Before blogs hit the internet, most of our information sources were either the Newspaper websites, the Newspapers itself, the Television or the Radio, but soon after the idea of blogging clicked, we could find blogs on almost everything, and information was widespread, but it wasn’t long before some one came up with the idea of Micro-Blogging, this some one was ‘Biz-stone‘, their free service Twitter took the idea of blogging further while keeping it short and sweet.

For some reason, the human kind has always found ways to abuse the very things they can benefit from, in this case, let me put it straight, we found this pretty neat service being misused by chatter of what a person does in every second of their lives. Sure if you do it once in a while, or you’re posting about important events, happenings, or some thing of importance it makes sense, but twitter updates like ‘OK so I m going to the toilet’ really don’t help any cause, and surprisingly people with such updates have a long list of followers too. I have a decent amount of followers on my twitter account, but I respect that and don’t quite post how every second of my day goes on, only important updates, some of my blog posts, some important happenings, or some thing out of the ordinary.

I m not against anyone’s posting of their second to second life online, but I think it’s a misuse of bandwidth, which could’ve been put to much better or fun uses.

I thank the people who bought us Twitter, and urge people to make proper use of it.

Tags: abuse, misuse, status, tweet, twitter, twuack, updates, use

It’s been a long time since I wanted an Apple computer of my own, but since these are the expensive machines and not quite in everyone’s budget, I had to stick to the PC for as long as I know, except a few times at I used at my work place, and for quite some time when I was in Dubai.

I had demanded for a Mac when I joined Xuqa, and they finally got me one recently, as I mentioned in my earlier post, and not only did they get me a Mac, I bought one of my own too. Which is a nice deal to happen anyways, now that I’ve been using it like crazy, and loving the details, I m surprised how I have lived on PC and Windows for so long.

I m not really spending alot of money on the mac yet, but even the freeware softwares I have, which are mostly open source, the apps are beautiful, these are superb creatures on their own. They work effeciently and smoothly, and thanks to the Apple GUI guidelines, they look cooler every time I have to use them. But oh, one thing, I noticed that the brand new iMac that I use at work is a little slower than my macbook, which is more than a year old, and used obviously, this has come as a surprize also considering that the Macbook is a ‘Core Duo’ machine, while the iMac is a ‘Cure 2 Duo’ machine, and also the fact that my macbook is with a built in Graphics card and the iMac has a dedicated graphics card. Other than that these are pretty decent machines.

The best app for me has been Adium and Skype, along with my graphics toolkit, infact all my communication softwares have been the best, and yes the best thing is the application installation and uninstallation. Beautifully done Apple. Love you !

Tags: apple, first, GUI, imac, laptop, loving it, mac, macbook, my own

I’ve been bloggin for quite some time now, I used to do it ona friend’s hosting service before I got my own hosting for work reasons, it was much of a freedom after I had my own hosting. Blogging for me helped me to stay calm and all, you see I could say anything I want on my page, and no one could order me to bring down things, which is the best thing about writing online, you’re your own complete staff, so anyhow, it’s obvious that I would have been pretty excited about this event which was being hosted by Google Pakistan and CIO Pakistan. They had called for all the bloggers in Karachi, and people had come from even different cities to attend this event, which in my opinion is very awesome.

Let me jot down how my I experienced it, I was there with Ammar (RONIN), an hour earlier, which is not quite how the regular Pakistani does it, but honestly we didn’t actually know the way to Royal Rodale we had to find it, turned out the route wasn’t difficult at all. As we approached the hall where this event was being held, we saw a couple of advertisement stands of Google, Wateen, CIO outside in the corridor. As we entered we were greeted by Salaina, who was rather amazed that we had come before time, she handed us our “Hanging Passes” and we walked right into the hall, where the stage was being set up with minor changes being made, then we saw Saad and Haris with their laptops, sooner people had started to walk in, and it felt like something really good was building up, we also got hands on a Red bull, for free

Let me now jump to the main event, the meet up started a little late because of the participants arriving a little late, which is a norm though a not so good one, any how, Rabia took the stage and made the announcements and called Dr. Awab Alvi and Sabeen Mahmud on stage, where they discussed various issues took questions and obviously answered them

Then the microphone was handed over to Badar Khushnood, the only Google representative in Pakistan, and boy he made his points clear and pretty nicely, his basic talk was about the introduction of blogging to people who donot know how to blog or dont know about blogging at all.

Then we had Haris and Saad on stage who talked about Sizlopedia and Sizzledcore, from which they earn thousands of dollars a month, which is awesome.. Jaw dropping for many.

It was a panel questions and answers then, which was after Ramla got to talk about her venture and after Ammar talked about Teabreak.

