Abnormal Geek!!!

Few days before GreenNWhite posted about an excellent article. This article is about Development Abstraction Layer ; for me it's a way to manage successful software company. This article published on Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky . Initially he started with definition of Software , different than definitions in Software Engineering books. Software is a conversation, between the software developer and the user. But for that conversation to happen requires a lot of work beyond the software development. It takes marketing, yes, but also sales, and public relations, and an office, and a network, and infrastructure, and air conditioning in the office, and customer service, and accounting, and a bunch of other support tasks. This is the lesson which most of project manager does not understand and sometime developers too! Then he described Development Abstraction Layer! Think of your development abstraction layer as a big, beautiful yacht with insanely powerful motors. It's imp

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living. -- Gail Sheehy

  Yes, we all know this is not a technical error. If it is; what about repeating such error from Pakistan? The sad point is the behavior of our political leaders… Image Courtesy: http://jang.com/jm

A workshop is going to organize by TIE and IoBM on topic ‘Essential Homework for Entrepreneurs’. Naeem Zafar , speaker of the session, is CEO of two startups in Silicon Valley and teaches entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Haas Business School, University of California Berkley. Well, I am excited to attend this workshop. Registration is free but with limited seats on first come first, served basis. Huh… at 10:00 am and too far from my home. Well, if someone also going to attend this workshop (if you will be going through F.B. Area, then let me know we will go together) then you can catch me there!

If someone asked me what's the best profession to recommend people get into - that's software development," he said. "So much more innovation will be created in the next 10 years. Ten years from now we will look back and say how primitive life was back then." "We will talk to computers and they will respond. Everything we touch will be an electronic surface connected to the Internet. Everything will be automatically streamed. There is sure a lot of software left writing in this world." Copyright © 2008 IDG News Service. All rights reserved. IDG News Service is a trademark of International Data Group, Inc. Source: http://www.cio.com/article/print/460621

Today I invited at MAJU for a guest speaker session and asked to present something on design patterns. I chose recently released Microsoft ASP.Net MVC framework as topic for this session. Session went excellent, some really nice question popup from students and we had very good discussion on that. Unfortunately, I don't have any picture of lovely audience at the moment. I will try to get one and publish here later. I am planning to make a post on same topic for my blog (just pray I could do!) but my presentation for session is available for download at http://mqpasta.googlepages.com/ASP.NetMVCFramework.pptx . Update: Code uploaded at:  http://mqpasta.googlepages.com/ MVCWebApp.rar

Last Sunday I gave a presentation on REST, an architecture style, at PAF-KIET. The presentation gave introduction of REST and a comparison analysis between REST and SOAP approaches for SOA. My presentation for session is available for download at http://mqpasta.googlepages.com/rest.pptx .

The following email received on alumni group. Dear All We (Mission Rescue Pakistan) are setting up Relief Camp, to help the Earthquake Victims of Baluchistan on Saturday & Sunday opposite to Park Towers. We'll be needing Volunteers to help us out in the Relief Camp. We are not looking for Money, we are looking for commodities, goods like:- 1- Medicine 2- Tents 3- Food & Water 4- Warm Cloths etc... Camp will start working from 1100 Hrs to 2000 Hrs, on saturday & sunday. We really appreciate, if all can spread the word arround, and gather commodities as much as possible. We'll be transporting all the goods to Queetta, inshallah on Monday, and two of our members will be flying to Quetta, to ensure the right distribution of goods. We are looking forward for your help & support. Be National; Act National. Mission Rescue Pakistan Regards, Farrukh Baig, PMP

See'n Report,a Paksitani web-based startup, entered into v2.0 with following features. Video support:  Upload videos in your reports along with images Editable reports:  Edit the reports that you have submitted earlier. Yourprofile page lists all your reports with a link to edit the report. So if you submitted any reports via email/MMS and want to fix that typo or just want to add that extra description, now is the excellent time Organize images:  You can re-arrange the pictures in your report for better visualization. You can also add description to individual images Search:  Stories can now be searched using keywords Categories:  You can select the categories of your report at the time of upload

Although, the author  does not have good repo in my memories but worth to share this one. Source:  http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/oct2008-daily/27-10-2008/col2.htm

