Archive

Author Archive

Free licences for VS.NET, SQL Server etc. for Entrepreneurs

September 29, 2009 Ali 1 comment

After BizSpark launch around a year ago, Microsoft has came up with another exciting solution for entrepreneurial ventures, they call it ‘WebsiteSpark’.

WebsiteSpark is designed for independent web developers and web development companies that build web applications and web sites on behalf of others.  It enables you to get software, support and business resources from Microsoft at no cost for three years, and enables you to expand your business and build great web solutions using ASP.NET, Silverlight, SharePoint and PHP, and the open source applications built on top of them.

Not indulging into the debate on actual goal of Microsoft behind these kind of  offers and this sudden generosity drive, these are really good news for new ISVs, small development units particularly in developing world. More details here and here.

March 30, 2009 Ali 1 comment

This is what I call ‘scribbling-on-diary’ post; just noting down few links that I want to check back later in detail.

Some techie links:

New Task Parallel Library (TPL) in .NET

How multicore systems introduce new avenues of learning for programmers

Whats new in Jscript for IE8

Five Secrets of Highly Available Integration Infrastructure

…. and few not-so-techie links:

Run your own business

Innovation is important

Of ‘wisdom’ and ‘tooth’

March 20, 2009 Ali 14 comments

‘I can’t believe it’ – staring at x-ray, I blurted out. 

Now I consider myself quite a sane person, as far as I remember I never got F grade in academia life, never worked on any rocket-science thing in professional life but I guess didn’t do bad in whatever programming/managing jobs I was required to do and I do just okay in IQ tests. This much sanity, wisdom and intellect is enough for common person like me, isn’t it! But still…. You need to have wisdom tooth! 

It all started when I started feeling bit of ache in right most end of mouth, this was kinda strange as I can’t recall having any problems with tooth all my life. Told mom about it and she instantly gave her verdict it was because of my obsessive love for chocolates and ice creams. I said silently, oh well would this tiny-miny tooth pain going to stop me from having my dear chocolates and darling ice creams. Indeed No! so I carried on for few more days until one night, somewhere around 11 PM, I felt such acute pain that within minutes I could see stars in sky (no, not real stars, we can’t see them in Karachi), and then I quickly had whatever medicines, pain killers, gharelo-tootkey (homemade medicines) I could think of and dashed to nearby dentist next day.

 Scene: Dentist Room. Characters: Mr. Dentist, Me, two helper boys of dentists.

Me lying on dentist patient chair, spot light on my face (hence eyes closed), x-ray lying on table and dentist with all his horrendous instruments peeking into my mouth and verdict.. oh my verdict was.. lo and behold… its my wisdom teeth! …he showed me that mischievous teeth on x-ray and you can’t imagine what a scene that was. It was like all my tooth were in line (mashaAllah :) ) including the last one and then just near right most wall of mouth, there is tiny teeth with absolute 45 degree facing to other tooth. It was totally out of place and inclined almost in funny manner :| . Well, tale then goes like, as expected, dentist said position of this teeth is such that there is no other option but to extract it out :(

 How I prepared myself to bear this major surgery (well, to me it WAS!), the happenings on surgery day, whole process of extracting out teeth and what happened after etc. is another story – will post about it later, but what I am just wondering now is what kinda twisted intellect that 45-degrees-inclined-teeth was conspiring to instill in me!

Tags:

CJP Restored!

March 17, 2009 Ali 11 comments

There can be opinions on whether CJP is political or not, how much judiciary will get independent because of restoration of a single guy, and one can have own view of CJP’s past court verdicts however putting these opinions aside, what about these ideas stemming out of this movement.

 -          This movement was truly ‘national’ in nature and whole nation own it. Firstly, CJP himself hails from Punjab but resided in Baluchistan during his professional career and actually joined Supreme Court from quota of Baluchistan. Movement for his restoration started from Sukkur, Sindh and people from NWFP and even Azad Kashmir fully supported him. Then consider the fact that nationalistic parties who even shy away from national elections at times, fully supported him which is a sign of their confidence on federation of Pakistan. Also just when march was moving from Lahore to Islamabad, simultaneously another long procession was carried out for CJP restoration far from the rest of Pakistan, deep on the other end near border of Iran, in Gawadar! and finally not to forget the fact that whole nation is jubilant and dancing on decision of CJP’s restoration. So the generation I belong to, who used to hear stories of movement against Ayub Khan in late 60s and then for Nizam-e-Mustafa (peace be upon him) in late 70s, experienced firsthand and saw from our own eyes what awami-tehrik (public movement) actually mean and how it really can change the world.

 -          We always complain, criticize, whine about low literacy rate, people being subdued to feudal lords, lack of real ‘leaders’ in Pakistan and yet this nation sometime surprise everyone. This nation which keeps fighting on tiny miny things and is often seem divided along cultural, racist and religious lines sometimes gets united in such high grounds which is even enviable to developed nations. Who can forget the moments of 1965, way we attained nuclear enrichment facility to counter 10x bigger enemy, way ‘tigers’ won the world cup’ 92 and how we responded to October 8 earthquake. And now, when I see people, ordinary people, in colorful dresses depicting different cultures and statuses, all dancing on CJP’s restoration, I wonder why, oh why they are celebrating restoration of a chief of an office where 99.99% of them would never in their lives even access! And then I understand this is because they disliked the way CJP was ousted, it is because, despite prevailing corruption, nation didn’t like much idea of not having rule-of-law, 65-70% population can’t read anything, let aside constitution of Pakistan, but nation respect it; and I think it is a BIG thing, this understanding, attitude and intellectual decision of nation is something we can feel proud of.