One of the most important things about the panel discussion was when Shazia spoke, Shazia was a blind girl who was blogging, which made a difference for us because we could understand how they blog and read, being a CSS kid I knew a bit about it, but it was worth more for everyone else.

Then we all went for a Teabreak, I mean a real one.

The event was one that was informative and a very good way to socialize with each other too. We got to know lots of bloggers and their opinions on different topics, I got to meet Ali K. Chishti who’s a lawyer by profession but a funky guy otherwise.

I would love to see those bloggers united agian soon, Inshallah, and I hope more of this kind of events happen across the country.

Pictures:

More Reviews:

Blogger Meet up 2008 (Karachi)

#Karachi Bloggers Meet Up! ’08 – My Kind of Partaaayyyyyy

KBM ’08: An Offline Get Together Of Pak Bloggers

کراچی بلاگرز کی نشست

Tags: 08, ammar, awab, bloggers, freedom, haris, information, karachi, meet up, saad, sabeen, sppech, stand, talk, united

On the 1st of August 2008, my collugues had decided that we’d go and see ‘Wanted’, after we’re done with all the work that we had to do at office, and since, it was not much work that we’d have to stay back, every one agreed. At around 8pm, we reached ‘Capri Cinema’, which seemed like a crowded place with so many vehicles around it, but still, we tried getting tickets, and it turned out that the whole show had been booked by Habib Bank for it’s employees, which was a blow, and a lesson was learned, we should call in before going to the cinema..

We then headed for Nishaat cinema, to watch ‘Ramchand Pakistani’, even though we knew it would be a good production, given that it came from Mehreen Jabbar, but like many, we still had doubts in our little clumsy minds.. What we witnessed next, was one mind blowing movie, maybe mind blowing is not the right term for this kind of movie, and keep in mind, it’s for people, who would like to see some reality, and good dialogue delivery, it’s not a boom boom dishum kind of a movie, and you’ll not get to see any hot chicks dancing.. It’s a dramatic kind of a movie, and has the reality touch to it..

Oh and I almost forgot, we also got to meet that little kid who acts in the movie, since we got in to the first show in Karachi.

I would any how, suggest not to take minors to the movie, since the dialogues are some what harsh and abusive to be adopted by the little minds…

It’s for sure a moview worth watching and worth supporting.. Get this I watched it twice in two days, both times at the cinema.

Tags: awesome, cinema, jabbar, mehreen, movie, nandita, office, pakiostani, ramchand

I wish I was much better that day.. oh yesterday I mean…

I was supposed to be there early, and sadly I turned out to be the one who entered last from the whole team..

Why you may ask.. damn I wasn’t well, vomiting all around, with my face stuck deep inside the commode ! ok, not that deep inside

Any how, when I reached Copper Kettle II, where the event had been organized the folks had already started, since alot of people had already come, and they couldn’t wait for me.. sob sob When I had arrived, the debate and the topic of focus were the blogging ethics, which honestly very few people follow, right now only a handful of bloggers practice such thing, the others just scribble what ever pleases them, which may work fine for them, but for others it might be something offending.

Since everyone was right there during this time, and we expected no more people, we though it would be best if all the bloggers could introduce themselves,and tell about what they write about on their blogs and what would they love to see happening on the blogosphere in Pakistan, this I believe was a nice thing to do… I said very little though.. I was sick remember

Everyone was asked to grab some food, you know everyone gets hungry so food it was, and for me, just a drink and an ice cream.. couldn’t take anything heavy, and didn’t feel like eating anything either, I’m still on soup. damn !

We all sat down again, talked about things we do other than blogging, about our work and businesses, about technology, music, anything that would fancy either one. For me, this was the only thing I talked about, I wasn’t myself yesterday, due to the face, again, that I wasn’t feeling well..

I hope to write more about the event, gotta get my soup now.

Tags: 2, copper, event, hitea, II, kettle, party, teabreak

The new version of WordPress you know includes the Google gears implementation, in case you folks did not know that, this is one big help, no kidding..

Your writing and managing the blog becomes much more easier, not to mention effecient.

The link at the top right of the admin page in WordPress, which says ‘Turbo’ is what enables this option. You will need to download and install Google Gears, which is available for Firefox as well as Internet explorer. sweet..

The new other impressive feature is the Pressthis link. Which is much more sophisticated and categorized  to what you want to put online. Surely wordpress has progressed and groomed itself very well.. awesome.

Here check out this video which has a detailed account of the new features of WordPress 2.6.

Tags: 2.6, gears, Google, new version, wordpress

Teabreak has been reviewed on SAMAA TV, yes thats one more step to a bigger achievement

Congrats to the Tea Break team, and a big thanks to all our users and audience.

Tags: blog, bloggers, feature, love, media, presentation, review, sama, teabreak, tv

What’s so great about teabreak for me?

