Mind mapping software

This a free Java-based tool which is supposed to help you organizing any idea that you may have. See the Screenshots here.

World’s First ‘Paid to Blog’ Network

Bloggers finally have a new way to make a fast buck with their weblogs. BlogKits.com has launched the BlogKits BlogMatch Network, an opportunity for anyone who owns a blog to be matched with businesses, marketers and/or advertisers looking to partner with niche-filled, content specific, quality blogs. There is a possibility of wining an iPod as well.

Watchout: Project 'Jawbone'

Must-read story about audio tech startup called Aliph who's Pakistani CEO Hosain Rahman's success in California and The Adaptive Headset for mobile phones that's making waves [it reduces background noise while you talk]. The company website states its focus is on speech processing products for govermental and private organizations. Verrry interesting!

Pakistanis in Ahmedabad

[Jan 4]The Press Trust news story states that interaction between scientist across the border has been limited, and rightly so. "Pakistan participated for the first time in the 92-year-old Indian Science Congress, being held in Ahmedabad. The four-member Pakistani delegation will be presenting three papers in the congress, Dr Anwar Nasim, chairman of the Pakistan's National Commission on Biotechnology and a member of the delegation, told reporters in Ahmedabad." The Commission was created by Dr.Ata-ur-Rehman in 2001.

In September 2004, The Nature carried a more sensational lead on a similar event stating that verbal collaborations have ended "more than five decades of scientific impasse between the two nations." I think the two need to look at 'education' for any collaboration, even if its bound to be research on malaria and agriculture as per the news story.

2005.

Happy New Year to all SPIDER readers, contributors and the people who make SPIDER happen. Here's to hoping that this year will be spam free and that good things will happen in Pakistan's IT sector. Wishful thinking, but wishing is good.


P.S: The January issue of SPIDER is on sale now. Let us know what you think about it at letters@spider.tm

NADRA will 'authorise' phone connections?

Heard this on the radio to work: "New cellular phone and landline connections will be given after online verification by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA)," says Interior Minister. The story offers no other details on the statement. So, if NADRA keeps giving a server error for extended periods, does it mean getting a cell or landline connection will become a pain? Could there have been another way to curb "terrorism" through the phones? I thought the ID card copy attached to the forms is supposed to serve as a verification anyways.

This is to announce the sad demise of Suprnova.org.

'They' got em too! Suprnova.org, one of the most popular bittorrent website, will be forever be loved and remembered by the traces of torrent files it has left behind on our harddisks.

Hotmail Reloaded.

Hotmail finally decided to do something for its customers without extorting money from them, and is now offering a 250 MB inbox for new users after a one month verification period, along with 10 MB attachments. However, the older accounts of Hotmail are still stuck at a paltry 2 MB. So do we now have to sign up again to get a larger inbox or are they imposing a one month period for 3 year users of Hotmail as well?

Blogger Confession

“Blogs have turned me into a nervous person. Reading them makes me want to run around in circles squeaking like a beaver,” excuse me, Annalee Newitz says this. I say, “It was already in my heart.” Bloggers! confess this or discuss this.

Habib Bank selects Symantec to secure IT operations

Habib Bank selected Symantec Client Security and Symantec Enterprise and Corporate Anti-Virus Solutions for roll out across 3300 users in the organisation in partnership with IBM Pakistan and IOP. Habib Bank joined Symantec at their executive meeting rooms during the GITEX 2004 exhibition in Dubai held earlier this month. Symantec,the leading company in Internet security services, has worldwide operations in 38 countries.
Source

Federal Cabinet approves Broadband Policy

Quote from a press release: "The Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari on Wednesday unveiled the government's broadband internet policy, setting the stage for what he called 'an affordable, always-on, broadband high-speed internet service' in the corporate and residential sectors across Pakistan.
He also announced reduction in IP bandwidth rates from US$ 3,950 per E1 per month to US$ 2,000 per E1 per month with monthly copper rental for DSL reduced from Rs 771 per month to Rs 250 per month, monthly PRI rental reduced by 50 per cent, domestic bandwidth rates reduced by 25 per cent of the existing prices to facilitate peering services, and DXX connectivity also reduced by up to 63 per cent. 'We expect that as a result of the implementation of this policy, the number of broadband subscribers will increase from the present 29,000 to about 200,000 in about two years as tariffs drop substantially and the number of operators providing broadband services increases rapidly,' said Awais" Really? What do you guys think of the policy?

Story on local IT companies from employees' perspective

Spider is doing a story on the working conditions of IT professional in the local industry. We'd like insight and comments from people working at different software houses/ IT companies/IT departments in Pakistan. We are not approaching the companies directly as we want to hear the employees' point of view.