 -          I was 1o years old when we won the world cup. I didn’t know Imran Khan much (I was more interested in knowing Haseeb, Ismail, Adeel and bunch of guys with whom I play cricket daily from 4-7) but I remember ammi, abbu talking about our poor show in world cup initially and yet they saying may be Imran will do something in his last show in cricketing arena, and then we beat England (thanks to Almighty for that Duckworth-Lewis method ;) ) and then another team and then another and we are in semis, we beat invincible New Zealanders and here we are in world cup final. I vividly remember Imran’s in-swinging ball on which Ramiz took catch and commentator screaming ‘it’s a catch, Pakistan wins the world cup!’. That moment, those second, that image on TV, I think I can never forget that. I remember next day Dawn’s heading on main page ‘Pakistan rules the world’ and then a caption saying, under photo of team, that whole nation from Kashmir to Gawadar celebrating the victory. There are very few such moments which whole nation cherish, where whole nation danced and took ownership of. Indeed this (CJP restoration) is one such moment, which is GREAT in these despairing times of economic slump and question mark on country’s sovereignty thanks to US drone attacks.

 -          This movement also gave a very positive democratic signal that defies our history. Whenever nation used to get unhappy and disgruntled from democratic government, eyes started looking upto GHQ to take over, not this time! Message was clear in the air that we don’t want army to intervene, rather nation want to have strong judicial system in place that could keep into check everyone. Indeed this is something really positive.

 -          Those who don’t understand (or don’t want to understand, whatever!) power of Khalq-e-Khuda (family of God – the common men) screwed up big time. MQM, Fazl-ur-Rahman and PPP guys need lots of cosmetics to save their face.

 -          No America, No Army, No higher office is stronger than collective decision and collective ego of nation.

 -          Finally Ali, we have got some big good news after long, so lets wrap up this post and celebrate! What about grabbing a Hobnob dark chocolate cake and attacking it all alone! :)

 

Typos and grammatical mistakes in Dawn.com!

February 26, 2009 Ali 6 comments

Urrrrgh..

OK I know you are founded by ‘Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’…

alright that you are Pakistan’s premier English daily…

fine that you are most quoted journalist voice of country in foreign media…

true that your news are always trustworthy and based on facts and not rumors (unlike Geo, Jang, Express etc.)

not doubt about we all (thousands, may be millions!) hit dawn.com first thing in morning…

and well yea, your new site looks cool!

BUT!!

why typos! and even I would calm myself by thinking journalist was in hurry to file report and proof reader guys were on holidays, but grammatical mistakes! Now this is something!.. I was noticing this from dont-know-how-many days but today I feel I should shout!

Okay we as a nation are following steep down trend in number of areas; economy, politics, judiciary, governance, sports and I agree our problems are huge and I don’t disagree with the fact that ‘our nation stands at a critical juncture’ [btw, I have heard this million times in my 27 years life] but, full stop, does this all means we all should also get reckless in doing whatever job we have to do!

Dawn Guys, get inspiration from quality of Aljazeerah English! Fix these things, remember besides providing news, reviews and entertainments to many like us, Dawn has also been good-tool-for-learning-english for many kids (well yeah, how can I forget those childhood days when parents used to ask us to read dawn….. and then we perusing every word of Young World to impress them with our vocabulary!)

P.S. Just for proof, have a look at this news item: Sharifs disqualified, Punjab under governor rule. Note spelling of ‘with’ as ‘wit’ and grammatical mistake in same sentence.

Tags:

Why Men Don’t Write Advice Columns

February 23, 2009 Ali 5 comments

Dear Walter:

I hope you can help me here. The other day I was coming back from work which is 5 miles outside city when my engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt.

I quickly checked some trouble shooting tips from top of my mind but all in vain. As I was still couple of miles away from city and no car mechanic shop was near so I thought of walking up to nearby bar to call my husband for help. When I got in there I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was sitting there with a neighbor lady and enjoying drinks with her. I can also spot new gold ring in her right index finger. I stayed for few minutes and saw them later going to dance floor. I left at that point of time.

I am 32, my husband is 34 and we have been married for twelve years.

When I asked him later where he was, he said he was playing chess with his old buddy. This broken me into two, dining out and dancing with that crooked b*#%^ is one thing, but betraying is another. I feel utterly depressed and at times, even thought about leaving him or killing him and then go for suicide. Whatever I do, but I just don’t feel I can get through this anymore. Please help!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Sheila Usk

Dear Sheila:

A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the jubilee clips holding the vacuum pipes onto the inlet manifold. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburetor float chamber.

I hope this helps.

Walter

 P.S. Nah, I didn’t write it. Just sharing this from old Reader’s Digest issue.

Tags:

100 best English novels since 1923

February 17, 2009 Ali 4 comments

100BestNovels  = The Complete List by Time Magazine

 foreach (novel n  in 100BestNovels)

{

        ThingsToDoInLife.Add(n);  /* …. some day I will read them all inshaAllah. */

}

Tags: