18 million popular votes (which is in fact the highest count of all times).

In start of 2008, most of democrats were in favor of dream ticket of Hillary and Obama but after the continuous bashing of former on later, which benefited the Republican camp enormously, as John McCain benefited from Hillary - Obama mocking/attacking each other in every state to win maximum delegates. The result at the end, they lost heavy points to McCain.

The national polls indicate that Obama has almost 2 points lead on McCain, and chances are that he will further strengthen his position as time progress. And most of swing states this time might also favor Democrats. Obama is gaining popularity after getting endorsements from renowned US political figures like Kennedy family, Jon Wiener, John Edwards, Shaun Kenney, Senator Edward Kennedy etc.

Though the race could become close run at the end, as there are red-neck states in US, who can never accept a black American president (least a woman).

Obama has some difficult choices, if he offers Hillary Vice President ticket, he then takes a serious risk of a strong Hillary presence/lobby and conspiracy theories but on the other hand, it adds experience and a strong resume for democrat bid for white house.

Obama might ask her as running mate, if he don't get a good VP candidate that assures both attracting conservative and women voters (right now Hillary is the best option).

When aid becomes reason for abuse

2008-05-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

Today it was reported that many of humanitarian and UN peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children even age of six in several war-ravaged areas including Burundi, Ivory Coast, Sudan etc. It is the stage when desperate individuals including children go beyond reasonable ethical conduct to get one night food.

These abuses were reported numerous times in past by NGO's like Oxfam and Save the Children, and only couple of times peacekeepers were jailed for this misconduct. I seriously doubt that one or two years imprisonment would do any good or send a loud warning to all others working under UN/NGO umbrella.

Pakistani soldiers have worked in numerous UN missions and they've left a strong mark of high professionalism and character in minds of these desperate people.

A punishment of priest can not be same as common man.

10 reasons for IT failure

2008-05-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog know IT initiatives generally fail for business, organizational, or cultural reasons. Sure, technology screw-ups occur all the time, but that’s one of the realities to be managed. Success or failure ultimately depends on how project leadership manages the full range of technical- and non-technical issues.

Blogger and enterprise architect, Mike Kavis, who’s obviously been through some battles, has created ten guidelines describing critical areas of weakness in many projects:

1. Poor Communication. Enterprise projects usually impact a large amount of people. This requires constant communications to all levels of people throughout the organization. A strong communication strategy can help with this.

2. Underestimating or ignoring impact of change. This is another way of saying poor change management. People need to know WIIFM (what’s in it for me). Resistance to change can kill any project. Your initiative must have a champion who carries a lot of clout.

3. Lack of Leadership. IT Leadership requires excellence in three key areas: Technology, Business, and People. If the leadership is missing any of the three components you are doomed.

4. Lack of strong executive sponsorship. For these projects to succeed you must have somebody high up in the organization with a lot of clout.

5. Poor project management. Often, large enterprise initiatives have a ton of logistics that need to be identified and managed accordingly.

6. Poor Planning. This could also fall into a category of unrealistic expectations. Initiatives like SOA require a well thought out strategy. Many IT shops do not have the patience for this and rush into their project head first without a clue of how to actually accomplish their goals.

7. Trying to do it cheap. Organizations want it all, but they don’t want to invest the time and money. I have seen many projects get completed using this strategy, but they almost always run over budget, are late, are missing many features, and have many various quality or process issues due to the quick-n-dirty approach.

8. Lack of technical knowledge. You wouldn’t ask me to remove your appendix so why would you have somebody with little or no knowledge of the technology at hand lead your enterprise initiative.

9. Lack of sound business case. You can get all of the other issues right but if your solution has no business context then you are wasting your time.

10. Poor vendor management. Somebody hires a high priced group of consultants and let’s them run wild. You should make sure that what they build meets your requirements, your standards, your needs, and your timelines.

Whenever I blog this kind of list, some commenters invariably say the whole thing is obvious common sense and therefore not worth consideration. If so, then why do so many projects fail precisely due to items on this list? Complex projects are hard to get right, which is why IT failure remains a serious issue.

