Delivering the Crunch in Pakistan Technology
Imran Hussain
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Homepage: http://www.ithinkdiff.com
Posts by Imran Hussain
PakCrunch is active again: Hello World!
Dec 21st
Let me start by apologizing to all those of you who have high expectations from me and Umair and PakCrunch. We’ve been lazy and busy. Well, more busy than lazy, with studies and other projects and also our primary blogs. While I’m enjoying some level of success as a blogger, there’s always something in me that wants to do something different for my country. Yes, I’m a patriotic as Chacha Cricket, but in my own way.
Getting back on track, we’ve decided to refocus on PakCrunch’s coverage of all things technology in Pakistan. Made a WordPress theme? Plugin? Website? Startup? Hardware? Software? Web Service? We’ll cover it all! And we’ll make sure the word goes out to a huge number of people out there. For this, we’ll need your support, encouragement, feedback and no criticism. Ok, maybe some criticism.
Dine Up with Social Media Experts
Dec 7th
CIO Pakistan is hosting the first Dine Up ever with Social Media Experts in Pakistan on the 9th of December, 2009. This is the third even by CIO Pakistan and Google for bloggers and tweeters in the country. The special thing about this event will be the appearance of Sania Saeed who will share her experiences with social media experts.
The event is exclusive and for only 40 people. If you’re in Karachi and consider yourself a social media expert, here’s the link to register. Confirmation will be done via email or phone call from the CIO secretariat. Also check out the Facebook event page for more details.
Oh, and yes, Umair Jadoon and yours truly (hosts of PakCrunch) will be present at the event too. :)
Let us know if you’ll be there!
With great power comes great responsibility, with NO power comes KESC.
Oct 17th
KESC is up to its usual self again, which shouldn’t be a surprise for any resident Pakistani amongst us. Combined with mosquitoes, KESC’s load shedding schedules make up quite a formidable force that can actually become a pain both physically and mentally. As a student and a blogger, this adds up to disaster most of the time, since I don’t have a UPS so for to supply power to my PC with two monitors, speakers and my all-in-one printer. If you’re a blogger in a similar situation as mine, you must know how it feels when the lights go out as soon as you’re about to publish that blog post. Blows your mind doesn’t it?
Yahoo wants you to reach Females and Adults
Aug 11th
Did you know Yahoo is the most visited website in Pakistan?
Did you know you could reach 1,146,963 Females from Pakistan using Yahoo?
Did you know you could reach 1,176,162 Adults from Pakistan using Yahoo?
It’s funny how Yahoo chose to make The Generation Next, Females and Adults the highlighted words. Specially, Females being at the very center of the ad.
This photo was also taken at ITCN 09 today.
PTCL’s fail advertisements at ITCN to convince people to use Smart TV
Aug 11th
I was at ITCN 2009 today with Umair Khan Jadoon in Karachi, and we couldn’t help but take pictures of these advertisements that PTCL had put around their stall. Each of them had a different ‘witty’ line ( if you may ) to convince people to use Smart TV. Now personally, having seen the demo of both a classical old movie as well as Geo transmission at the PTCL stall today, I have no reason to let go of my cable wala for Smart TV, which offered almost no improvements in quality!
Anyways, check out the great advertisements by PTCL below:
P.S. how about a caption contest on these pictures? the best one might win a freebie ;)
Why I’m not a fan of the Go Green campaign anymore
Aug 4th
If you’re from Pakistan and a Twitter user, you probably know by now of the Go Green (Facebook group here) campaign which is an initiative of Farhan Masood to show love and unity for our country. While, the idea behind the campaign is excellent, a lot of publicity is being generated on blogs and even TV, some elements are actually trying to change the outcome.
The Ultimate Linkdotnet vs. PTCL decider
Apr 28th
VS 
Make no mistakes about it. Linkdotnet and PTCL are like the giants of DSL in Pakistan. While, there are other broadband alternatives like WorldCall, Maxcom, Multinet, Wateen and many more, the focus of this poll will remain on these two.
Personally, here at PakCrunch, our experience with PTCL has been abysmal. They have the worst customer service ever, and to get an upgrade or something fixed is very difficult unless you have a relative in PTCL. The only ‘plus’ point of PTCL is that they can also deliver DSL over their fiber optic lines, which is actually a way to create their monopoly on DSL. And the fact that they provide (pirated) movies for downloads is a plus for many as well, although they have the worst sound and video quality.
Linkdotnet, on the other hand has excellent customer service if somewhat clueless about what ‘ping’ means. I’ve always had a customer service guy at my doorstep in less than 48 hours as they tell me. They do their best to diagnose the issues. Heck, I can even upgrade or downgrade my connection over the phone or get a static or dynamic IP. Try that with PTCL!
I wont go into speed details here, as everyone has a different experience for that as well as DSL speed varies over a huge amount of factors. Cast your vote to help new broadband subscribers or those who are tired of their current service! Remember to share your opinion on why you selected either to help others as well.
e:store [Apple Stores in Pakistan]
Mar 15th
This is the first part of a series of posts that will cover many authorized Apple Stores throughout Pakistan. The first one is e:store. Although it has 2 outlets in Karachi, we visited the one in Millennium Mall. The store itself looks quiet beautiful from the outside with 3 sides having glass walls and the 4th one a brick wall because it connects to a store at the back. They are authorized resellers of Apple Products so you can safely trust them for your Apple product shopping. A strange fact I found was that the store has been there for a year now, which is rather weird since we never knew it despite being very regular visitors to that mall. Also, despite being a year old, they don’t have a website yet, unlike many other authorized Apple stores in Pakistan.
PTCL goes green and redesigns bill
Mar 13th
I just got my newly redesigned PTCL bill ( now renamed as ‘services invoice’ in the header ) today and it struck me in more ways than one. For once, the bill actually feels pleasant to look at. Some columns have been rearranged here and there, and overall has a much cleaner look than before. Another thing that just made me say wow, was the fact written on the bill. 
That’s right. 12 million papers per month is not a small deal. That’s a huge number of trees they saved right there! But I wonder how did they even manage to count to that exact number. And since it says per month, I guess this green initiative started some time ago. I’m highly impressed with this move by PTCL. But they’re not the only company that has gone green. KESC, with their regular load shedding, have shown a much more stronger commitment towards a greener environment by saving on fuel costs and making us use candles instead. Sarcasm aside, I sincerely hope that other companies follow suit and try to go green like PTCL.
Launch Time.
Sep 5th
PakCrunch, as you know resembles the hugely popular TechCrunch in name, but has a different aim altogether. To cover startups, companies, technology news, websites and innovations coming out from the Pakistani industry as well as students from all over the country. Granted, there’s not lack of talent and skilled people here, but what we lack is an organized effort to give them chances to prove themselves.
We believe that excelling in technology and getting a share of the World Wide Web with some good and useful websites or startups is a sure way of improving the image of our country. But, the bad news is that there are far less efforts and innovation being made in this field than we would like. The good news is, we’re getting support from major players like Microsoft’s BizSpark program offering free software for startups and the ICT R&D Fund by the Ministry of Information Technology.
Truth be told, these efforts wont be useful unless the industry members and youth try to innovate and face risks. Failure is a sure fear when going out of your way to do something different than the rest, but you wouldn’t know success unless you take the risk. Not taking away the credit from those who are already excelling in the IT industry of Pakistan, we wish to cover up each and every aspect of the technology related industries of Pakistan.
For more information about the people behind PakCrunch, visit the about page. To keep up with our content, subscribe to our RSS feed. Follow us on Twitter here.
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