News and Views

What I have been doing ?

Rai Umair — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 20:14:00 GMT

Two words 'not much'... at least not remotely as much as I would like, lazing most the past week in thoughts I have no control over or watching TV and chatting aimlessly on MSN (something I rarely do). But I still managed to do a few things geeky :).

Introducing GMail

Free email with 1000 MB of email space from Google.com! It's relatively not a new thing for geeks with there own POP accounts or people using Outlook Express or other popular mail readers but for end users stuck up with Hotmail, CoolMail and WhatNotMail offering a meager 4MB (God, a descent attachment today takes a MB or more) for such email users it will mean a lot. It will translate to better email management and sort of bring a revolution when every one saves his mails and some sort of tracking is enabled check GMail.com and read the interesting FAQ page here for more information.

My up with Avalon and Office 2003

I was really impressed updating Office XP to MS Office 11 suite, the most notable application in the package will the the Publisher, maybe because I used it for the first time. Like all office versions learning the basics was easy as sitting for 20 minutes and playing with the controls. I still can’t believe the templates I created for INETA Pakistan from email to letterheads, from newsletters to business cards without much effort at all!!!. I must say the ‘MaterSet’ in Publisher feature rocks!

InfoPath is a cool concept but without SharePoint Portal Server it is almost useless. FrontPage has gained a lot on new features, I liked the IFrame editing feature, Layer support, ASP.NET database forms and views but I am lost why they changed the table creation mechanism, and it basically really sucks for me right now.

Other then working on INETA Pakistan content using MS Office 11. I was also catching up on Longhorn and reading new articles on MSDN. My interest in Avalon (codename given to the preseantion layer of the next windows version) rejuvenated as I prepared a introductory presentation for a whole bunch of my class mates at my university as a Multimedia systems assignment. Avalon is really slick I must say. XAML is a much needed evolution and also matches with the upcoming W3C standard of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) where vector graphics are made based on XML input.

The Top Guns on Radar at Microsoft

Rai Umair — Sun, 21 Mar 2004 05:47:00 GMT

Ever wanted to know who the top guns in Microsoft are and how the software giant works. Heres the secret, I found the answer to this question in an all in one PDF based wall chart from the Directions On Microsoft people, the Organization chart basically describes the top 1000 individuals at Microsoft.

Download your own copy at:
http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/sample/DOMIS/orgchart/orgchart.pdf

Weblogs.com.pk Goes Live

Rai Umair — Sat, 20 Mar 2004 22:39:00 GMT

Now all the Pakistani Blogs have a place the can call home!

Based on the popular .NET .Text blogging tool. It’s a Free and easy way to blog.

http://weblogs.com.pk

An Introduction to WebLogs

A Weblog site contains pages comprises of the short posts submitted by the weblog authors. The posts can be of variety of types, giving the author feel of journal or a cyber diary.

The weblog space provides an author a platform to publish their words, thoughts and ideas of mind. The author can publish a technical material so others may get a benefit or something that he or she wants to show to the rest of the world.

There can be anonymous visitors to the weblog as well as subscribers. XML gives the platform and RSS is the tech word for this. People subscribe to a weblog using XML Feed/Syndicate, also called RSS feed. There are number of RSS harvesters, ranging from plug-in for Email clients (Outlook) to separate programs.

Weblog in simple is a next generation publishing and communication platform, using which the authors can feed the web his thoughts and can easily communicate with the subscribers and visitors that can be his teammates, department colleagues, company or class fellows and family members.

http://weblogs.com.pk is the ideal place for the authors and visitors whom mother land is Pakistan. This site gives you a single platform to find weblog mates and a launching pad to show the world the potential we have!

Visit How Do I Get Started page, to signup for “http://weblogs.com.pk/YourOwnWebLog “.

Happy Blogging, See you there... :)

Microsoft Software Architect Tour, 2004 - Pakistan

Rai Umair — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 06:45:00 GMT

Microsoft Pakistan is organizing a ‘Software Architect Tour’ in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad on March 27, 2004, April 3, 2004 and April 4, 2004 respectively.

If you are serious about software development then this event is not be missed.

Call in at these numbers for Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, For free registration please use ‘Rai Umair/INETA' as reference.

111-878-787 – Bushra Jaffer
111 11 – MSFT - Syed Wahaj
0300 8291049 – Abdel Cader

Registrations end on March the 20th, so register for the event as soon as possible and don't forget to pass the word.

Microsoft.com from 1993 to Present

Rai Umair — Mon, 15 Mar 2004 03:09:00 GMT

I just love to read stuff about Microsoft, today I manged to get a scoop of the history there on an interesting article on Microsoft.com the website by Dave Kramer.

Heres the first paragraph read and enjoy:

In the beginning, www.microsoft.com was just one computer tucked under a table at the end of a long hallway. It was designed to test Microsoft's first 32-bit Windows implementation of TCP/IP, the software plumbing in Windows that enables Internet communications. Read more...

Recycling, Interesting

Rai Umair — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 06:08:00 GMT

Looks like the same stuff we flush away in our toilets is going to help us generate electricity. Find out more at:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994761

Microsoft Sub Site Defaced by Managed|Core

Rai Umair — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 09:45:00 GMT

EMPower Yourself with Microsoft Software For Penuts...

Rai Umair — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 06:50:00 GMT

All you independent software vendors in Pakistan (worldwide too), get original, legal and authentic software from Microsoft for peanuts! Pay only the notorious amount of $ 420 around 24,000 Pakistanis bucks (Rs.) and EMPOWER your self with 1 MSDN Universal Subscription and 5 user licenses!

So don’t support piracy (if you were!) or stay behind due to lack of resources any more... and look at the upside, the only prerequisite condition is to commit your organisation to develop one (1) packaged application that natively supports at least one of the following Microsoft's platforms i.e., Windows XP, 2003, SQL Server etc.

Call in Microsoft Pakistan at +021 536 9101 (Karachi) and ask for some one to speak to regarding the EMPOWER program or get in touch with international (english) support on +49 52 45 88 22 24.

Catch more details online at:
http://members.microsoft.com/partner/isv/empower/default.aspx

GotDotNet’s Workspaces: .NET’s Move to Open Source

Rai Umair — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 10:55:00 GMT

Workspaces provide a dynamic online environment enabling collaboration on software projects without the barriers created by geographical or network boundaries. It is an online shared development environment where .NET developers can create, host and manage projects throughout the project lifecycle. Its sort of GotDotNet (.NET projects) answers to SourceForge.Net (running to the tune of 90,000 projects for the Java, C++ and what not geeks).

I secretly feel that open source is the next wave to come, we have seen a lot of talk and promises in the past but this time around it’s different. It’s not going to be the holy pure stuff we think of it anymore. But with the changes in the model, all largly commercial. CTO and maintainability have big part to play in the evolution of the Open Source business model. Companies like MySql and Compere (ERP) although share their code for FREE (as i should be) but now they are also earning by giving formal contracts to other organizations who simply don’t have the in-house resources to customize the applications in addition the organisations seek live support, which is more money minting for the owners, once again.

What I see is that in the future is that code can put up for non commercial use and customization and products where the service rather then the value of code matters the license can be tweaked so that no commercial activity happens using the code for any 3rd party. What this does is gives the owners the right over there code but still lets the helpers benifit along the way.

http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/Workspaces/Directory.aspx