Successful leaders create project success on the foundation of skillfully managing people, process, and technology. While this perspective may appear obvious, the experience and wisdom needed to make IT projects successful is not common at all.

NOTE: Resource taken from ZDNET blog.

Check your Gen. Knowledge!

2008-04-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

Even if u answer **five** questions its great...Feel proud...

1. What programming language is GOOGLE developed in?
2. What is the expansion of YAHOO?
3. What is the expansion of ADIDAS?
4. Expansion of Star as in Star TV Network?
5. What is expansion of "ICICI?"
6. What does "baker's dozen" signify?
7. The 1984-85 season. 2nd ODI between India and Pakistan at Sialkot - India 210/3 withVengsarkar 94*. Match abandoned. Why?
8. Who is the only man to have written the National Anthems for two different countries?
9. From what four word expression does the word `goodbye` derive?
10. How was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu better known?
11. Name the only other country to have got independence on Aug 15th?
12. Why was James Bond Associated with the Number 007?
13. Who faced the first ball in the first ever One day match?
14. Which cricketer played for South Africa before it was banned from internationalcricket and later represented Zimbabwe ?
15. The faces of which four Presidents are carved at Mt.Rushmore?
16. Which is the only country that is surrounded from all sides by only one country(other than Vatican )?
17. Which is the only sport which is not allowed to play left handed?

HERE ARE THE ANSWERS

1. Google is written in Asynchronous java-script and XMLor its acronym Ajax ..
2. Yet Another Hierarchy of Officious Oracle
3. ADIDAS- All Day I Dream About Sports
4. Satellite Television Asian Region
5. Industrial credit and Investments Corporation of India
6. A baker's dozen consists of 13 items - 1 more than the items in a normal dozen
7. That match was abandoned after people heard the news of Indira Gandhi being killed.
8. Rabindranath Tagore who wrote national anthem for two different countries one is Indian's National anthem and another one is for Bangladesh- (Amar Sonar* *Bangla)
9. Goodbye comes from the ex-pression: 'god be with you'.
10. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu is none other Mother Teresa.
11. South Korea ..
12. Because 007 is the ISD code for Russia (or the USSRas it was known during the cold war)
13. Geoffrey Boycott
14. John Traicos
15. George WashingtonThomas JeffersonTheodore Rooseveltand Abraham Lincoln
16. Lesotho surrounded from all sides by South Africa ..
17. Polo.

NOTE: resource taken from an email attachement.

Wants to be popular?

2008-04-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

You enter in a fast food restaurant; a waiter immediately approaches you with a smile, and walks you to the table of your choice. Within couple of minutes 2-3 more waiters come to your table to ask if you need anything. All the time there, you get special attention and care... Why? coz you pay them more tip than other customers do :).

In past I had discussion about loyalties and being a positive thinker by nature, I always thought that true loyalties/respect can not be bought. Now with the passage of time, I've realize there is no concept of purity in this world, everyone has a price tag attached to his loyalties and friendship. It's all about at what price he is willing to sell himself. No matter who is he and what he do, you can buy loyalties, make friends, win hearts, change opinions, bring change in society... meaning you can have anything if you've enough courage/money to get it...

China to lead global Internet traffic... Prospect of web hosting?

2008-04-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

The latest statistical figures released by the state-owned China Internet Network Information Center reveals that China is due to surpass the United States as the nation with the most Internet users, some time this year.

The figure reported by the Chinese government institution was a 53 percent jump from 137 million Chinese Internet users reported at this time last year. The Sydney Morning Herald reports: China says number of Internet users rises to 210 million, could overtake US this year

- “Currently China’s online population is about 50 million less than that of the United States and is the world’s second-largest,” the agency, also known as CNNIC, said on its Web site. “CNNIC forecasts that (China) will become the largest online country in 2008,” it said.

- The U.S. Census Bureau said last year that about 218 million of the country’s 310 million people used the Internet.

- China promotes Internet use for education and business but tries to block the public from seeing material deemed pornographic or that opposes communist rule.