Payscale

• What's the Initial Payscale for entry level in your organization?
• Whats the payscale for people with experience?
• Does your company have a formal appriasal(pay increase) system? Is it followed? If its not a formal process, do your employers live up to their promises of pay increase?
• Do you get ad hoc or scheduled bonuses in addition to your base salary?
• Do you get any other perks in addition to your base salary e.g. medical insurance, a car, etc.? If yes then, please specify which ones.
• Salary appraisals are [pick one]: Annual, Half-yearly, Quarterly, Ad Hoc.

Work timings

• Usually at what time do you reach home after work when you are on a deadline and under normal circumstances?
• Do you need to work on weekends to complete your assignments? (At least one weekend per month.)
• Do you need to work during later hours of the day (i.e. after sunset or late in the evening) to accommodate activities with international customers?
• Is your job goal-oriented (i.e. need to complete assignments irrespective of the time taken and working hours are generally flexible) or time-oriented (i.e. you work from Xam to Ypm irrespective of the workload)?
• Does your company have a formal policy for off-time (vacations, sick-leave, paid-leave, etc.)?

Organization Structure & HR Issues

• Is your organization partnered with any industry leaders such as Microsoft, Sun, Cisco, etc.? If so, which one(s)?
• Is your company certified under any standard such as ISO or CMM? If so, which one(s)?
• Does your company have a formal, documented employee hierarchy?
• Approx. at what rate does your company hire or induct new manpower. Pick one: Monthly, Quarterly, Half-yearly, Annually, Ad Hoc.
• Does your company make use of internees i.e. people who are in the process of getting a degree and also working in some capacity while they are studying?
• Organizational Stability -hire, fire, quit rate?
• On an average how long do employees stay with your organization?
• How long has the senior most employee been with the organization?
  

Project Management

• Do you have a dual-role as far as working on projects is concerned? E.g. you are a coder and also a technical writer, or an analyst and also a QA person?
• Is the project well managed?
• Does your company have people with specialized job descriptions? Such
• as analyst, coder, tester etc.
• Do you have formal and experienced project managers on your team(s) or does a senior technical person play a dual role?
• Do you use any formal tools for tracking and working on projects e.g. MS Project, bug tracking tools, project communications tools, etc.?
• Does your company's project management function take into account the input of your whole team before drawing up milestones, deadlines and plans, or commit those based on their own judgement? Are the project deadlines realistic?

Any additional comments? Insight?


Send the answers/comments to zq@spider.tm or you can post your comments here.

Please mention the name of your organization, the name of the institute you studied from, along with the year of graduation.This is important so that we know how many different organizations/institutes we have covered and the demographics of those who have responded. If you dont want to be named in the article then please mention that in your mail. I ensure the confidentiality of your mail. The last date for sending in your answers/comments is January 15th 2005.

[more questions added on Dec 23 2004. Thanks Merlinx]

10 Worst Spyware

For those who use Cool Web Search please now know that it's a spyware!

You can read them all here and from this threat list too.

Be warned!

A 'critical' bug in IE 6.0

The bug, which has been confirmed on a fully patched Windows XP system with IE 6.0 and Service Pack 2, could allow a scammer to display a fake Web site with all the attributes of a genuine, secure site, including the URL and the icon indicating SSL security, according to researchers.

"Ordinarily, to spoof a site you have to have some issue on the Web site that you want to manipulate, which restricts what you can do," said Thomas Kristensen, chief technology officer at an independent security firm Secunia. "Because this is embedded in IE by default, it's possible to inject content into any Web site. There's no way for a Web site to protect itself against this."

For example, you go to say, paypal.com. Following best-practices, you even look for the little padlock icon on the bottom right of your Internet Explorer, thinking the website is surely safe. Not so. With this bug exploited, the scammer/hacker can 'hijack' your browser. The address bar will show paypal.com with all its attributes but all the content will be provided by the hacker.

"After you set up Microsoft Windows Firewall in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), you may discover that your computer can be accessed by anyone on the Internet when you use a dial-up connection to connect to the Internet," Microsoft said in a knowledge base article.

The update was not included—or mentioned—in the five critical updates Microsoft released earlier this week, also mentioned in this blog.

Gary Schare, director of Windows product management at Microsoft, said it was "an unfortunate oversight" that the SP2 update was shipped without notice. Notice to whom?

Anyways, Microsoft did release a patch for the vulnerability after it was found by the security firm Secunia. The patch can be automatically downloaded through Microsoft's updates website.

Most Bloggers Women

Where are the tech savvy women? Word is that women blog more and abandon less than men.

IT-related seminars in Pakistan

How many of you find seminars conducted here useful? Ever attended one? Do you find yourself slouching at the backseat for the heck of attending or looking forward to anything related to "IT" put together in local hotels? Recall any that proved a cut above?

From personal experience, seminars conducted to explain "internet security threats", "ebanking", "ecommerce in pakistan", and "digital divide" have rarely provided anything one hasn't come across on the net. The programs put together by most organization combine "basic definitions" with "case study"--an approach that comes off as very theoritical and dry. My pick: TMT Ventures once hosted a very good roundtable on "VC funding problems and prospects" where the audience was as proactive as the guest speakers.