[I wrote this post on Wednesday, 22 nd October but could not post due to blessing of KESC] Today, I received email from Mr. Waseem stating that UIT Alumni Dinner 2008 has been postponed till further notice. Well, if someone asks my feeling then there is nothing except sadness. Timeline: I got a call from Mr. Waseem and he informed me about UIT Alumni Gathering. I was so pleased and ensure my cooperation. We discussed about Sponsorship but I stated my point of view clearly that it is not possible for an inactive forum (I remember how I was able to get 0.45 million sponsorship from industry for our event UTECH). We got invitation of Alumni Dinner via email. I talked with my seniors, fellows and juniors; everyone was excited. Soon, sadly, we got another email with stating that Rs.1,000/- as Alumni Annual charges and somehow a constraint in order to attend this dinner. i.e. Rs.1,000/- for dinner. Due to this, people become furious and they reacted oppositely A chain of email including v

Bruce Richall is an IT consultant based in the affluent Connecticut suburb of Westport. He describes how the loss of his job at a multinational bank triggered a rapid spiral into poverty. Having depleted his savings and unable to afford rent, he now sleeps in the back of his car. I now sleep in the back of my car, while I wait for a bed to become available at the shelter. I call it The Hotel Honda Read complete story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7681978.stm

I have been using Ufone for last 5 years… and since my first day with Ufone, I activated GPRS on my connection and use time by time. Recently, I bought a smart phone and configured with Ufone GPRS settings but didn't use so much. Recently, in Eid vacations I become victim of Faulty Cable Net and had lost internet connective at home. Unfortunately, our client in UK faced some serious issues and we are asked to communicate. I had no choice except to utilize my GPRS connection. As I am Memon, so first thing I do with my phone browser setting is turn-off images J (so I can save money). I installed fring so we can communicate with them, use Gmail mobile and no other fancy stuff. Soon, I realized my credit become Zero (0)… ops! Recharged my account and just one more day to reach Zero (0) balance. Damm! I decided to give a check… and following are my findings!   Before Using fring Signing into fring Difference Packet Send (KB) 657 673 16 Packet Received (KB) 1536 1567 31 Balance (amou

From My Art Work

Never make your feelings like a garden, so that everyone walks on it. Let them be like the sky so that everyone wishes to touch it!

Getting harassed or bothered by phone calls? Report to the PTA complaint center! The Government has started the Toll Free Number  080055055  working under PTA, where you can log complaints if u are being bothered or harassed by a particular cell or landline number, action is guaranteed within 48 hours. Disclaimer Notice:  I haven't tried the number myself yet.

If there is rain in Karachi, we start blogging about it. If we found something amazing while driving, we do blog it. Oh, today I am not feeling well, we do blog too! BUT where are we all when US attacks on our country? Do you not think they are testing how much resistance they will face if they open war against US? Awake! Please awake! Adnan suggested an image to place on our blog to protest against US attacks on Pakistan. If you feel that posting an image does not worth anything then read here what Chinese did on critics from international media against Beijing Olympics.

  کیا آپ جاننا چاہتے ہیں کہ ہمارے ملک میں جو ہو رہا ہے اسکے پیچھے کیا ہے؟ ہمارے وزراء کن چیزوں میں مصروف ہیں؟ مہنگائی کی وجہ کیا ہے؟ اسمبلیوں کی حقیقت کیا ہے؟  اگر آپ کو ان تمام سوالات کے جوابات چاہئے تو آپ بھی میری طرح نسیم حجازی کی کتاب "سفید جزیرہ" کا مطالعہ کریں. اگرچہ انھوں نے یہ کتاب 1958میں لکھی تھی مگر چوں کے ہماتے حالات ویسے کہ ویسے ہی ہیں لہزا آپ کو اِس کتاب کے تمام کردار ذندہ نظرآئیں گے .

From a forwarded email 1st Mail 2 HR Dear HR manager,   1.       Raja, my assistant programmer, can always be found   2.       hard at work in his cubicle. Raja works independently, without   3.       wasting company time talking to colleagues. Raja never   4.       thinks twice about assisting fellow employees, and he always   5.       finishes given assignments on time. Often Raja takes extended   6.       measures to complete his work, sometimes skipping coffee   7.       breaks. Raja is a dedicated individual who has absolutely no   8.       vanity in spite of his high accomplishments and profound   9.       knowledge in his field. I firmly believe that Raja can be   10.     classed as a high-caliber employee, the type which cannot be   11.     dispensed with. Consequently, I duly recommend that Raja be   12.     promoted to executive management, and a proposal will be   13.     sent away as soon as possible.    Signed - Project Leader 2nd Mail to HR Dear HR manager,  Note: T

It proves! A Picture is worth a thousand words :) Usually, we consider teamwork as just formal duty to cooperate with colleagues! as I said... its duty not teamwork! :) Personally, I don't have any such bad memories regarding teamwork.. but some very nice memories... especially the time when I was chairman of UITCS and we organized UTECH 2006 ... I can proudly say that UTECH 2006 team did what this pic said... Thumbs Up!