This latest figure only consolidates the fact that China is a very ripe market for web hosting. With a population of 1,323,128,240 [over 1.3 billion], China currently ranks as the most populous country in the world with the USA coming 3rd after India. China’s current population is 19.83% of the world’s total population whilst that of the USA is 4.55%. Economists are predicting that China and India would be the world’s next super-powers in as soon as ten years time, going by the strong annual economic growth the two countries have been marking over the years.

Having realised all the above-stated points, many of the leading dot-com companies have opened shop in China to reap from the economic windfall: Google, Paypal, ebay, Microsoft, Yahoo etc
Now, China is not exactly a virgin market if the figures by WebHosting.info are anything to go by. Chinese web hosts share 2,735,314 domains amongst themselves whilst Chinese ICANN-accredited registrars have registered 3,275,345 generic domain names.

China stands at 5th position; followed by US, Germany, UK, Canada on country-wise highest number of registered domains. Six out of top ten countries are from non-english speaking regions and for most of global web hosting companies / control panels, it leave them with little chances in domestic penetration unless they localize their services/product or partner with some regional distributor.

The point is simple: web hosting firms in other parts of the world that can target a section of their marketing website at the Chinese population stand to reap economic benefits from China’s fast-growing Internet population. A website with a Chinese language version would be a first step though its important to point that many educated Chinese individuals can handle the English language fairly well.

Note: Major source taken from David's blog in WebHostingSearch.

Kasey Chambers - she is good

2008-04-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

I am not a huge fan of country music but sometimes it really inspires my wit. Just got the chance to listen Kasey Chambers music today on Youtube and I was ecstatic :) Simple music is put into wonderful composition and her heavy-toned voice was going with every line of her lyrics. Though she might have not made any big records but I'm sure, she has many of silent admirers like me.

Here are few of her singles:

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCictKFIIoo&feature=related
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQUggrlX_Kk&feature=related
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5jWvEwlHfQ&feature=related

India, expanding its global reach

2008-03-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

India's Tata Motors said on Wednesday it had bought British luxury icons Jaguar and Land Rover from struggling United States carmaker Ford for $2.3-billion as it expands its global reach.

The all-cash deal is part of Tata's efforts to grow outside Asia, but analysts have questioned how the Indian firm -- maker of the Nano, the world's cheapest car -- will absorb the two high-end marques into its operations. "We are very pleased at the prospect of Jaguar and Land Rover being a significant part of our automotive business," Tata group chairperson Ratan Tata said, pledging to keep the identities of the famous brands "intact".

Tata Motors, part of the sprawling tea-to-outsourcing Tata Group empire, said the "total amount to be paid in cash" would be $2.3-billion and added Ford would contribute up to about $600-million to the Jaguar and Land Rover pension plans.

The purchase, which has been the subject of speculation for months, comes amid an economic downturn that has put the squeeze on demand for prestige vehicles. In January, Tata unveiled the Nano at a price of $2 500, hoping that the no-frills auto could revolutionise travel for millions in India and elsewhere.

But with the acquisition, Tata would be in the unusual position of making the cheapest car in the world as well as some of the most expensive.

Of late, tough global economic conditions have put sales of expensive cars into reverse. US and European sales of Jaguar fell by over 30%, year-on-year, during the first two months of 2008.
"Both brands are already experiencing declining sales," said Aniket Mhatre, auto analyst at Mumbai brokerage Prabhudas Lilladher.

Interestingly, just this year Forbes included 3 Indians in top 10 richest individuals. Is india becoming a global economic power? The question for Pakistan is either to work with Indian companies to benefit from their experience or go all out confrontational and competitive alternative for foreign investors.

If industry is to grow here in Pakistan then government need to participate and indulge itself into supporting > expanding local industry to the position that they compete with international brands as a financial muscle.

The end of Software... Part II

2008-03-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

That’s a p-r-e-t-t-y big statement which I roughly translate as: “Get lost.” And while I wonder at the wisdom of engaging in what Jevon calls a ’schoolyard brawl’ with Microsoft, the reaction indicates that Microsoft is determined to protect its turf. But will the IBM/Microsoft approach, based as it is in the past, be enough to win the day?