Yahoo goodies

As strange as it was for consumer electronics giants Philips to re-join the PC market, Yahoo has started branding a few of its own consumer goods.

I was skeptic at first at the idea of seeing a Yahoo DVD player (I mean a Yahoo DVD player!!!) but the designs are really cool.

MSN Web Messenger

Some long time back I posted a link for an online web based MSN Messenger (Messenger on-the go) however there were concerns on the credibility of this non-Microsoft service would save and use your password.

However, worry not Microsoft now offers the same service MSN Web Messenger and you now know your password is safe. Handy if your corporate environment has blocked the MSN port. You can now beat the administrator ;)

Just make sure to allow pop-ups from the site for it to work.

IE losing its market share

All the doomsayers who hoard anti-microsoftism (you are right, it’s not a word) deep within their hearts, rejoice! The market share of Microsoft Internet Explorer has dropped.

More and more people are using alternative browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox and Opera to view the Internet in all its glory.

The total usage share of Microsoft declined 5 percent and the total usage share of Mozilla (the company behind FireFox) increased 5 percent

Yeah, the market share dropped like 5 percent. Microsoft still holds the lead at a comfortable 87-88 percent. Big deal?

'A potential Achilles' heel'

When will the net stop endangering geographical boundaries? This via SQ: 'Former CIA Director George J. Tenet yesterday called for new security measures to guard against attacks on the United States that use the Internet, which he called 'a potential Achilles' heel..."in this age when we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability...ultimately the Wild West must give way to governance and control." The director is concerned about more and more organizaitons linking up to the net, making 'the system' vulnerable.

SANS Top 20 Vulnerabilities - The Experts Consensus

These are the top rated vulnerabilities that folks at FBI found. In fact these are two Top Ten lists, one being for the Windows platform and one for the Unix platform.

Another good thing is that it not only shows the problem, it gives out possible fixes and related links. Comprehensive.

I'd say that this list is not for the casual surfer. Reason? Well, most of the TOP vulnerabilities are for stuff like remote access services or web servers like Apache etc, to name a few. Unless of course you run your own servers or the system registery is your playground, you might find all of the list not that helpful. But as expected, web browsers and email and even messengers are on the list of vulnerabilities. It is worth a look...even an attempt at prevention is always better than the cure.

Blogging War - Episode 1

According to eWEEK, MSN is set to launch its own blogging service titled MSN Spaces, which will also allow users to share music lists and photo albums easily. MSN previously launched the Japanese version of MSN Spaces, still in the beta version. I'm personally looking forward to MSN Spaces - hopefully they'll introduce features Blogger has yet to offer. I suppose MSN really is feeling the heat, what with Google's purchase of Blogger. After the recent browser and e-mail wars, maybe a blogging war is next?

NCR: First big-time hire by a tech MNC

NCR, represented in Pakistan by Teradata, have established the first "global consulting" center by a tech multinational. This means that the company no longer just sells software [as most big companies do]. It now supports services for its CRM setup for clients in Middle East, Europe and Africa through skilled techies based in its Islamabad office. 75 locals have been hired and the target is set to reach 150 by next year at the Center of Expertise and Teradata Professional Services. The company also became the first software house to reach CMM Level 5 certification. Sigh. I hope certification speeds up for some players in the industry.

Entries are also invited for the 6th NCR Awards. Deadline: December 22nd. Some categories allow 'self-nomination'. Hurry ;~)

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."

Tame a Geek?

Here is how to do it

India: Broadband, Indo Mail and Open Sky

Last time I heard, Pakistan's broadband policy was to be announced two weeks ago. But what do PR managers for the Minister of IT know, eh? ;~) If you've seen any news confirming anything about the policy, do comment.

Meanwhile, the Indian broadband policy is serious about spreading the 'always-on' bug and getting 'Indo-Mail' back to India. Thanks to my friend Murali for the pointer.

From The Hindu news item of Saturday: "The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will monitor the speed offered by the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and consumers can cite the broadband policy and take the ISPs to court if the speed is less than the minimum of 256 kbps. 'There was no broadband and no classification. We were stuck at the dial-up network stage. My feeling is that people using dial-up will migrate to the `always-on' 256 kbps. They are paying Rs. 1,000 per month for low Internet speeds. Our initiatives will bring higher speeds for less than Rs. 500 per month.' The broadband policy has also attempted to cut through red tape. VSAT dish owners can start operations one month after all the documents are submitted for approval."

Google's newest tool!

