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General
When a 19th century romantic French writer by the name of Victor Hugo said “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come” he obviously could not envision Pakistani bureaucracy. Not only can it reduce an idea to nothing more than its meager skeletal remains squirming in its own vile, it too often does.
Come 2004, the IT bubble is about to burst in a military run, democratic, American influenced politically independent subcontinent country by the name of Pakistan. It is here in our story that along comes an idea. It is a simple idea yet revolutionary in every way, the idea to prepare this country for the…
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Events General
The past whole week I was really excited about going to the exhibition on 5th and 6th at expo center Lahore since the theme read “home expo and super car expo”. I was counting on seeing some innovative home solutions, fancy cars and a lot of appliances for both. As I entered the arena, an ear piercing heavy bike engine race greeted me. Oh wow nice, we have bikes here too… and lots of them, but let’s see if we have the actual products that are expected.
First cars!! Honda Launched its new City Aspire at the event. This attracted a lot of young crowd who wanted to check it…
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General
NOTE: This is a sponsored post
Football. The most popular sport in the world. That may be hard to believe, we being a die-hard cricket nation, but there are many amongst us who get their blood pumping whenever our favorite team kicks some balls (pun intended). There’s excitement in the air, and the airwaves for that matter, when Spanish rivals Real Madrid and Barcelona are about to have a face-off on the field. Manchester United or Chelsea? The answer could incite either jeers or cheers, depending on who you’re surrounded by. It feels like you belong to an exclusive club really, not to mention how convenient it is to…
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Coffee Session General
There are two main things that are currently causing out growth in ICT to stall. One is the lack of original ideas, so most of the entrepreneurs either copy what is already around internationally or locally (same ideas of online shopping, online bidding) we still have not hit the jackpot with someone creating some thing like instagram or drawsomething and being acquired by one of the big names.
The second issue always lamented by entrepreneurs is lack of any funding sources in Pakistan. Over the years we have seen efforts being made to create funds which would help but what ended happening that most of these funds either did…
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Coffee Session General
We all know about the 7 layers of the OSI model. This is the framework by which computer networks are defined. Starting with the physical layer, going through the transport layer and finally culminating in the application layer where end user applications reside. I believe that this should be redefined to include and additional layer – the Social Layer. From the current vantage point, the Social Layer lies right above the Application layer – hence it is served by the Application layer.
The 90s witnessed a boom in what is now referred to as web 1.0. This consisted of static applications hosted over the web. Static applications meant that…
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General Mobile Apps Software & I.T.
Pakistani IT industry has been progressing rapidly over the last few years. It is heartening to see that the industry players are innovating and working in different areas to establish their expertise.
Recently, TenPearls, one of the leading IT companies of Pakistan, launched “Carumba!”, a 3D car racing game for iPhone and iPad. Carumba! has been designed and developed by TenPearls’ innovation labs. Launched as a free game, Carumba! allows users to earn coins during the race, and redeem them to unlock other cars and tracks or to get additional nitro boosts. It has also been integrated with Apple’s Game Center.
The game has received very good response from…
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Events General
‘Rethinking Pakistan’ [and my expression goes LOL and I will explain why] was the theme of the conference which took place at margalla hills Islamabad on March 31st 2011 organized by TEDx, lets just summarize here what TEDx is; before we further dig into the “theme” and happenings of this conference.
TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) and ’x’ denotes the independently organized events under the TED umbrella, mission is “Ideas worth spreading” and this events basically brings together individuals, communities and organizations with the opportunity to excite dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level (geographically). The programs combine live presenters, performers and pre-recorded talks from some of the most brilliant…
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Announcements Events General
ICT R&D Fund aims to provide graduating students a chance to really make their final projects counts. I have always felt that students in their final year some times product excellent products which due to lack of any infrastructure and proper guidance plus funding just go in the Universities Libraries.
Seems ICT R & D fund is giving these students a chance to take their projects to the next level by acquiring funding, if you are a final year student doing a project all you need is to get this form filled and submitted through your head of department .