I’m going out on a limb here because many of my colleagues look at history and think it kinda repeats itself. I disagree. As Limbert says, startups are the future winners. While today, the top slots in the enterprise market may be the same as they were 10 years ago, let’s not forget that Facebook (as an example) came from nowhere in 2006 to dominate the news in 2007 and gathered the now fabled $15 billion valuation. Microsoft may be aligned to Facebook on advertising but that leaves Facebook owning the customer relationship. Duh? Google went from strength to strength and many believe the war for dominance of the ‘internet cloud’ is already over with Google declared a winner. So picture this:

The startups who are doing the outside in stuff as outlined above become established in 2008, deepening their understanding of how relationships are created and sustained. One of them realizes that the people centric principles delivering CRM 2008 value can be equally applied to Social Capital Management. In other words, they can supplant today’s Human Capital Management solutions. What happens then to so-called core business processes? I think SAP knows, even if it might struggle to get there. I’m not convinced that IBM, Oracle or Microsoft are remotely close. Libert most certainly knows even if the eventual 800lb gorilla’s identity is yet to be revealed. As the old saw goes: we live in interesting times.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

The end of software... Part 1

2008-03-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

First, we have the mega vendors who think they ‘own’ the enterprise but have little clue what they’re doing when it comes to providing community style collaborative software. As Barry Libert, chairman of Mzinga said to me: “Does Microsoft have a relationship with me? Do any of the ‘monster’ vendors?” Second, we have the startups who are largely making their money by selling social media style solutions to marketers. While the two solution sets may look the same from the outside, they are being bought in fundamentally different ways and are setting up a tension that today is barely felt but which will have a disruptive effect on the software buying patterns of the future.

“IT is largely taking the view that Microsoft Sharepoint and Lotus Connections are the way to go. In some cases, startup vendors that could offer a much faster time to value are automatically dismissed.” In other words, IT shops are making sure the status quo is firmly maintained. But if you believe Libert, then this is entirely the wrong strategy because at heart, both Microsoft and IBM are offering behomoth frameworks that are file based, require development and are not people centric.

Where the startups fail but where the incumbents succeed is in identifying a specific value proposition within specific industries. His view is that Sharepoint will be a ‘big winner in the next five years.’ If the amount of noise being made by Microsoft is indicative, then it should be a winner. But…he also says: “Sharepoint deployments are horrendous and I really don’t know why people put up with them.” I do. They keep IT shops busy.

It’s time for IT to leave the ivory tower and become part of the decision-making culture of the business. The entire notion of IT as being somehow separate, or having independent goals from, the non-technical parts of an enterprise is absolutely ridiculous.

Doug Merritt, who runs SAP Labs who said that: “Taking a FriendFeed approach will tell me much more about potential employees in the due diligence phase of hiring than I can get from HR.” Did I hear a light bulb go on? Apparently so.

I’m thinking that SAP is realizing that it could get much closer to the millions of people who use its software rather than the IT shops that buy their stuff. The challenge, which Merritt thinks doesn’t get solved for another 2-5 years, is how companies like SAP adapt their software design strategies to accommodate this new reality. Enter the startups.

Cont.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

Data center as a service

2008-03-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

Hewlett-Packard on Monday plans to launch an effort to offer data center as a service to large enterprise customers.

The move is notable for the following reasons:

- Cloud infrastructure has been primarily focused on small- to mid-sized businesses that have been leveraging companies like Amazon Web Services.
- Large enterprises can wrap in HP’s service along with existing outsourcing contracts.
- The economy is slowing and IT managers may be able to expand their infrastructure by shifting from the capital spending line (build your own data center) to the operating expense line (a service subscription).

HP is betting that its service will gain traction among customers trying to create one instance of SAP as they migrate to SAP 6.0.

HP calls the effort Adaptive Infrastructure as a Service (AIaaS), but it’s basically a data center you can subscribe to. The service will be powered by HP’s existing data centers. HP has been consolidating its own data centers and plans to cook them down to six when the consolidation is done. U.S. customers will subscribe to HP’s new paired data centers in Atlanta (the one HP CIO Randy Mott runs the business on) and European customers will have a dedicated facility outside of Paris, says Pat Adamiak, vice president of portfolio, marketing and alliances at HP Services.