Google's newest tool is out for beta testin!. Its called Google Desktop. Its like having Google search engine for your local drives. Its a tiny 400kb application which sits in the system tray. Here, google explains it better:
http://desktop.google.com/about.html

In case somebody is wondering, the indexes are kept at:
/documents and settings/USERNAME/Local Settings/Application Data/Google/Google Desktop

No data from your PC is ever sent to Google! The listing you see on google.com for your local drive is a feature of the desktop tray application. Read the privacy policy for more info.

Digital Dialogues

Exploring blogosphere, I came accross this thought for today ....

"When you say you're going online - where exactly are you going???"

Twist in the tale!

If any of you had a chance to use the illegaly leaked MSN 7.0 Beta, than you might have probably degraded to MSN 6.2 by force.

After security vulnerabilities being posted on the Internet and its availability to end-users has prompted MS to postpone its release to testers.

There is no way you will be able to sign-in with it as of now.

Spyware deemed illegal

The US government has passed a bill that would make spyware illegal.

This was long over due considering that most of the spyware/adware... on the Internet originate from US!

Victory at last (or is it?).

Rich Archives

Young scholars, explore science and humanitarian subjects here. No time wasting clearinghouses

Local goodies.....

Ata kirmani has developed an Urdu desktop for Windows XP. That is having a start menu in Urdu (left to right), having desktop icon names in Urdu.....

For more details and those interested can contact him at ataullahkirmani@yahoo.com.

Yayha Noor has developed an interactive training for Win 98 in Balochi language. He can be contacted at yahya_noor@yahoo.com. Good for those institutes giving basic computer training to the totally new.

Hats off to both of them for their efforts.

Gmail updates

Gmail has updated. Gmailers using Window 2000, XP or more recent version can download Gmail Notifier. Google could have done a better job. They say more is to come . . .

Posting on this blog

So far, the number of entries I've deleted from this blog = 1. It was irrelevant to this blog.

The number of comments deleted from this blog = 4 out of which 1 was a mistake.

I respect your point of view and expect you to respect mine. This is the only way to encourage discussion, simply put. If at any point I feel a comment is out of place and aimed at generating a bad vibe towards a person or an organization [including Spider], I will delete it.

ONLY healthy criticsm is welcome. Not all of us will find everything on this blog useful but plenty of us do. As an informed and aware visitor, you are free to say anything sans throw verbal punches at or abuse anyone. Thank you for stopping by.

Donations required....

After the success of SpaceShipOne and winning the US $10 million Ansari X prize, Sir Richard Branson new company Virgin Galactic ventures into a new market of space tourism, registration is open.

Flights expected as early as 2007 will allow you to gaze the stars for about US $200,000 per person (at least we don't need to apply for a visa :P) for a two-hours trip and three days pre-flight training.

Donations accepted, send in your US $1 bank drafts (minimum) to me.

Your favourite Spider Magazine is also in contact with Virgin Galactic for an agreement or sorts to give a complimentary copy to each tourist on-board the trip. Plans also underway to release a few issues of them into space. Going global in style.

Yipee, SPIDER Alien edition ;)

Gates: Microsoft to offer anti-spyware

It's about time. Hope they build it in IE by defualt just like the much need pop-up blocker given to IE 6.2 (XP SP2).

And may be, we might some day hear of Microsoft Anti-Virus 2007.....

Clusty searching

I am begining to like looking at search results in clusters. It is far more organized than Google's gazillion pages. You too should give Clusty.com, a brand new search engine from a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist, a spin!

MSN 7.0 Beta on the way....

MS might have released to testers the beta version, by the time you read this.

What's new:
- Contact cards
- New Display Pictures
- Set status before signing-in (appear offline while signing-in).
- MSN Search Bar at the bottom (has been there with YM 6.0)
- Search words within conversation in chat window
- Maybe Avatars and emoticon packs (YM 6.0 ???)

PASHA: ICT Awards on Saturday

On Saturday, Pakistan Software Houses Association, the trade body representing ICT companies in Pakistan, is celebrating its first ever awards ceremony.

Nearly 14 awards are being presented to various software houses for their products. See the website for details on nomination. 300 people are expected at the ceremony taking place in Karachi. One of the more interesting cateogries is a prize for student projects and I'm hoping publicity by the media will help both PASHA and educational institutes and varsities to pursue this more actively next year. All details courtesy Jehan Ara, president PASHA. Will bring you up to speed with how the colorful ceremony turned out. If you know students who are interested in volunteering at the event [they are needed on Friday and Saturday], then email me [zd at spider dot tm]. Both the Minister IT and Black Fish are expected to show up ;~)

The only national IT awards Pakistan has seen so far have come from NCR. For the past four years, NCR has celebrated the IT industry's various assortments and achievements including a variety of categories. The process is self-nomination, followed by an evaluation by an NCR selected panel.

Piracy losses in Pk.

According: "to the latest global software piracy study released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a group of the world’s leading software manufacturers, 83 percent illegal software installed on computers last year represented a loss of over $16 million to the Information Technology (IT) sector." Only $16 million? I thought the figure would have been in billions.

