Delivering the Crunch in Pakistan Technology
Posts tagged Pakistan
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!
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.
No-Piracy time for Pakistan
Apr 26th
Yesterday, I went to Galaxy Computers (that’s my trusted computer shopping spot) to buy USB headphones. I took my notebook with me to make sure that they work with it. While talking to the Galaxy guy, I told him I want to check those, he said “yes you can”. I pulled out my notebook out of the bag and that guy got scared! As it was a bomb or something. He lifted it up to see the Windows serial number sticker at the bottom of my notebook. As it had come with Linpus Linux, there was no such sticker. He said “Sorry Sir you cant use pirated software here! we have been warned”. He assumed that I have a pirated copy of Windows installed in my notebook as 99% of home users in Pakistan never buy genuine Windows. I can’t afford all software installed on my PCs but as I am member of Bizspark, MSDN and MSDNAA, I get licensed software from Microsoft for free. I told him that I have original and licensed software in my notebook. I turned it on and he turned it off with a scared face and said “Sir please don’t turn it on here, we don’t know if it is pirated or not, you have no sticker on your notebook” I asked “Why are you behaving like this?” he replied “Yesterday, a guy came and warned us to get rid of pirated windows installed on our systems or else we can be sentenced to jail”. I asked “Are you sure he was an official?” and he said ”Yes! I am sure, even Viper ( a computer hardware company who loaded pirated software) is screwed up”. I still tried to turn on my notebook and he said “Sir please don’t turn it on our shop, buy the headphones, if they don’t work we will replace them”.
Fishy things to know if you are a PTCL broadband customer
Apr 12th
I have been using PTCL Broadband from past 3 month, and had several strange experiences like non-transaction of paid bills, holding phone for about 56 minutes to talk to senior technical support, feeling stupid when internet isn’t working, imaginarily beating the beast who is responsible for my internet downtime and dreaming about tooth fairies when have nothing to do.
If you don’t know anyone of some authority in PTCL or Government of Pakistan or your home doesn’t reside with any of the ministers of the Government, then here are some handy tips that can save your day:
Why Pakistan Needs Cloud Computing
Mar 15th
Cloud computing is one of the most heard buzz word nowadays in Web 2.0. Many people believe that it is just marketing and nothing technical. It’s not true; Cloud Computing is actually ‘Marketing’ + ‘Big Technical changes’. To understand what actually is cloud computing, watch this video:
Suppose that you have an idea for a startup that you think can compete with the likes of Flickr, Facebook, Twitter etc and you have all the skills to do it. But it is nearly impossible in Pakistan, not because we don’t have skills to compete with them but it’s a fact that launching and running a startup that can scale up to millions of users and has more than 97% of uptime is very difficult for developing countries like Pakistan. You need powerful servers, uninterrupted supply of electricity, more than 100 Mbps of internet connection with unlimited bandwidth, hire network engineers, scalability experts, server architecture experts, security experts and more. Can you estimate what will be the costs? Is it really possible to get all these facilities in Pakistan?
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.
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