…this is the third year I’ve decided not to write about or cover ITCN. What should that tell you? Alot, actually

If it looked like a telecom show last year, I bet this year it would have looked like a telecom+ISP show, if evolution theory holds…but I think there are much better, more focused, less marketing and more substance and networking oriented events out there now. Go to those. Like the P@SHA Job Fair, SI sessions or an IBM Sponsored technology event.

http://www.ittazee.com/2007/08/08/its-that-time-of-year-again/

http://www.ittazee.com/2006/09/21/have-you-noticedi-didnt-write-about-itcn/

Popularity: 8% [?]

Sometimes things just fall into place. I dont know what the “magic” ingredient was this time, but this year’s P@SHA job fair was possibly one of the most involved job fairs i have been to in the last 2-3 years.  I think two things that would stand out were (1) great venue and (2) most of the kids who showed up not only came to drop their resumes but to attend the workshops that were happening. It felt more like am Austin or Bay Area technology event than a simple job fair. There was networking, job hunting, knowledge building, all rolled into one.

Apparently I am not the only one impresed…There was coverage on atleast 8 different TV channels and Netxpress has also given a thumbs up and has posted tons of pictures here:

http://netxpress.com.pk/2008/07/20/photographs-from-pashas-career-expo-2008/

The Next stop for the event is Pindi On August 2nd. Should also be interesting given that from what I’m seeing in the industry, the Islamabed and Pindi are the new destination for outsourcing firms… while Karachi can be more akin to “Silicon Alley” in New york, Islamabad /LHR/RWP is looking more and more like “Silicon Hills” In austin or a small silicon valley….

Popularity: 46% [?]

A big thank you for everyone who attended the P@SHA job fair event and the SiG presentations. The slides from the  UI design talk I facilitated are reproduced below:

Popularity: 52% [?]

Getz Pharma just became the latest client to sign on for implementing SAP across the board in their organization. Siemens will be implementing the solution. (and why Siemens as opposed to Abacus could someone tell me?)  . Getz is one of a handful of very successful local Pharmas that have branched out into other countries and are growing rapidly.

Implementing multimillion dollar ERPs also indicates that there are local manufacturing concerns that despite the overall “slow” (6% ) growth of the economy are doing well.

Popularity: 94% [?]

….You tell the world there is a new version of your software is ready to download and you get hit by millions of requests and your datacenter (yes datacenter, not server) goes down.Not that just, Guinness might just give you a world record certificate for most downloads in a day ever.

The new version of Firefox is out, Firefox 3 and so many people are trying to get to its download that the servers are having trouble keeping up. I’ve been using the beta for awhile now and its pretty cool, actually, it kicks ass, every other browser that I’ve used. The only thing that IE 7 has on this is the nifty thumbnail view of open browser tabs. And the new Firefox zoom feature rocks… (download, install then press ctrl ++ )

If you can get it to download that is! This is what I see at 12:11am my time when I try to go to getfirefox.com should be able to get it maybe tomorrow?

Popularity: 98% [?]

Basically, the budget 2008 killed any hope the local IT hardware industry of getting some accelerated help to grow from the powers that be. Here are the few major items that will hit the hardware industry and increase the software industry’s costs as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 100% [?]

Almost 2 weeks since the last post..wow… a lot must be happening for such a thing to happen!. And alot has been happening….Besides working on ITT in my daytime life we have been hit by new projects, scaling up work on current projects, a new (much larger) office, and my other 20% time project that is now ready for beta 1. Whew.  and now, back to our scheduled posting program on ITT…

Popularity: 93% [?]

And so ends 2007. Hello 2008. Went by rather fast, but then they say time flies when you’re having fun. But we havent been having much ‘fun’ or much good nowadays. Its been quite gloomy actually. National events have hit us hard, and from the earthquake to Benazir’s passing, we really have not had a break from bad news.

Overall though the year was a good one for tech shops and startups, and venture capital funds flowed in. We won at Apicta, closed over a billion dollars of business and increased the number of jobs available in the industry. We also completed a industry wide survey and will release real numbers on updated companies and the latest action. We now have a solid blogging network with a few key websites that have gained ground and become established :)  Bravo, lets keep it up and more….

Ironically, it was also the worst year in terms of politics so far this decade. After the judicial crisis, the emergency and Benazir’s assassination, we can safely say this was the worst year since the nuclear blasts for Pakistan’s perception. And now, more than ever, Perception management is key because many have the chance to mislead and spread negative views on Pakistan’s future. Maybe P@SHA and/or PSEB should be hiring gora professional public relation agencies to better our image. It might be well worth the cost. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 20% [?]

Its taken some time to do this (procrastination does have benefits I’m told but this wasnt one of them) but we’re finally shutting down the “subscribe by email” beta service and moving email updated to our Feedburner feed.
For everyone subscribed to the  beta email service, you will receive a confirmation at your email accounts, asking if you want to be added to the new Feedburner email service. If you do, click the url in the email and you will be added and once again be the recipient of IT news galore!

Thanks Guys just bear with me a bit while we transition to all the new shtuff !

M

Popularity: 15% [?]

On an inspired weekend, or maybe out of sheer frustration, I opened up notepad and Konfabulator (better known as “Yahoo Widgets”) and wrote a little handy widget that brings IT Tazee’s RSS feed to your desktop. The widget currently works for Yahoo Widgets, so you’ll need to download that if you do not have it.

You can download the widget here:

http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/view.php?widget=42892

Popularity: 13% [?]