NetSol Technologies to Grabs contract with State Bank

NetSol Technologies Inc. has been awarded the contract to design and develop the country's new central banking Electronic Credit Information Bureau (eCIB). The project will enable more than 40 state banks to access credit information electronically, as well as share information with government agencies, other financial institutions and large corporations."

Internet Fraud at AKD Trade

According to this scoop: "Last July some employees at AKD Trade,an Internet trading arm of brokerage house AKD Securities, from the information technology, settlements and trading divisions colluded to conduct unauthorized trade. This resulted in a loss of Rs 29 million of which Rs 9 million has been recovered. Brokers estimate the losses on those trades to amount to Rs 100 million to Rs 150 million.
The Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has asked AKD Trade to submit a report to the apex regulator about this recent incident at the firm."

Want to join Orkut?

Read this by Bill Thompson. Any body who is not on Orkut and still wants to join; email me and give at least one reason for wanting to join. I will send the invitation.

Ufone to expand its GSM/GPRS Network

"Pak Telecom Mobile Limited (PTML),a wholly owned subsidiary of PTCL, has selected Nortel Networks to expand its Ufone GSM / GPRS network over the next year under agreements estimated at US$125 million. Nortel Networks will upgrade Ufone's existing wireless systems and supply new GSM/GPRS core network and radio access equipment, including Mobile Switching Center, Home Location Register (HLR) and advanced Base Transceiver Stations (BTS).
PTML launched Ufone on January 29, 2001 and, later that year, deployed a GPRS solution to enable a wireless Internet capability. Since its inception, Ufone has been a highly successful venture both in terms of subscriber uptake and network coverage. In its first four months of operation, it attracted some 100,000 subscribers and in its third and most recent expansion, in 2003-4, it raised capacity to over 1.5 million subscribers." Also has anyone noticed that ever since Ufone gave out about 4 lakh free phone connections, one gets frequent network busy messages when trying to make a call?

New DSL service providers

Daily Times reports: "Around 10 Internet service providers are gearing up to launch digital subscriber loop (DSL) based broadband services in 15 cities within one month.Currently, only four major players monopolise DSL-based Internet operations including, Micronet, Multinet, Rafiq Habib and WorldCall. "

Apocalypse, when?

First it was to be machines vs. us. Then a huge network breakdown. And finally, a computer-assisted [hmm, not sure if I used the right word] terrorist attack that would leave the world in utter darkness. Sci-fi writers are never short of doom theories. But the press picks it up and soon the wires start spilling it out as the last word in science. Intel's CTO is quoted all over the net saying "WWW is 'running up on some architectural limitations'", thanks to spammers. Noticed this one on Slashdot two days ago and I forbid you to go anywhere else for the real story for its there in what the Slashdotters have to say [financial, networking, expansion, technical--they've covered it all] about WWW's ultimate death ;~) Besides, all the online newspapers need a password to get in. In this case, that's a bliss.

I found this one hilarious: "Pentel, the world's leading provider of 0.5mm mechanical pencils has predicted the World Wide Web cannot continue to function at its present level for much longer. Pentel is offering an alternative, called WSD, or Writing Stuff Down, that is virtually immune to scaling problems currently plaguing the Web. Industry experts have been slow to respond to this proposal but their responses are expected any day now, via another new technology called the Post Office."

Internet cities, IT parks and us

Last month, I received a letter from the CEO of National IT Park who said our coverage of the building on Shara-e-Faisal, Karachi was not justified. I was reviewing the actual outcome of setting up such spaces. I visited the 'Park'--five floors dedicated to IT shops in Ceasar's Tower, sponsored by PSEB. Although getting paperwork and KESC to follow through took years, its taken just over 5 months for these floors to be taken over by small offshore BPO/call center units and software houses. Up in Islamabad and Lahore, Software Parks have fared cosiderably better over the years. I suppose the assumption is: if you build it, they will come, as they did.

Sameer just pointed out another 'grand' project: the UAE governemnt will help GoP to build three internet cities [obviously in KHI, LHR and ISL]. According to our fairly new Sindh IT minister, an "arrangement of 200 acres of land in the outskirts of the metropolis for the setting up of internet media city, close to the proposed educational city" has been mapped. Good on us! We are set to follow two remarkable experiments by Dubai [Knowledge Village and Internet City]. Does anyone agree such facilities should not be launched, funded or built without research, or am I being skeptical what's good for UAE [superb infrastructure and delivery] isn't neccessarily good for us?

A 'spatial challenge' at MIT

MIT spends $3 million to design and construct a 'spatial challenge' so why should educational brands in Pakistan fall shy of such challenges simply to innovate? Rodney Brooks writes a motivating note on the newly built Ray and Maria Stata Center on the MIT campus. Designed by Frank Gehry, it will inspire technophiles who will learn to do/undo traditional approaches to research. That is my humble summary. I encourage you to read his article appropriately titled "The Idea Factory" and see the Center in all its complicated glory.

