Everyone has been talking and raving/criticizing/talking about Worldcall’s new EVDO wireless broadband service. Techlahore recently talked about the rival PTCL service that just launched in competition. We had been using the service in my old company for the last 3 months and after using it regularly, I think its time to share the experience of using this product nearly daily in a full review.
First of all, any good wireless broadband service is a Godsend for techies, consultants, generally people on the road. If you travel intercity, then even more so. Worldcall EVDO is very usable though it has some ticks that could make it better. In light of loadshedding and power issues I think a laptop with this dongle attached makes you invulnerable to KESC. That in itself, is something to pay for. Should you pay for this each month instead of your electric bill? Read on more for the full review. Read the rest of this entry »
I was pleasantly suprised that Dawn recently did an investigative article on the UAV Industry in Pakistan and followed it up with a media gallery as well. ITT did a post on this last November. It is great to see several other media sources realizing this new technology niche and recognizing the small but fast growing industry. To date, several sources , including Wired Magazine and P.W. Singer on his TED talk have mentioned and written about the growing UAV industry in Karachi and Islamabad. This industry currently serves military and civilian customers in Pakistan, US and others. Read the rest of this entry »
University of Texas (UT Austin) will kick Aggie’s sorry behind! GIKI will take over and rule the LUMS campus. Or will it ? OR will FAST or will MIT finally get its graces handed to it by Harvard? With this game, teams of students from each school would be able to face off each other and finally put such questions to rest….Think of “VarHereoes” as a turn based strategy game with a social networking element. Its like Risk or Civilization or Chess even, but your opponent is your rival university. The startup has built a strategy game around this concept of defeating your rival university. Time to quit the chess club and make a “varheroes” club and put up your battle page on Facebook….
There are a few startups I have seen that have killer business models, and you tend to think “why did i not think of that?!”. Varsity Heroes is one of those. The execution is also very well done, especially the awesome graphics, and the comic based approach to explaining the game, similar to Google Chrome’s. Hassan Baig and co have done a great job so far. If this is not VC-funded, it should be!
So first of, to clear up, Kraysis’s new name is Kualitatem. Ok now that this is out of the way, lets get to the interesting bits….
The MIT GSW is a non-profit, student run, volunteer organization that believes in creating a global support network for entrepreneurship. The goal of this network is to share best practices of entrepreneurship between different regions of the world, which in turn creates stronger more sustainable environments throughout the globe.
MIT Global Startup Workshop selected Kualitatem Pvt. Ltd as a case study in their Student Success Story panel, a part of their 12th global event being held in Cape Town from 25th – 27th March 2009. As one of only 3 cases to be selected, Kualitatem was also presented in the opening panel of the conference. Selection for this panel was based upon the work done as a founder of the company whose successful foundations were derived from the days as a student. Jamil Goheer, CEO Kualitatem was also invited as a speaker for the conference.
Kudos to the team at Kualitatem for the achievement, their business plan is solid and the small QA startup seems to be going from strength to strength.
watching Jehan’s ITLOW show! Great interviews, we also need event coverage in it..better than all the crappy “IT” show attempts we still see on every other tv channel….
Food is serious business in Pakistan. And really, the world over. Zagat , a website for reviews and eatery listings is a multi million dollar business. Since i know Karachi best, alot of these sites have been covered from a karachi angle, though I think a Lahori would know food alot better…A few years ago when I started karachimetro.com, I felt frustrated that there was no one seriously looking into this space in the Pakistani market. After all, atleast 6 million connected pakistanis are looking to satisfy their need for good food everyday. Here are three websites/apps that I follow and use very frequently to find a place to order from when I’m in town…there are many more that are entering the fray, it seems like all of a sudden, everyone wants to be in this space!
Food listings, reviews, user updated and crowdsourced. Very well built, great UI. What I want : Phone numbers to be easily viewable almost as soon as i put in my search. A quicklist style view with nice large numbers , menus and ratings.
A super detailed directory, coupled with pretty pictures. Hosts premium paid listings. Very useful and quick. The reviews if they come around might be biased, but still useful for numbers on everything as well as menus. Since they charge for premium listings, this is not the place to go to if you want object user related reviews of places. They also do alot more than just food, which is useful, especially the cab/taxi numbers page. What I want : Better load times for menus, easier to use UI. Right now its just a bunch of HTML and UI is sacrificed in favour of SEO. Really needs better UI actually. I cant focus on numbers that are coloured gray and pasted onto , erm, gray.
(Disclaimer: I made this so it suits my needs perfectly hence i am obviously biased). Orginally I coded this (and did the data entry, bleh) over a weekend for a few friends to use as a “quicklist” for phone numbers and menus in 2005, this has been expanded and is more focused on delivery and menus. This makes sense to use if you know you want to order in but dont have the number, or the menu on you, which is mostly the case with me…if i am at a friends house on the weekend, i want to be able to go to a website, open the menu , call the number and order what i want…
Find the place , get the phone number, open the menu and dial the number with the menu on the screen and place your order…
Great Ad…tells you loads about what great solutions are being designed and it does it in a simple, crisp appealing way. IBM has always had great research labs while some of these ideas are a few years old their implementation still eludes us. Doesnt mention much of the work going on in IBM’s genomics/gene computing effort …but Whoever made this Ad is a genius…
How apt! Google just bought out Paper mill in Finland and plans to build a data center at the site. The paper mill cited the reason for the sale to be low profitability and very dismal future prospects for paper sales.
In a round about way, if you’re in the print business, you should be thinking about a “creative” destruction and renovation process, or be planning to exit. If you’re still thinking “online” is a complement to your print/news/magazine business and not the core, I think this example might help that viewpoint change a bit!
And if you havent already, go and read about the Kindle. I thought books would hang around for awhile, but after seeing this, this and this, that opinion is challenged too. A few more years….and baam! Btw, Star trek has this figured out 10 years ago. (yes yes keep laughing at the nerds. thats all part of the plan! )
Sometimes I regret having left Inbox. Every now and then, they break the norms and do something really amazing in the industry. After a recent string of wins and successful system implementations, starting with the Habib bank project, the AIOU MOU, and then the PTCL deal, Inbox recently closed a deal with PIA to migrate them from their old IBM Z mainframe to a brand new one with high end storage. The price tag of the deal? over half a million USD. Inbox is also a much strong company and has arguably won the “battle of the system integrators” and come out as a major player over several other local firms. Someone should start tracking Inbox’s history because if it does make it, it would be the closest thing to a local Wipro, since it also is the dominant player in the local desktop market.
In a market that is essentially in the boondocks (thats british for the ones reading this in the US) , this is quite amazing to pull off such a large deal, with a tough customer like PIA. So when you now book your flight on the PIA, atleast the computer system would be alot faster and screens (might) load faster!
A side note : Alot of recent changes in my life are prompting me to blog a bit slowly, but there is a broadband review, a new smart phone review, and some website reviews coming up. plus new authors and design changes. Ah, when will I find the time!!
Read on more for the full review. Read the rest of this entry »
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