UIT Team participated in Software Category of COMBAT 2008 (national level multi-competition event organized by PAF-KIET) and got First Prize for project URDU OCR. The team members of this project are Abdul Wahab, Shuwair Sardar, and Muhammad Abdul Sammad Khan.

You can see Pakistani flag on outermost corner of a Crane of an under-construction building at Shahr-e-faisal. I am pretty much sure that not the owner, manager or a suited-booted person can do this but a low-salaried, hardworking but patriotic Pakistani.

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. Brian Kernighan

Did you hear a single statement from any politicial about following news? So... how conscious they are for our people... Photo: Jang.com.pk

I just installed Microsoft Office on my system (?) and first thing I have to do is publishing a test post from here. More updates are here ! Just to check whether it can modify old posts or not J [failed] Publishing as new post!: ? Conclusion: Microsoft Word 2007 can't modify/publish already published post. Puhh! (I checked it for blogger)

ATP published an online poll on 27th July 2008 with question 'Who is in-charge of Pakistan today?'. By this time, they have been received 308 votes and the result is very much interesting. According to result, no one believe that actually our honorable prime minister is in-charge of Pakistan today; as per law he should be. So, who is puppeteer?

I came to know about this readability test from Tazeen's blog. According to this test my blog's readability level is 'Genius', I don't trust as there is no info about how its work :)

I still remember the time when we had long discussion with Sir. Parkash Lohana (HOD of Computer Science) and Mr. Iftikhar Mubasshir (Coordinator of First Poster Session). The idea of Poster Session; an event in which students demostrate projects in front of people from industry, was rejected by other departements due to unknown reason (usually we give it name 'FEAR'). Mr. Parkash was the one who initated this idea but later was not feeling comfortable to execute only for CS department. Any how, he agreed and gave us permission to organize first Poster Session . The interesting part of the story is ... after organizng two successful such events... other departements showed their wish to be part of this event too! poor decision maker! Well, the fifth episode of this event is going to happen tomorrow. Everyone from industry and/or academia is invited to evaluate students' projects. Hire them if you need, appreciate them if you like, guide them if you feel. In Poster Session

One of my cousin is leaving living in UAE with her family and like many other people and we were using MSN as voice chat. Usually in office, we are using  use Skype to communicate with foreign clients. So, I asked her to install Skype and give it a try. Fortunately, she also having Google Talk on her PC so we though to do a test for all these three. First we gave a try to MSN: not good, voice quality is so bad... even I was not able to hear correctly. Skype: Voice quality was good ... a bit louder sound, but again, I was not able to hear correctly due to clipping voice. Google Talk: today's evening winner! Google talk has been giving good voice quality and no discontinuity during voice chat! its like we are talking on phone. Update: thanks Huma for identifying typo.

In December 2007, over 2,000 American Muslims were asked what they would wish to say to the rest of the world. This is what they said. A music video for Kareem Salama's "A Land Called Paradise." Source: http://www.linktv.org/onenation2007/films/view/238

A student of private school, Samad Khurram, refused to receive his award from US ambassador as a sign of protest against US attack on Armed Forces inside Pakistan. You can read complete story at Pakistani Spectator , WeCite , Daily Times , Association Press of Pakistan , or watch video at YouTube As usual, debates on different forums have been started that whether he did right or wrong! Regardless that, here are my observations: A simple search on Google News Search showed only 3 stories (all three links are pointing to local media) where at the same time same string generated more than 50 results on Google Blog Search ! So; international media is no more interested.... why? click on image to see in large size click on image to see in large size I don't know any thing about Mr. Samad Khuram, but I believe this is the best way to protest instead long march or strikes... There are people who have objection that then why is he learning in US? They must rethink ... should

You won't believe! I just received call from CPLC confirming whether still I am receiving call from that bastard or not? He did not only ensured that there will be no more such calls from that number but also gave me number in other case. My mother was receiving harassment calls from a specific number (see  here ) , I made a complain to CPLC  via their email address and it worked! Thanks God and thanks CPLC !