Should porn have a place in our society?

Did you know that according to BBC statistics, 60 per cent of Internet users in Pakistan regularly visit pornographic websites?
In an essay titled 'The East is Blue', that is also set to published alongside images of American porn stars in a book entitled XXX:Porn star, Salman Rushdie claims "A free and civilised society should be judged on its willingness to accept pornography". In her recent article Miranda Husain, a writer for the Daily times, supports this view saying that "we should perhaps modify Mr Rushdie’s assertion: only a society that accepts the existence of pornography and also accepts the need to promote the forming of emotional bonds between the sexes can be described as a truly free and civilised society." What do you say?

ITU Telecom Asia 2004 Report

Report::
"-South Korea has offered to impart training to 30 Pakistani experts in the broadband, Internet and e-government sector.
-Awais Leghari says Pakistan is aggressively working on the formulation of a broadband policy, which would be out very soon to roll out.
-Awais Leghari offers the Chinese minister to set up software technology parks in Pakistan.
-Advance Communications, an Islamabad-based software company draws appreciation from all the global telecom giants exhibited at the ITU 2004 event."

Call Centers in pk

The daily times reports:
"-The turnover of call centres operating in the country is expected to double to $20 million this year, from $10 million last year, the equivalent of about 9 percent of total software exports of $110 million.
-Of the 90 call centres currently operating in the country, more than 60 were registered in 2004.
-In India IT-enabled businesses is worth $2.8 billion and employs over 285,000 people.
"

Keeping regulation at bay

It is music to one's ears when regulators talk like this: "Broadband voice services are a new and emerging market," said Stephen Carter, Ofcom Chief Executive. "Our first task as regulator is to keep out of the way."

Ofcom, UK's communication regulator, is currently working on a framework to make voice over telephony services user-friendly and popular. Their plain english summary is worth a read for people not keyed into VoIP.

Cybercafes

Can anyone guess when/where the first cybercafe opened in Karachi [or Pakistan]? Any intelligent guesses are welcome.

I first spotted one in 1996 [main University Road, Karachi] and started using it. I had heard of singer Shehki's cybercafe in Clifton earlier, though can't recall when.

This BBC news item says the first cybercafe opened in Britain 10 years ago. I found the news item more interesting because within the report, the webmaster has inserted a note asking if the reader is in a cybercafe: "Are you reading this in an internet cafe? If so, tell us where and what it's like. Send us a picture too." Cool! The response this news item generated has been significant so far. This is how a news organization is supposed to serve its community today--by involving them.

Microsoft Launches MSN Music

Microsoft vs. Apple

MSN Music vs. iTunes

IBM Recalls Notebook Adapters

Affects IBM ThinkPad i Series, 390 and 240 Series and s Series notebooks mostly in the Asia-Pacific region. Free adapters exchange program. Read more.

Tecnomen to deliver MMSC and VMS for Telenor

While there can be too much information about who is signing up with whom and for what, my thanks to our friend Murali in Isloo for pointing this one out.

"Telenor Pakistan and its network infrastructure provider Siemens Information and Communication Mobile have chosen Tecnomen to supply its Voice Mail System (VMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service Centre (MMSC). Delivery will take place this month."

India to construct five IT parks in Iran

IT parks in Iran:: "Besides providing training to 5,000 people the project will set the stage for creating 300,000 jobs in local industrial sector worth 300 million dollars"

Muslim marriages over the net declared illegal

According to this report: "The decree came in response to a question asked by a man in Pakistan. Mohammad Zahirullah Haqqani, of a seminary called Darul Uloom Haqqaniya of Naushera town in Pakistan, had sent a query to Deoband. He sited an example of a Muslim man in the US who married a woman in Pakistan over the Internet. The two saw each other through a web camera and spoke to each other by voice mail. They then got married over the Internet.Haqqani asked Deoband scholars if the nikah was valid.
At the department of fatwa in Deoband, the committee comprising Maulana Mahmood Hassan, Maulana Zafiruddin and Maulana Habibur Rehman pronounced the nikah invalid."

Innovative 'spam'

Haven't come across this one before: "I have visited this website and I found you in the spammer list. Is that true?" The email came with a virus attached to it. I say, these guys are getting creative with their writing skills.

Video Conference Systems for the Judiciary in Pak

Here is an interesting article that suggests how a video conference system can improve the judiciary process in Pakistan.

IT minister or crooks?

the Daily Times reports: "Member of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) Kashmala Tariq alleged that Punjab Minister for Information Technology (IT) Abdul Aleem Khan was involved in land grabbing for his Park View Housing Society."