Adamiak outlined the four flavors of its data center as a service lineup optimized for various situations a large company would face. Each service configuration, which promises 99.9 percent uptime like Amazon does, has been tested with unnamed customers. Among the services:

- A compute intensive data center service for companies that need a lot of processing power, say oil companies that need geothermal analysis and content companies that need to render movies.
- A version that is optimized for SAP 6.0. I’d reckon that this configuration could be a popular choice. Many companies have three or four flavors of SAP in their shops and they are all trying to get to the latest version in one instance. There are a lot of hardware planning costs that go along with such a move. By cutting over to and SAP 6.0 rollout with a data center as a service approach you could save time and money since you could in theory lop off older SAP instances.
- A service optimized for Microsoft Exchange with uptime, failover and archiving.
- A data center as a service optimized for Windows, Unix and Linux. Under this arrangement, customers would bring their own apps since “a lot of customers like to control the application,” says Adamiak.

The initial game plan for HP is to target large companies, but eventually the company is likely to move downstream.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

Democracy - new beginning again!

2008-03-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

In Pakistani today, democracy will take a new birth and let’s hope this time will last long. Unfortunately here, it only last of 5-7 years before some dictator takes control of the country of country's sake (and unfortunate fact is that our politicians (opposition parties) welcome that change or take over for that matter).

If this new government can give one thing in return to its people then I would suggest 'a constitution which is high above everything'. Every citizen’s rights are protected and practiced under it. If we only recognize the fact that constitution is highest legal document in this country and it will protected & practiced in every way possible then it will solve many problem of ours. With democracy comes freedom of speech and life and only true democracy is the answer to many problems of Pakistan which includes terrorism, hate, depression and injustice.

AOL acquires Bebo: The race is on...

2008-03-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

AOL has made its social networking move, acquiring Bebo and getting access to its membership of 40 million worldwide.

In a statement Thursday, AOL said Bebo is a “perfect complement to AOL’s personal communications network and puts us in a leading position in social media.”
Indeed, Bebo does make AOL a player in social networking (see Techmeme). Meanwhile, if you couple Bebo with AOL’s ad networks and other initiatives like Open AIM 2.0 Time Warner’s online unit has some mojo.

Let’s add up AOL’s assets:
- AOL has spent almost $1 billion on ad acquisitions including ADTECH, buy.at, Lightningcast, Quigo, TACODA and Third Screen Media to create Platform-A.
- AOL has a lot of inventory through AOL.com, Moviefone, TMZ and Engadget, which is surprisingly never mentioned in Time Warner propoganda.
- And now it has Bebo.

The big question is this: Can AOL monetize Bebo as well as its other inventory? AOL talked a lot about “engagement advertising,” but the jury is still out on that one. AOL has struggled of late. And if Google has headaches monetizing social media I’m not sure AOL can figure it out any better.

Now it’s up to AOL to do something with Bebo within the bureaucratic structure of parent Time Warner. Another key thread is that the social networking field has narrowed dramatically. AOL has Bebo. News Corp. has MySpace. And Facebook is in bed with Microsoft.

As for the rest of the field, AOL’s purchase of Bebo is likely to set off a round of consolidation among smaller players that would be fine tuck-in deals in a larger setting.

With Bebo off the table sites like Ning and LinkedIn have just become more valuable–especially to a company like Yahoo, which appears to be left out of the social networking party.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

Government role in nation building

2008-03-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

I had a very detailed discussion with Bilal (office colleague and friend) about government role on promoting or say building industries in country. My argument is that government needs to provide infrastructure and environment that help flourish need ideas into practical. Like you can not produce good students out from school or university unless institute provide him the environment that brings out the creative soul of that student, where s/he can put ideas into reality without any fear, either that fear comes in shape of loss, dogmas, traditions.

If you do not provide a fair playing ground, not every player in the team would be lucky to deliver and perform. You've to engine next generation in a way that it becomes a prolific unit of the country. Every country has its own traditions which differ from others; similarly we can not expect that an engineer, doctor or scientist can deploy/implement strategies which were successful in US or UK. Every country has its own economical, political and regional dependencies that might effect the outcome.

