After a long stint away , which was quite unintended, we are back with a huge line up of posts and news coming up this week.
So with some fanfare, IT Tazee, one of the oldest blogs around on IT and tech is back! (Dont you just love happy endings)
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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…
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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! 
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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!!
The story is also covered on netxpress here:
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…is faster than the cable I had in the US, and the DSL I have in Pakistan. 300 kbps down, for free…. the 4 hour layover is going much better than anticipated in part thanks to the free wifi at Hong Kong Airport. You have to get out of your shell to realize what you have could be alot better (For my more curious friends : By that, I mean my DSL connection could be alot better…)
Now for a quick review of the Internet Kiosks at Karachi Airport that I had time to go through while waiting for the Hk flight:
At Karachi Airport, the Wateen built/sponsored internet kiosks were good too and did help but I think they were designed to give users back, neck and wrist pain in under 10 minutes (probably so people leave the stations after that, if so, genius! but probably not…) While they have solved the dirty washroom problem at Karachi Airport, the public washrooms are …ah yes! relatively clean…these internet kiosks I think have tiny bacteria cities growing around them…! The Mobilink Infinity Kiosk, all pretty and slick with an expensive HP screen and Logitech Keyboard, DID not work at all and just advertised the “speed” of Infinity but did not let anyone logon. And no sign saying if this is an advertisement thingamajig or a public terminal, or a broken terminal. I think about 20 people came by, tried, it got ticked off and left to sit on the old worn down wateen sponsored terminals (myself included). Some of my unsolicited feedback for Infinity : NO ONE wants to read 10 line paras on a screen at the airport on a terminal that looks like a internet terminal. Would be nice to see good, intelligent slogans, and a free internet terminal, so we can love Mobilink (that we pay alot of money to monthly). Or just remove the darned thing. Worse than no message is a negative message you think is a good message!
Wifi? no idea, but I dont think its 300 kbps. Till now, unless Mobilink Infinity shapes up, or someone smarter comes in and sponsors good connections, all we have is bacteria-infested-once-upon-a-time-wateen terminals running IE 6. 
Good thing gmail works on that browser!
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For the time being, we are on top. And In many areas, I think we’ll stay there. Given the overall depressing state of the gloom and doom news all around, techlahore does a great job of showing us how bright things are :
PS to the American media : It wont hurt to quote these facts between your biased Pakistan-is-not-good reporting. I will never deny that this country has problems, but ignorance and bending the truth ticks everyone off, really.
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Not about Adobe AIR, or Google Docs. But Google Native client, an attempt, similar to them ol’ Java applets that just got released and I’m sure the best brains at Microsoft are dissecting line by line to see how it works (right? right?) . Still in testing, but coming up fast on the horizon, here comes another challenge for Microsoft’s domination of the client desktop market.
Traditionally, Microsoft Office’s strength has not only been the fact that its very deep in terms of features and abilities, but also the fact that you can double click and open a 4MB word or excel file in a matter of seconds, and open something like change tracking without everything crashing. (and there are plenty universities, students, financial professionals, you name it, who have that requirement) .
Google Docs as yet cannot match this, and one of the reasons I dont take it seriously for my daily work is the same, I have way too many complex excel sheets, and word documents with fine formatting that Google Docs cannot match or open yet. I like the fact that its web based, but thats secondary to me compared to ease of opening, editing saving files. I have a laptop, I backup alot, and I dont need the ‘cloud’ so much (yet!). Adobe AIR, while promising, is still not built to utilize the client desktop’s resources, (like Google wants to) has only as yet released some small (but very useful) apps.
So here comes Google Native Client, aka another approach to browser-launched client side computing , Read the rest of this entry »
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So I was expecting, 30 people, maybe. Who would be interested in blogging anyway? Well, about 100-150 showed up, and showed me that the blogging scene here in Karachi was thriving happily. Google, Wateen and CIO Pakistan did a great job on the panel and the topics discussed, though alot of it was about making $$$ , Google did a great job of sponsoring the event and they had some great insights into stats, analytics and adwords. Overall, the message was quite relevant and clear: Differentiate yourself and write sincerely about what you can.
Great show CIO, Google and Wateen! Several pro bloggers, and aspiring bloggers showed up, it was fun hanging out and meeting everyone!
Alot of pictures here: http://ciopakistan.com/category/eventupdates/bloggers-meet/
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Pakistan NewsWatch is a new and upcoming webapp built by Aleem Bawany. I’ve been using it regularly for about a week now and I noticed that since i’ve been using it, my visits to dawn, the news and other media websites have fallen dramatically. And this is a good thing, not just for you but for the news sites as well.
Newswatch is sort of a twitter, or a popurl for news sites in Pakistan. Maybe similar to what Buzz.pK does for blogs and RSS feeds, Newswatch does for the news/professional media in Pakistan. Its built -really– well and has a nice, clean interface with multiple RSS options and you can tell how the dollar is doing, and the weather too! 
Two thumbs up for the site, it has some serious growth potential. Dawn.com, walk in and make a deal , before its too late! Definetly one of my daily visits, right next to buzz, bloglines and gmail!
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This is quite disturbing news, apparently it seems that there has been no public debate on the Pakistan ICT policy. A document that will define the laws, and government stance(s) on IT for the next several years should atleast be voted on right? Atleast by all the IT industry companies/professionals? I have heard only a handful of companies have been “allowed” into the discussions. This sounds similar to a medical doctor trying to put together a plane with only one aeronautical engineer on the phone. Hmmmm. not good. there is more on Teeth Maestro too:
http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2008/12/03/pakistan-ict-policy-closed-doors
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