FireFox 3.0 is on my machine! a bit stylish toolbar, IMPROVED performance and nothing special! The most important feature of FireFox 3.0 (for me) is Performance and I believe they spent good time for this feature and it is visible through first flight. Another interesting and improved feature is Zoom facility. I surprised to see image quality with maximum zoom ... it is wonderful experience.... give it a try! Other good features in this release are One click bookmark (Useless feature if you use use Ctrl+D for bookmark), Adds On Manager: search install new add-on from a single window(I don't search daily); and better security (every one Cliam). I found a feature 'smooth scrolling' but unable to understand what it is and also feel performance hit when this option is enable. New stylish toolbar of FireFox 3.0 (see new style for Back button) at maximum zoom

For last one month someone ,from number 03223687216, harassing my mother on her cell number. Initially we ignored but now it is increasing day by day. What should I do? Let me know via comments or end me email at mqpasta (at) gmail (dot) com

1. Turn off your monitors whenever you leave your computer desk even for few minutes. 2. Shutdown or hibernate your computer when leaving for lunch, a cup of tea or going outside with your friend. 3. Ask your friends before downloading a new game or piece of software for whole night. Do you have any?  If you would like to add/remove any tip then let me know via comments!

Owais Mughal wrote an excellent post on Gwadar Port at http://pakistaniat.com . No doubt he made great efforts to collect all these facts and details. I just would like highlight few points from that post. Gwadar port is not only economically important for Pakistan but it also hold important strategic and political aspects. Iran is also having concern with Gwadar port as it can take away businesses from Iranian port. India took it as opportunity and helping Iran to develop its port Chabahar. Ops! Did you hear it in news before? Gwadar port identified in 1964 , Feasibility study started in 1993 ... after 28 years! great! Even at that time we didn't think about to develop this port. Thanks to Chinese Government, In May 2001 they agreed for financial and technical support for this project. On March 22, 2002 laid the foundation of Gwadar Port and inaugurated in March 2005... yes, its not typo... completed in 3 years! I don't want to go in debate of Democracy or Dictatorship

This is a test post from Zourdy Raven blog post editor....

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination - Bertrand Russell

You can generate separate DLLs for all code-behind files (.aspx.cs pages) of your web application by following three simple steps. 1. Right click on Project in Solution Explorer and select ‘Publish Web Site’ 2. Select first two checkboxes and provide the path 3. Click on OK One of the need of these separate DLL is to perform Code Analysis (aka FxCop ) on these files in order to measure the quality of the code.

Source: http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=117164 At 5.15 p.m. June 4, I stopped at Plaza, in front of the Polani Motors on Karachi 's busiest thoroughfare, the M. A. Jinnah Road , to have my car's electric window repaired. Soon, I was mobbed by some seven to eight people, who insisted that I get some door rubbers installed. I refused but they started the work nevertheless. Quickly, I found myself trapped, with these people doing all sorts of work on the car, not listening to my command, directions and pleadings. These people had me so placed that I could not run, scream or phone anybody, even though I was on the busiest road of Karachi . By all means, I was held hostage by them. Then it was crunch time. Their boss handed me small piece of paper. It was a bill for Rs25,600. He literally ordered me to pay. Yes! You read it correctly, Rs25,600 for work I did not order and I did not know anything about — for installing some rubbers on the doors. Their boss ordered

Its 1:00 AM not 12:00 AM ..... day light saving implemented for next three months! But I think world is not ready for this! see the time of this post... Google didn't implemented for my country :'(

From a forwarded email. In your very best relationship - whether your spouse, best friend, sister, co-worker - you can easily communicate with them in a high value way. You telephone, email, write notes, make plans and generally stay in contact with them because you want a connection and a relationship with them. In building very good relationships in business, it is absolutely the same. What is different in a business relationship is that you are communicating with colleagues and you don't always know them as well as a dear friend. However, they need the same attention that a good relationship needs. These needs are: Returning a phone call Following up on a request Listening intently Appreciative communication Clear communication with details and directions Doing what you say you will do Remembering what is important to them Valuing what is most important to them Our communication styles and methods are being stretched by email, technology, lack of time and resources

At last my own domain is live and successfully integrated with my blog. I registered my domain around 18 months before with a local hosting company. This was not the first time that I registered any domain but to my surprise the first time a company claimed that they charged only for domain parking and not for any other services like DNS management, email forwarding etc. Even, if I want to point my domain to any server then I should buy other services to do so or purchase hosting service :( Well, this time I have managed to register my domain with FREE service that made me able to point my domain to my blog. I did a little bit tuning of UI (you can see addition/removal of some widgets) and integrated my old-friend i.e. FeedBurner. So, if you are one of the subscriber of my blog then please re-subscribe to my FeedBurner's feed.

