Flicker

Has any photo fan tried Flicker –photo management sharing application, so far free.

Pirated XP swap offer for Britons.

Microsoft has recently launched a scheme in the United Kingdom to freely replace your copy of a pirated Win XP (Pro/Home) with a genuine one.

The offer is for those individuals who have purchased systems with Win XP pre-installed. In return to their gratitude, you will sign as a witness and disclose the vendor from whom you purchased the system. Up to 5 submissions per person allowed.

This will eventually help Microsoft crack down on piracy of its products in the UK.

Spider readers in the UK, what are you waiting for? Go get your copy. Hurry, offer ends Dec 31, 2004.

Now, will we ever see such move reaching our shores?

Want a Philips PC?

Netherlands electronics giant Philips has decided once again to venture into the PC market in Europe.

Coming to think of it, I doubt the company will have success this time around. I am used to idea of seeing a Philips TV, monitor, refrigerator but having a Philips branded PC "with Intel side" does not seem appealing enough.

Who's next LG or Dawlance? : P

New game stirs controversy

I am an avid gamer too, but the idea of a game to replicate the assassination of J. F. Kennedy and paying a $100,000 bumper prize to the one who can perfectly execute it in the game seems to have gone too far.

May be not the best theme to base a game on. Visit the game site for more.

News of the Day

A number of you have shown interest in contributing to this blog. Have a news or post to share? Post it under this topic.
**Add: Please hyperlink the news item and include only a brief excerpt [with a comment on it, if you can] in the text.

Telecom news: Old and New

PakistanGulfEconomist has a summary of telecom deals struck and changes expected. I think the punchline of the article should have been the intro: "It must also be kept in mind that retaining the subscribers will not be an easy job, without bringing in further improvement in quality of services being offered."

TIME thinks Centrino surfboard is cool

TIME dubs a surfboard with Centrino as one of the coolest inventions this year. Having traveled around with a Centrino notebook for a year, I’ve found it pretty functional—wait for the gripe. The wireless scene is cluttered with jargon and labels and Intel’s marketing arm helps push this ‘wireless package’ above many. But if one or two players are out with a mobile technology that talks to Wi-Fi hotspots, I wish they would push their brand to handheld manufacturers (I know Centrino has been recently bundled in one), along with other portable devices that let users surf the net—why are MP3 players left out? Intel Pakistan claim there are about 40 hotspots up and running in the country. Would anyone know of an online Wi-Fi hotspot tracker exclusively for Pakistan? I’ve only accessed them at major hotels. Here’s help for Linux notebook users who want to install Centrino.

Here's a list of other inventions—SpaceShipOne made it too—TIME found cool. Anyone for alternative voices on coolest invention this year? Not the iPod? Not the Simputer?

Scholars

Have you tried this? Read more here and here.

Post from Biz Stone’s Site

TIME "Blogger should be TIME’s People of th Year. That would be cool."

Who knows we all may be contenders. . .

Browsers vs. IE

"Dear IE," writes Vamosi, "I'm leaving you for good". And a few of us have switched over, converted from IE forever. About 65% Spider.tm blog visitors access us via Internet Explorer while the number of Netscape based browser users has shot up from 10 to 20% since August 2004. There's all of 2 Opera users amongst us who have been visiting this blog [do say hi/salaam, I'd like to know who you are] for a while. To all Internet Explorer users, Firefox is worth the switch! Read Vamosi's column, if you've missed Spider reviews of the other browsers. Reinvigorate, the site tracker this blog uses, has stats on platforms/browser usage.

"Pakistan's IT challenges"

Thanks to Irfan Khan (S-Asia-IT) for following up on the positivity lead ;~) and sending the sequel to Anthony Mitchell's first article. The writer takes an indepth look at last mile and connectivity issues (such as our dependence on FLAG) in addition to offering a word of caution to American investors.

Eid Greetings

Eid greetings to all bloggers and readers

Great Gmail

Gmail (still with Beta tag) is down for the moment. . .

Pakistan's broadband policy draft released

You can download the 453KB PDF file from the IT Division's page. Email address provided for feedback.

Bloggers Beware

Blogger gets fired from her job. But this is not due to blogging. There is more to it

"Pakistan Now a Hot Spot for IT Outsourcing"

A dose of positivity by Anthony Mitchell who says, "Americans who have worked in both Karachi and Mumbai report that there is no discernable difference in the safety and security situation in both cities." The story is positioned to give Pakistan a green light in outsourcing and I've emailed the author asking for his inspiration in writing it.

Here's the real catch: "The biggest boost to Pakistan's efforts to break into the global IT marketplace came on September 28, when India's finance ministry announced an income tax of more than 36 percent on foreign firms with software, R&D and customer service operations in India. This tax proposal had been in the works since the beginning of the year and is expected to prompt U.S. firms to follow GE's lead in selling off assets in India."