Civil society alone can not do nothing, it's the Goverment which needs to put financial muscles to utilize manpower according to its needs.

The change must come from within, it can not come from outside.

Taking another twist

2008-03-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

Pakistani politics is as difficult as Woman's nature. You can not predict for a moment what will going to happen next; yesterday foes are today's friend. Now days, we're watch a continuous struggle from lawyers to restore judiciary and political parties joining hands with them to remove President of the country.

Yes, institutions are important and individuals have no comparison to it.

Firefox3 5x faster than IE7

2008-03-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

The almost-but-not-quite-final beta of Firefox 3 (FF3 beta 4) is now available for download. The most noticeable improvement is speed. In some tests, it’s three times faster than Firefox 2 (meaning the test completes in 1/3 the time), and a whopping five times faster than IE 7:

Other improvements in beta 4 include:

- Smarter location bar that tunes itself to your browsing habits. As you type in part of the URL it will offer suggestions based on where you’ve been before.

- Better native look-n-feel on Vista, Mac OSX, and Linux. This includes continuing work on icons, menus, native controls.

- Zoom just the text or the whole page. Zooming the text was one feature I missed from Firefox 2.

- Reduced memory usage. This is the main reason I switched to Firefox 3 for my everyday use. The old version often became unstable after a long session with many tabs open.

To see all the changes made so far in Firefox 3 read this excellent summary by Percy Cabello or see the release notes. Mozilla watchers expect one more beta before the production version is released.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

Hunting - Is it addiction?

2008-03-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I had my very first close experience of hunting birds and my very first observation would be: Now, I know why people become serial killers.

Killing becomes part of their addiction, they always felt the need for more or I should say, it's the thirst which never ends unless it ends him.

The first face expression on every shooter (and killer for that matter) was sense of joy and achievement. Some may argue it's different from killing a human-being and I shouldn't be comparing a human life with an animal or bird, and not all hunters are serial killers.

I think, its only the experience level which makes them different otherwise, if someone has killed two or three people after some intervals then it is certain s/he will kill another whenever he gets the chance. Or in other words, tendency of killing human is more in who has already done it (whether he is police man, solider or some innocent killer).

I've already planned to buy my own 12 bore shotgun (for bird hunting ONLY)... ;)

Confidence level - Girls have it now

2008-03-08T02:45:00.000-08:00

Last night, I was on my school friend's mehndi (one of the traditional function in Pakistani marriage). We dance, enjoyed and had lots of halla-gulla there then we decided to leave for McDonald's (RWP) for good reason but told everyone to be back soon.

On McDonald's, one of our friend who is a chain-smoker went out to smoke and when he came back, he was excited and had something interesting to share with us. Here is in his own words of what happened there. He was smoking, a well-dressed and good-looking girl walked to him and told him that she has come along with children and just now she found that she's carrying no money. She would be grateful if he can lend him some money which she'll definitely return (she has brought kids with her, and she can't disappoint them without having food here). Like most of us, he does not carry paper money with him. He told her to come to drive way and he will pay then he gave his cell number to her.

He comes back inside and was sharing this experience with us that he gets a call from her, asking where he is? We decided immediately to go out to the drive way :). Earlier I thought, it would be joke... How a married woman can do that? But interesting she was there with family (without husband) and he paid for her family's meal :). What we discussed in-between is something personal which I can not share here ;) She called back to her saying thanks and telling him that she will give him a buzz at night :D... Just imagine, she'll give him a buzz and rest, I leave that to your imaginations... ;) We then went to Gelato affair in Islamabad, and some had shakes and some hot coffee... Now one can image who would have ordered what?

In past, I had couple of strange personal experiences of confident girls but a married woman - what can I say about it?

(Alas! I don't smoke, but now I'm seriously thinking about changing this BAD HABIT ;)

Is Musharaf indispensable for Pakistan?

2008-03-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

In Pakistan, after some time the ruling regime (premier for that matter) come up with an conclusion that s/he has become indispensable for this country and without him, the country can not seal through the difficult period, it is currently in... (interestingly they avoid addressing, if they're responsible to take this country to this place of chaos or they even now become a part of the problem) . Not surprisingly, in last 3 decades, all our premiers were in that illusion.