PML Website Launched

When you read this press release you get the impression that something really flashy awaits at the PML site. However on reaching there you get to know that none of the PML members at the site have their profiles listed there-infact on opening the profile section the Pakistani flag is found fluttering there instead.The headlines in the current affairs section are in an annoyingly very large font of size 30 plus. This lousy site is actually supposed to give a 'modern' look to the PML, according to the Party's mouthpiece Mushahid Hussain.

ISLAMABAD : Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain Saturday inaugurated the Website of Pakistan Muslim League that contains the 98-years history record of the PML."

Ericsson pulls the plug on bluetooth devices

Just the production, not affecting support.

DAP is a pest!!!

Be warned.

There was something fishy going on as one of the systems I was working on went bizarre and both online and Norton AV scan came up with nothing.

However an online scan for pests from www.pestscan.com detected Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) as the culprit, even after uninstalling it from the system! Spybot –S&D was able to take care of it.

Read more about it and what it does at:
http://pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/D/Download_Accelerator_Plus.asp

I suggest Meta Express Download Manager (www.metaproducts.com/), its small, fast and to the point.

Pakistan 'Type' open source community

Thanks to Irfan K for pointing this one out. More from his email: "Other than Nafees Nastaleeq font of CRULP, other decorative Urdu unicode fonts are available here.”

1.8 Billion Rupees Only!!!

The daily times reports that: "The state-run Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited %28PTCL%29 has hired a Chinese firm to computerise its billing and customer care operations at the cost of Rs 1.8 billion. Officials at the company said the Chinese firm %97 ZTE Technologies %96 will be responsible to automate the whole system within 18 months and complete the task in accordance with international telecom standards."

Cheaper Bandwidth Rates For Pern Universities

According to this report: "Higher Education Commission has negotiated a special package with National Telecommunication Corporation %28NTC%29 and Pakistan Telecommunication Company %28PTCL%29 for provision of broadband internet services to Pakistan Educational Research Network %28PERN%29 connected universities. %0D%0AUnder this new arrangement universities connected with PERN will get at least 2MB of international bandwidth at the rate of US%24 2500 per month"

Urdu email without sign up hassles

From Spider's marketing whizz Mir Abbas comes this cool find: Urdu email No need to sign up. Just type it out and send away. It works!

Argo, Argonauts and IT Projects

Once upon a time, there lived a Jason, son of King Aeson of Lolcus.

Before Jason was born, King Aeson’s half brother Pelias, overthrew Jason’s father. When Jason was full-grown he returned to Lolcus to regain the thrown. Pelias agreed to give up the thrown if Jason brought back the Golden Fleece from the kingdom of Colchis. Jason asked Argus, a master shipbuilder, to build him a great ship with fifty oars. Then he sent envoys to every palace in Greece, asking for volunteers to help capture the Golden Fleece. The ship was called Argo, and the fifty volunteers, the Argonauts.

What has Argo, Argonauts have to do with IT project management, find out in CIPS across CANADA Summer 2004 issue (that will be online any time now).

Post Amazers work on the new Exorcist

Asif Iqbal of Post Amazers has sent in this news: "Post Amazers did visual effects for a hollywood block buster releasing today across united states 'Exorcist the begining'.This i think is historical as the first ever pakistan company to work for Hollywood, we are also finishing few shots on another blockbuster, I will give you details once it will be released."

Eight names from the company appear in the credits, including one of the chief technical designers. Very, very interesting :)

Messenger on-the go

Finally a web based MSN messenger. No need to install the client software.

Just the thing I needed to run on my Symbain OS. Great way to keep in touch as long as you have access to the Internet from anywhere on the Earth :)

http://www.e-messenger.net/

South Asia Tribune blocked--again!

Access to South Asia Tribune is blocked once again. Can anyone confirm this?

Something's fishy on Yahoo!

Nauman Afzal, our open source writer, sends this warning for Yahoo! users. "I just received an e-mail from someone claiming to be from Yahoo Administration. On close observation, I found it to be a phishy email as it required me to follow a link and enter my username and password in order to reconfirm that I will be using this account in future. If I entered those details, it will be captured! The pretext given was that since Yahoo! has upgraded to 100 MB and a lot of accounts are lying dormant therefore, a reconfirmation is required. How did I find out that this was a "phishing" attempt? Well I guess Peter Lavin was kind enough to warn us about this menace (many thanks to him) simply because the link address was: http://yahooadmin.8m.com/yahoopage.html Anyone with a little knowledge of the Web would ask “Why would yahoo use 8m to host its own webpage?" I just want to share this with everyone and warn them to be careful in case they receive a similar mail."

New look

Nice new look. Blog really seems to be moving and growing with time.

Guess what percentage of our GDP is spent on IT?

At present: ", a little over 5 per cent of Pakistan's gross domestic product (GDP) consists of the services sector out of which 2.5 per cent is the financial services sector, while 3 per cent is the information and communication technologies (ICTs) sector. To measure how far Pakistan has to travel as a comparison benchmark, it must be understood that USA's ICT Sector alone is over 50 per cent of that country's GDP. "

Teledensity in Pakistan?

