Its a great step by a large bank (they sure beat RBS to it). However, there is nothing evolutionary or radical about this payment system (no, not that you have cited it or the article). Venmo, Dwolla, et. al. are equally more robust and flexible payment systems IMHO.  However, from a trust factor and traction [...]

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Customer Service - Pakistani Banks

Customer Service – Pakistani Banks

by Faisal Khan on January 1, 2012

Every year, for the past four years, I have been doing something in January, I write to Pakistani banks, via their websites (online) and gauge them on their response and customer service. Whilst for the past four years I was doing it purely out of curiosity, this year I decided to test our online banks and [...]

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Major Undersea (Submarine) Cables Laying

by Faisal Khan on December 18, 2011

Ever wondered how major submarine cables are laid down in the ocean? Submarine cables are laid down by using specially modified ships (sometimes even purpose built ships) that carry the submarine cable on board and slowly lay it out on the seabed as per the charts/plans given by the cable operator. The ships can carry [...]

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Keith Tantlinger, Malcom McLean & the Shipping Container

by Faisal Khan October 21, 2011 Business & Entrepreneur
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Many people don’t know who Keith Tentlinger and Malcom Mclean are. Their combined contribution to the 20th century was one of the most important one, that revolutionized trade and commerce around the world, set the pace for globalization, and as an unintended by-product created a new field of living (read: habitats) and revolutionized today computer’s datacenters. [...]

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How will the mobile payment space shape in the years to come…

by Faisal Khan October 20, 2011 General
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Interesting question, an answer to which almost every payment company associated with the mobile space is trying to answer. Here are some thoughts on how the playing field may shape out in the near future from the players point of view, rather than any specific infrastructure or hardware point of view. Mobile Carriers The notion [...]

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How to get started in Computer Security

by Faisal Khan August 10, 2011 IT / Technology
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First of all commitment. Learning anything well enough requires time, patience, dedication. Make sure you have all three. The best learning often is by listening. As suggested, find a good community and get a start from there on. A reputed source is www.Sans.org - [Look under the Resources tab]. They have an excellent reading room. You might also [...]

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How Does One Get Started In The Cloud Security Research?

by Faisal Khan July 22, 2011 IT / Technology
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Barring the virtualization layer that exists on the Cloud platform, cloud infrastructure deployments use the same basic networking and security equipment that would otherwise be used in traditional setups. The vantage point being offered for cloud users is the ability to pay-for-what-they-use vs the maximum performance specs for the physical server they could have purchased. [...]

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What the best approach to start a personal wind energy farm?

by Faisal Khan July 21, 2011 Business & Entrepreneur
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First of, its not by eating a whole lot of baked beans, though I can see what that would yield to! On a serious note, individual investment into a wind farm can often be too costly, and a point of envy for the neighbors. A great was to get started on a personal wind farm is to involve the [...]

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Why should you migrate to cloud hosted infrastructure? Or why not?

by Faisal Khan July 20, 2011 Business & Entrepreneur
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In addition to big sign that says - Save Money! (could not have hammered the point better in my opinion), here are a couple of reasons why we moved from a very highly invested server farm to cloud servers. Firstly, we had the option of using www.Rightscale.com to manage our cloud infrastructure – the management of it all [...]

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Why doesn’t PayPal offer its services in Pakistan?

by Faisal Khan July 20, 2011 Business & Entrepreneur
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The questions that everyone wants an answer to. I have been writing to PayPal for 10+ years to solicit a reply from them – as to why they are not here in Pakistan (you can read that correspondence onwww.faisalkhan.com) PayPal operates in various countries but a few countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, (amongst the larger ones) [...]

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With Borders Bookstore closing, what does this mean for the rest of the publishing industry?

by Faisal Khan July 19, 2011 Business & Entrepreneur
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At one time, record stores and CDs were plentiful and everywhere. You could not possibly fathom that they would go out of business so fast (actually the CD had a shorter lifespan than the vinyl record). The basic goal of the modern day MP3 player is still the same, for you to listen to music. [...]

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What’s the best way to get started learning about computer security?

by Faisal Khan July 18, 2011 IT / Technology
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Here is a question I answered on Quora. First of all commitment. Learning anything well enough requires time, patience, dedication. Make sure you have all three. The best learning often is by listening. As Kurt Wismer suggested, find a good community and get a start from there on. A reputed source is www.Sans.org - [Look under the Resources tab]. [...]

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