I don't want to be a programmer for forever but its true :)

If you are still in feelings that World is in peace and nothing could happen like WW II then you have to rethink again ... as my last post pointed out an article indicating WW III but still some one can ask why US need to so these all? Well, at one side US needs possession on Oil reservoir to support economy and the other side US needs Oil for its own usage ...I believe following images tell 1000 words :) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:EIA_petroleum_consumption_of_selected_nations_1960-2005.png . The above picture clearly shows that consumption of Oil by US is much much higher than other countries ... surprisingly more than China and India too. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hubbert_world_2004.png This picture shows that status of NON-ARAB oil reservoirs. You can see that till 2005 all NON-ARAB reservoirs have been crossed their peek time. So, now only ARAB reservoirs are hope for US :) So be ready, test yourself without Electricity (no TV, no compute

Do you want to know what is behind this High oil prices? Behind Iraq and Afghanistan War? Do you know that what types of 'mass-of-destruction' weapons are in Iran? Must read this article: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/06/342746.html Related post: Do you trade in Euro?

It took long time to write about two fine talents of UIT which recently explored in an event 'Digital Eyez' . I am talking about Raj and Faizan Saeed which got 1 st and 2 nd position respectively in Web designing competition of 'Digital Eyez' . 'Digital Eyez' was a photographic centric event organized by students of National University of Computer & Emerging Science (FAST) and Nuvica Pakistan was the major sponsor of the event. The theme of web designing competition was the Nuvica’s website and responded well by participants. I met with Raj just one month before and found him a passionate talented guy who wants to change the world overnight. I had few interactions with him and yet not able to see his work for ‘Digital Eyez’ (he did his work on Flash which can’t witness as thumbnail) but his achievement witness his creativity. Personally, I know Faizan since my first day as chairman of UITCS and found him most creative person I ever met. He was th

A poem by 10 years old poet Risha Ahmed I think the opposite way Because I am abnormal The things you find beautiful Are the things which I find dull The things I find amusing Are things which you think will bore Things which you find uninspiring Are things which make my mind soar I almost forgot in the talk What I really had to do I think the most good looking Person I know is you

Yesterday, Google launched Google App Engine. It allows you to run your web applications on Google's Infrastructure. Yes! by Google's Infrastructure means that you can utilize GFS and BigTable too! Although in preview release user can utilize limited bandwidth and computing resources but later you can purchase more resources. Remember Google App Engine is free and will remains free according to Google App Engine's blog . My first impression is same as the title of this post. This time Google not only selling the result of their to people but also generating new type of competition for companies. Off course, as a developer I will love to host my services on Google's infrastructure to get benefits by state of art technology developed at Google but not for all my services. A blog ' Technology Update ' described benefits for Google App Engine : No assembly required. It's easy to scale. It's free to get started. Currently, The Google App Engine implem

Yet today is a good day as its my second post about my country and positive too :) I found this album  from Karachi Metro blog's post  which is having very nice photographs about Karachi. Take a look and see how beautiful our city is.

This news didn't really surprised me that Pakistan's stock market is world's best growing stock market but Brazil is down 11%, Russia is down 13%, China is down 26% and INDIA is down 40%. Usually, the world's situation affect us and our neighbor in similar manner but this time this formula didn't work well. I am not an economist but stock markets are one of the indicator about economy. Presently, confidence of a Pakistani is very low about current condition of Pakistan's economy and I think one of the reason is in following paragraph. The following graph shows performance of Karachi Stock Exchange for last year(Apr 2007 - Feb 2008) and last five years (May 2003-Sep 2007)। We can observer that overall market is growing up and up by time BUT you can also observe the specific pattern of market (marked by red circles)। These patterns are because of market giants like AKD etc. Such down falls causes lost of huge amount invested by small investors and some times al

Have you ever noticed that how does Traffic Light relate to our life? Whenever light is Red we are not suppose to move forward ... if light is Yellow... we should prepare ourself to launch... but still we are not suppose to move forward until light become Green! I am also waiting for Green Light !