If we neutrally evaluate 3 of the most prominent political/military figures in Pakistani - Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Musharaf. Surprisingly Pakistan became more democratic, liberal, progressive and independent in foreign policy in a military ruler's tenure. We saw IT, telecom, educational reforms were introduced and first time skilled labour were prefering to work in Pakistan, infact huge number of skilled menpower came back to Pakistan.

On the whole, international image of Pakistan was improved under Muharaf regime till 2005. But suddenly like every other premier in Pakistan, he start feeling that he alone is responsible for the positive financial, social activities and without him, everything will come apart. Earlier his speaches were sense of inspiration for many, people always believed what he was saying (even though he never took-off his uniform as promise but it was not the concern of common man). He was on helm of affairs then things took a u-turn on him... came along the 'lal masjid' incident (a right decision but wrong execution) and last nail to his coffin (though I still believe it will not effect Muharaf's regime) was chief justice removal case in 2007 - it's still an on going struggle between anti-Musharaf lobbiest and Pro-Musharaf.

Today, Pakistan see at least 1-2 suicide bombings killing dozens each week. If you ask Pakistanis, what is the quickest solution to this menace, 95% (including Pro-Musharaf) would suggest to remove Musharaf and everything will normalize. Is it so and is it the right choice?

Microsoft puts a note on VMWare and Virtualization

2008-03-05T13:33:00.000-08:00

Hyper-V, formerly known as “Viridian”, greatly differs from the virtualization product from Microsoft currently marketed as Microsoft Virtual Server in that it uses a hypervisor to provide hardware abstraction services to the OS environment and do resource allocation and partitioning. This differs from products such as Microsoft Virtual Server, VMWare Server and VMWare Workstation, Parallels, Linux KVM, and the recently Sun-acquired Virtualbox from Innotek use a technique known as host-based virtualization in which a host operating system such as Windows or Linux runs a subprocess provided by its native kernel called a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) to provide virtualization services such as a virtual CPU, memory and devices to a virtual machine.

A hypervisor, on the other hand, is a thin abstraction layer which boots on the native hardware that performs some of the functions of an OS kernel, but abstracts much of what is needed to run multiple operating systems with their applications on top of it.

The advantages of hypervisor-based virtualization is that it tends to be faster and more enterprise scalable. The disadvantages are that hypervisors tend to be heavily hardware dependent and usually require hardware acceleration, such as Intel’s “VT” or AMD’s “Pacifica” extensions present in the latest Xeon and Opteron chips, such as it is with Hyper-V and Xen-based solutions, and require modified OS kernels and special paravirtualized device drivers to be run in the VM environment to facilitate enhanced I/O and networking performance.

Note: Source taken from ZDNet blog.

Pakistani Politics - Taking a new twist

2008-03-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

This is the first time in our recent past that major political parties are sitting together to form a national government and for the first time our opposition is planning (at least claiming in press-conferences) to play a proactive, constructive role. If Q-league (Pro-Musharaf party) keeps its word and take part as helping body then it will certainly help them not only in next election but will also set a new tradition in Pakistan.

I also hope, opposition or any other party for that matter will not undermine ruling party to complete its constitutional term of 5 years.

So far, Zardari role is impressive and I think for longer interest of his party - PPPP, he should keep himself away from running as a front-line contender for PM. Leave this place for senior most party member and play a father-like figure in PPPP, and build/improve is bad image of Mr. 10%.

Pakistan, at this critical juncture need no more surprises of floor-crossings or forward-blocks. Changing loyalties for small political/economical gains have never helped Pakistan, this is time we should denounce and reject anyone who put personal gains over national.

My first post and I lost it...

2008-03-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

My first post wasn't saved so I lost it before publishing it... A very encourging and successful note to start my blogging activity :). So I decided to change my blog title from 'Is revolution in our doorstop' to 'My first post and I lost it'...

Anyways, my first post should be more about who I am rather what I am good in doing - lossing things... ;)

Oks, catch everyone tomorrow and I am sure there will be no comment in next 30 days from anyone unless I start telling people personally to post their comments here ;)