Last date for submission for forms is 31st…
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Coffee Session General
I wanted to discuss the Thiel Fellowship and sort of run the idea among our readership to figure out if it was justified or not. Bay Area hedge fund manager Peter Thiel started a Fellowship program in his name about a year ago trying to capitalize not on start ups, but the smart kids who may actually come up with the next billion dollar idea.
Let there be no mistake. Innovation solves problems. Bankers, lawyers and hot shot executives are good for only one thing: managing an existing infrastructure. It is the innovators who turn existing ideas on to their heads and enable breakthroughs. Considering the point above, it…
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10:40 am
I had received this kind of sms earlier this year, and I blogged about this absurd idea: http://www.sawantshah.com/weird-stuff/the-weirdest-text-message-i-received/
11:30 am
Thanks for the link Sawant, my guess: this was started by some professional spammer(s) – the ones that let you send X bulk messages for Y Rs, with an under-utilized setup (unlimited outgoing SMS packages and all)
I was getting these messages every other month or so, but the frequency has spiked during this month of Ramadan – something must be working for them to get this active.
The ones on your blog from May are begging for 10Rs. while this one starts off with 15Rs. and comes down to 10Rs. so they are actually tweaking and improving their pitch too.
2:21 pm
Point is how do they get the whole big database of cell no.’s?
Are the cellular companies employees involved in leaking out the privacy information against some bucks?
11:44 pm
What i called them on my blog “Digital Beggers”, or lets term them New Era Beggers
1:32 am
@Corona
I think there are more than one ways of obtaining such valid numbers, they can easily:
* use bruteforce (with automated free SMS, that is trivial)
* add intelligence to bruteforce by using BLOCKS of numbers (like IP blocks) that are being used by a particular operator
* steal the data from the telco (your guess)
* telco franchises have access to their databases as well.
* banks and insurance companies *lend* their customer databases for unsolicited telemarketing
2:11 pm
Hi Friends,
Recently i wrote an article ‘Google is biased’ on Propakistani.
Here is the link to my article:
http://www.propakistani.com/2008/09/17/google-is-biased/ .
In this article i raised the issue to have a Google Happy Eid Doodle for Muslims and Pakistanis.And asked Google to show it on Google Pakistan on the Eid day.
Happily i got a reply from Google Pakistan.They appreciated the proposal.According to some close sources we have made a buzz in Silicone Valley.Google is considering the Doodle for Muslims.
A fellow blogger Dr.Awab a.k.a Teeth Maestro also wrote a similar post.
Here is its link:
http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2008/09/23/google-doodle-muslims-pakistanis .He also pointed out the same issue.
But it’s not confirmed by Google that we will see the Doodle or not.So what we have to do is this that if you want to see Doodle this Eid and all coming Eid’s,write an article like mine’s urging and asking Google to make a Doodle for Eid.
If only we all bloggers of Pakistan work together can make this a reality.
So please visit my article,leave a comment and write one on your blog too.
But please don’t forget to link and ping back your article to my original article here as i deserve it:
http://www.propakistani.com/2008/09/17/google-is-biased/
So lets get working,make this a reality and gift this to our nation on this Eid.
Please forward this email and spread the word.
Thanks
Regards
Zeeshan Shafquat a.k.a Bites85
Islamabad,Pakistan
Contact:
E: bites85@gmail.com
M: +92-322-5168949
1:50 am
Well, I’ve been receiving at least two more types of messages that dont ask for money, but try to steal it from you.
One of the SMS says ” is celebrating there th birthday and giving away free Rs. 100 balance to you. To get your free balance, send to .
This will actually the balance transfer code and if you do what this sms says, you may end up losing some of your balance. (= mobile network operator like Warid, Mobilink, Ufone etc)
Second variation of above is even more interesting. Usually you receive a business card of some imaginary Aisha. In this business card, the number mentioned is not a phone number but an interestingly malformed code that eventually transfers some funds from your number to another number.
This is for sure stealing. I wish our people spend their intelligence in some constructive work.
12:35 pm
How come such people ask for money who are the silly people send them money..