Recently I posted about security flaws in our banks. Unfortunately, one of my friend also affected by these security flaws but in different way. He is a technology aware person and has been using computer (and related technology) since last 10 years. The incident itself a series of events and I would like to mention it step by step: He activated his e-banking account 6 months ago and didn't use single time. So, all his credential was default set by bank. Few days before he received an SMS informing him that around Rs.100/- has transferred from his account to a Ufone number. He contacted the call center to talk the customer representative but surprisingly the respond that "you are not registered with our call center. Kindly visit your branch and fill the form to register with our call center" (:D can you imagine? Dam!) On such response he decided to contact that person (Ufone number) directly to know who is he. (Bad luck starts from here) He called but on telling him

Received from a forward email: A giant ship engine failed. The ship's owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine. Eventually they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship's owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed! A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars. "What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!" So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please send us an itemized bill." The man sent a bill that read

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. ( James Russell Lowell ) The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything--and it works. ( William Strong ) It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. ( Theodore Roosevelt )

Are you a blogger? Do you have any web site? your friend? If YES, then I need your help. I am working on a report and for this I need following data: The Number visitors/hits on your blog/website The number of unique visitors on your blog/website Duration for which above data taken You can send me email at mqpasta (at) gmail (dot) com

According to Dawn News NBP has suspended inter-bank ATM service after finding out some one have cracked PIN codes and hardware security models of their system. According to news there is chances that employees of bank are also involved in this incident and one of employee of NBP at Headquarter in Karachi, in charge of hardware security of the bank's online money supply service, had disappeared. It is useless to say that he is having lot of information about accounts and PIN codes. Being an  IT professional, I know the each and every information we stores in databases. But such crucial and sensitive information are stored in database after encryption (converting into codes, so no one can read without decoding) and a security layer must be deployed to make those information secure. Like, if some one knows the encryption algorithm or knows how to encrypt information then he/she should not be able to access the actual data. And the person who can access the actual data should not kno

Check out following resources for startups! StartupNation.com  , by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs Microsoft Startup Center [www.microsoft.com/startupcenter] A wonderful e-book "Your Road Map to Success: how to write a winning business plan" (sponsored by Microsoft). You can download at http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/8/3/a83023c7-00a2-43b5-a3fe-2a8c29e14ee3/MS_eBook_Road%20Map_Final2.pdf You can download Word's template for business plan for startup business at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC010175201033.aspx?pid=CT101172331033

Power Crisis in Karachi is one of the hot topic for Pakistani Blogger. Karachi Metro Blog , Chowrangi and  Pakistaniat have written on the topic. It is useless to add something more except few comments which made in response of Pakistaniat 's post. Firstly, comments from my side "What I know … if you talk to a middle-class family (who lives in F.B. Area , Nazimabad or N. Nazimabad) you will find they always pay bill at time … their bills have been getting high and high despite load-shedding for long long hours … I don't know …. what is going to happen but is it not enough?" And later, someone said very well but with anonymous nick 'Reluctant Expatriate' "I always wonder what will be the outcome if some of the team of Pakistani investment bankers who raise venture capital of billions in New York, and hordes of Pakistani engineers who design, build, and operate power plants and electricity transmission systems in US can be combined into a strong te

Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques by Jiawei Han and Micheline Kamber is a very good book about Data Mining. Han also uploaded slides for all chapters of this book. You can download slides from http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~han/dmbook If you are interested only about Data warehouse (like me) then go through slides of first two chapters.

Do you want to know what is 'Khawateen Ka Din"? Karachi Metro blog has very nice post about this topic. You must read it at http://karachi.metblogs.com/2008/03/08/international-womens-day/ . Usually, in our country this day belongs to the "Working Lady" or "Corporate Women". Despite of the topic, personally I have met number of working women and every one has single answer of question "Are you doing this job on your wish?", NO . I am not against the working women but the real picture is a bit different if we remove sunglasses from our eyes. Still there is real need to workout for the solution of REAL problems. I am not talking about lady living in a house of 600 sq ft and driving its own car, having decent designation in an national or international firm. Think about a lady working in a garment factory , use general transport, even she never wear clothes which she has been stitching for years and years.... Have we done something for them?  Happ