Local discounted call provider: "REDtone International Bhd said it has been awarded a long distance and international licence from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the first such licence for the group since its listing on Mesdaq in January.
With the licence, valid for 20 years, REDtone (www.redtone.com) will be able to offer voice telephone, data and IT services in Pakistan, the company said in a press statement today.
REDtone said the country has tremendous potential, with a teledensity penetration of only 3% and a population of 150 million. " Doesn't the Ministy of IT&T claim a much higher tele-denisty in Pakistan than the one as claimed by REDtone? Would anyone know the teledenisty in pk according to government figures? Tee Emm?

Pakistan's First Wireless Broadband Service

NetSol Technologies, Inc: "a developer of proprietary software applications and provider of information technology services, today announced that its majority-owned subsidiary, NetSol-Akhter, has substantially completed the roll out of it wireless broadband infrastructure in Karachi, Pakistan.
The company plans to offer wireless broadband services for domestic and corporate customers at speeds up to 512KB per second for 1GB of data beginning at Rs. 500 (approximately $8.60 U.S.) per month with a maximum speed of up to 2MBs per second costing Rs. 20,000 (approximately $344.25 U. S.) per month for 32GBs of data. The wireless broadband sector in Pakistan is estimated at over $100 million. "

Just-in: Win 98 Balochi Tutorial

Yahya Noor from the fishing port town of Gwadar has sent Spider a Balochi tutorial of Win98. He says: "I used Macromedia Director to create this tutorial and now I am planning to launch it for Balochi Spoken People, and my next projects include MS-Office XP, Urdu Inpage, Software Troubleshooting and Operating and Software Installation."

Urdu version of Microsoft Windows

Urdu version of Microsoft Windows: "The Urdu version of Microsoft Windows would be introduced in Pakistan soon as a majority of its people have a problem understanding and writing English, said Information Technology Minister Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari. The move was aimed at improving the literacy rate in the country, The News quoted him as saying. According to government statistics, 50-55 per cent of the country's population was literate but only eight per cent of this population could read English. "

Spider Yahoo!Group by a fan

A fan has started a Yahoo!Group for Spider readers.

Lifestyle PC

Wired carries a flashy ad for a compact computer case [PC in a cube] which targets fashionable/mobile people. According to the ad, you can carry your pet in it too.

Interestingly, Habib IT has showcased its own line called XC Cube [in red color] at the ITCN Asia. Their website doesn't carry any info on it [checking the price on the phone] so no specs available.

PC Mag carries a useful article on these X boxes. Think Geek has pics.

Give me access or give me death!

No link here, just a comment on how I was in Bahawalpur for two weeks, teaching at Sadiq Public School. Although my students knew what the Internet was, less than 30% of them had access; yet, amusingly enough, approximately 60% of the senior class was taking a course in A-level computer science, studying networking, Flash, HTML and Web design, and of course, C++.

Just found that slightly interesting. Frustrating, since I couldn't check e-mail for a week or so at a stretch, but interesting nonetheless. Any other schools in the country offer computing classes at that level (i.e. in high school)?

Porn is vital to freedom claims Rushdie

Raising yet another controversy: "Indian-born writer Salman Rushdie claims that porn is vital to freedom and supports his argument with statistics about the volume of porn traffic on the internet in Pakistan.

Rushdie argues that a free and civilized society should be judged by its willingness to accept pornography. His views are to be published alongside images of American porn stars in a book called XXX:30 Porn star "

Blogs vs. Discussion forums

Azeem asks: What is the difference between blogs and discussion forums? From all perspectives.

Zunaira says:

- Both involve publishing online.

- Blogs started out as specific to one user who invited comments. Now,
the line between group blogs and discussion forums is blurry.

- The fundamental difference between the two being, blogs are focused on hyperlinking and networking the Internet (as well as the blog world itself) at large. Why is there a market for blogs? Because people want to make sense of the information being thrown at them, edit them according to their preference and rant in cyberspace—without moderators and other 'corporate freaks' who were begining to put a password on every public platform in a supposedly free world (cyberspace).

- Discussion forums are seen as an organized platform. Blogs, despite
their dynamic subject matter and capabilities, are viewed as unorganized, informal and even anti-establishment.

- Interestingly, enough you have given me an idea for an article :)
Thank you! On the other hand, bloggers would say "yea, whatever. we
really don't care where you fit us in. we are here to stay."

VoIP News

Nortel Wins Pakistan VOIP Contract: "Warid Telecom has awarded Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT) (TSX:NT) a four-year frame contract to provide a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) next generation network (NGN) in Pakistan. This highly efficient network will allow Warid to deliver high quality National and International Long Distance under license from the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA)."