I started working on teabreak, once Zair had completed the initial design for teabreak, which was the last one with blue, green, gray and white shades in it..

I had a totally different view of how Teabreak should look and feel to a visitor, they should actually get that tea feeling we want them to have, so I had to come up with a new fresh piece, version 2 was born with a brown theme, more or less like tea or coffee.. a little wooden texture at the top, just to add a little table-ish feel to it.

Now that it’s on and working live, it feels great to be a part of the fresh air flowing in and around me, and the crew, it’s not just that Teabreak has gotten a little larger than it was a couple of months back, we’re also getting some hot reviews from the Industry’s big people, no really.. We’re not the first feed on AllTop Pakistan, just like that.

I think I feel great and proud being a part of this awesome new comer, and guess what, the people who work behind this are way talented than you think, (yes that means me too ).

It also feels really great when you see the people who are submitting their blogs so that they can reach a wider audience, and boy oh boy, it feels even great to see some very popular people signing up, and some people whom you know personally getting on very car you created.

Oh yes it feels awesome

On the other hand lies my PTCL land line, which is all f**ked up, and it ain’t working real good, rendering my DSL pretty much useless… I think I m going to get my DSL unsubscribed and get WiMax from Wateen instead.

It’s been one good journey with Maxcom, and I think it’s still one of the best DSL providers, but in the end PTCL doesn’t really do justice to it with it decade old freakin cables… Thank you PTCL bitches.

Tags: awesome, feeling proud, greatness, hot reviews, jehan ara, p@sha, review, tea tea tea and more tea !, teabreak

Recently the web was a buzz with the news of Microsoft‘s giant 46.6 million US dollars bid for Yahoo. HAHA, that would mean they would own flickr.. haha, these people invented MS-Paint, what do you think would have happened ? Besides, what would they name it? MS-Flickr ? Bull shit !

So Yahoo actually rejected the offer, an unsolicited open ‘get rich quick’ kind of offer, but in all my honest opinion, they did good.

Microsoft’s attempt was to compete Google Inc. but in doing so, I m pretty sure they would’ve done much damage to the already damaged Yahoo, Yahoo is now considering Google.. WOW !

Any how, what I read now is even ironic, Yahoo’s shareholders are suing yahoo for not being sold haha !

Geek life track is a random WOW !

Tags: blah, crap, flickr, Google, microsoft, ms-paint, news, random, shit, yahoo

The song remains the same take II (Saturday, December 15th, 2007. 8:15pm to 11:15 pm), an event which gave a little fresh air to my a bit of rusty life. Why did I go there, cause H-N‘s band was performing, and what did I see and hear was more than just awesome.

Gunaah

The show starts off late, which is not something new for most Karachites, and then the stage is taken by Gunaah (H-N’s band). They do a fair amount of playing and rocking, making an impression with ‘Keep on rocking in the Free world‘ the G3 version. Even though they started with ‘Nagin‘, an instrumental, from 1950′s, but I honestly thought this would’ve been left for the last. Then they had a cover of Noori ‘Saari Raat Jaga‘ which had noticible mistakes, and hence leaves a big room of improvement. The last track they did was also a cover ‘Psycho‘ by System of a Down, which was loud and rocking, seriously !

Bottom line, I loved Keep on rocking in the free world, and Psycho.

Imran Lodhi

We then had Imran Lodhi take the stage and perform one of his originals, which was nice, turns out Imran is one friendly person himself… Rock on rock on..

Spoonful

Spoonful had then taken the stage with a rather long guy as the vocalist, and I mean seriously tall.. These folks did ‘Born to be Wild‘ by Stephen Wolf, which is one of the songs I really love to hear, and boy they did an awesome job with it ! They even did awesome job with ACDC’s ‘Highway to Hell‘, which is another one of my favourites. Cheers boys.

7 on 3rd

Seven on Third took the light of the stage, starting out with ‘Bleed it out‘ by Linkin Park, which showed lack of skills, but as soon as they hit Metallica, I was stunned and impressed, they sounded almost like original Metallica. I m their new fan, their performance was followed by a small fight between the organizers and the fans of 7 on 3rd, since the band performed an extra song which wasn’t quite as planned due to the lack of time.

The Great Drama Queen Conundrum

The Last performance was of The Great Drama Queen Conundrum, I had lost interest in the show a bit, due to the fight, but these guys were good none the less, ‘Foxy Lady’ by Jimmy Hendrix was an awesome work with music, but Vocals, I’d say need work. The vocalist may have made a presentable performance, but since the vocals need a bit of work, things can be daunting to handle.

None the less the show was a run away hit, which rocked the night for any Rock loving bum.

Cheers.

Tags: 7on3rd, bang bang, fight, fun, gig, gunaah, Imran Lodhi, music, night, rock, songs, Spoonful, The Great Drama Queen Conundrum, underground