Some abstracts from 'A Learning Guide to Design Patterns' [ http://www.industriallogic.com/papers/learning.html ]. A study group is a collection of individuals who gather together regularly to improve their understanding of some non-trivial subject, such as a body of great literature, by participating in a focused discussion. While there is nothing wrong with lectures, they have a tendency to create passive learning experiences for attendees. If one is interested in simply gathering information, a lecture may be a fine place to do it. But if one really wants to understand something (to "get your hands dirty"), there is nothing like a study group The all written in that page is about Design Patterns Study Group but I believe it is essential lesson which should spread to our respectable teachers and young students. IMHO the concept of such study groups has been dying in our universities, and I blame students for this [as I am also student]. I love to learn new th

آخر کا تلاش اپنے اختتام کو پہنچی اور مجھے ایک فونیٹک کی بورڈ والا اردو ویب ایڈیٹر مل گیا اور اب میں باآسانی اپنے بلاگ پراردومیں بھی پوسٹ کرسکتا ہوں. ابھی یہ تجرباتی مراحل میں ہے پر میں امید افزا ہوں کہ یہ صحیح کام کر جائے گا

Disappearance -- I stayed away from computer, didn't talk people online, could not help myself to picking up phone, even didn't like or wish to chat with someone about any thing .... Re-appearance -- I choose the place to re-appear where I spent my shinning years of life. I went my campus, met with teachers, enjoyed handshakes with others, and talked with juniors as I do always. Today, again, I am too curious  .... unfortunately I could not meet my lovely teacher and mentor ... but had healthy discussion with other people...

Before reading about my experience of Election 208, first read few stories from others. Election day in Pakistan by Allegra Stratton Elections 2008 - Rigging Inc. by A.Hamza Ok, so now come to the my experience about Election 2008. Well, I went to polling station to cast my vote.... but ... No Comments :) Technorati Tags: Pakistan , Election 2008

I think we all already know about the relation between money and gold. In simple words a currency note is equal to some amount of gold. Due to this bindings, banks or government can't print currency notes until they have equivalent gold. But surprisingly, its not true for US Dollars. A long story exist behind this and you can read in Ron Paul's article The End of Dollar Hegemony . We can conclude that soon US currency will become a piece of paper once the OPEC announce Euro as trade currency for oil, as US had created oil  as "artificial" backed for US dollar. The only resistance in Euro as trade currency for oil is present reservoir of OPEC countries, only Saudia having 1.3 Trillion US Dollars. I came to know, all countries of world have started transition from US dollar to Euro and gold. So, if you are going to start any Startup then make Euro as trade currency, or you can select Gold too ;) P.S. Thanks to my teacher Mr. Bilal for sharing such valuable information

I received this from my lovely friend and would like to share with you all! especially for future entrepreneurs!!! Life is like having a cup of coffee... you site by the window, lift the cup, take a careless sip and find no sugar... too lazy to go for the sugar, you somehow manage with that sugarless cup.. on finishing you discover undissolved sugar crystal at the bottom..Thats how life is? We do not make any efforts to value what is around or within us ... so look around!! May be the sweetness you are looking for is close than you think.

I found myself in high school as guy who always eager to do something different. Even I have (bad) habit  to twist routine tasks to make it other than ordinary for me. I taught computer courses when we had 286 and 386 machines (I was 15 years old) and were working on pretty applications like WordStar and Lotus. I said pretty because they never crashed :) Still I remember the days when I learned Lotus by books and then taught to group of students just because of eager to do something different. So on and so on, I went college, went University ... always my friends, colleagues and teacher said me "Qasim! you have to do something different", "Qasim! we are expecting different project from you" etc etc. Picture abhi baki he!!! But, I don't want to reveal more.... then who will buy my book? :D When I look back, I found I always engaged myself to find or do something new ... a unique idea. Since I attend first and second SI sessions in Karachi, a blinking line, li

CodePlex is not a new story ... we all already know about it that it is Microsoft 's open source project hosting site. Developer from around the world can host their project and source codes. Surprisingly, a number of interesting projects are up and can be useful for anyone. If you are thinking to start a new project, or looking for some good third party functionality or for nothing but just take a look of it and I am sure you will find pretty good utilities for your project.   I found following very interesting and/or useful projects: White Board BlogEngine.Net DotNet Zip Library FileUpload AJAX Blogger Backup

To read more about Dew Point see WikiPedia and WeatherSavvy

BBC weather forecast is reporting freezing temperature in Karachi for midnight of Wednesday and Thursday, unbelievable! Yesterday they reported -3 o C for Wednesday's night but surprisingly today it is -4 o C. So its decreasing more and more :O ... be ready with your warm clothes and even be ready to see snow in Karachi!!! Its Karachi, any thing can happen without any prior notice :D Following are two snapshots of BBC Weather forecast. First one I took yesterday where last one is for today. Technorati Tags: Karachi , Weather , Freezing Temprature , Snow , BBC , Forecast

At last I am able to see 'comments' link on my blog... it took too much time than expected :(. Anonymous commenting is also enable as I am not worry about who is writing instead WHAT! Little bit other tuning of template also took place... let C! have you noticed? So go ahead and write like bla, bla bla! :)

Have you watched the movie "I am Legend" ... if yes then you will really enjoy following pictures sent by my colleague Ali Asjad Waheed from Huntingdon. As he said :- Attached pictures are not from the movie I AM LEGEND but are of HUNTINGDON after 6 pm . If WILL SMITH can become a legend then I AM ALSO A LEGEND. For people who are living in city like Karachi, where (in some areas) you can even buy grocery late night .... where for many people day starts on dusk, such scenes can only be acceptable इन movies :)

I am pretty much sure you have idea what I am talking about. Yes, It is about movie 'Taaee Zameen Per'. I am not going to write here any movie review (you can fine lot by a simple search on Google ). I am here to ask that did you look around you? Have you found any 'Taara' around you who needs your attention? Do you not think Amir has given a message to all of us ? Should we wait for something to happen or should we take initiative? Do you have dare to change the things? If you then let me know .... remember ... Kho Na Jayen Ye Taare Zameen Per!!! P.S. Thanks Amir to proving tag line of my blog :(

Today's Startup coffee session at PixSense is one of the finest session I ever attend. Lot of great thoughts, experiences and tips discussed in this session by great entrepreneurs. I attend as a silent participant as I had headache (and still having) but the discussion glued me and didn't allow to leave even in break :) They all discussed great things but few were exceptional .... they are: Faisal Qureshi  (CEO, Kolachi Advanced Technologies ): This man is really fantastic ... he did share lot of his experiences and described the realness ... Jawad A. Farid (CEO, Alchemy Technologies ): Excellent guy ... when ever he talked, always on the basis of solid thoughts ... Osama A. Hashmi (CEO, CDF Software ): I am not sure but I believe he is the guy behind this session ... he also contributed very well ... Lastly, no one else except Jehan Ara (President, Pakistan Software Houses Association [P@SHA]) who preside the whole session and did marvelous ... Thumbs up to you all!

Today one of my colleague Muhammad Fareed Uddin sent an email in which he described the problem related to <javascript> tag. I don't want to take credit from him so below is email I received from him: I’ve found a bizarre behavior of html script tag (that is used to include javascript files), which I would like to share with you guys. Sometimes, closing the tag like this <script type="text/javascript" src="User.aspx.js"/> (with “/>”) can cause some rendering problems. By that I mean, some controls may not be properly displayed or not displayed at all. (I recently faced this issue). To remedy the situation, I closed it like this : <script type="text/javascript" src="User.aspx.js"></script>, and it worked! Interestingly, IDE won’t warn you over this. So if you’re caught into some weird rendering problem, may be it is because of the above stated reason. Something I found that it is not bug in IE instead in an ambi

Do you want to know how Bill Gates uses office? read at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA102402071033.aspx Off course, we don't have 3 parallel screens but it does not mean that Office 2007 are not for us :). But I am pretty sure he was working in same style before Office 2007. Oh! does Microsoft uses same version/product which they release for public? I don't think ... else they were lost in crashes :) Anyhow, it is worthwhile to read how Bill Gates uses office.

Happy New Year to you all! another  year has become history. For me it was year of changes, *learning* and challenges. I graduated last year and dived into professional life. No doubt, it brought lot of happiness for me especially the day I received Gold Medal  (Thanks God!). This year, I made great friends and enhanced my network. Orkut , FaceBook and LinkedIn really helped me to do it. But, I also learned the difference between friend and colleague . This year I presented few presentations too! hmm.. wished to do more but could not (ahh!). And I remember lot of things that I wished to do last year but could not! :( I hope the new year will bring more happiness for all of us (Inshallah). So, Welcome new year 2008!!! P.S. Oh, last year I also got good traffic on my blog, so thanks for visiting my blog :)