Jun 26

Have you ever wondered how lawyers in Pakistan survive financially? Here’s how…

A recently graduated, young lawyer who had taken over his father’s practice rushed home totally elated.

“Abu jaan, you are not going to believe what I am going to tell you, you know that Khandawala case that has been pending for like 15 years now????”

“Haaaannnnn…. kiya howa us kaa” goes the elder Lawyer

“Abu jaan - I finally resolved it and settled it!!!” says the beaming young lawyer!

“Settled it!” bellowed his father. “Olu kay phtaay - chutia ho gay ya hai? We’ve been living off
of that money for over fifteen years now aur tu nay settle kar liya hai - tay ri maa ko may…”

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , ,

Jun 24

As reported in Daily Times….

Edhi rules out accepting foreign aid
LAHORE: Renowned social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi said that he would not seek financial support from any country other than Pakistan for his causes. Edhi said Iran and the United States had offered him a lot of financial assistance but he turned down the offers as his own people were helping him. He announced to launch schemes at all Edhi centres to feed the poor. He added that he had asked the US to play its role in maintaining the ceasefire in Lebanon “otherwise Israel would be wiped off the map”. daily times monitor

Can Mr. Edhi kindly return his “Green (greed) card” that he so very much values. As the last time I checked, America was the “Big Evil” and the “Brother of the Zionist” regime that Mr. Edhi so much hates.

…which brings me to another question, if Mr. Edhi doesn’t want foreign aid then why the heck does he travel to US for fund-raising? Can you say oxymoron!

…and since when did the champion of our great social services (national gatekeeper I might also add) decided that accepting foreign aid for the good of humanity is not required? Care to ‘enlighten’ me on that too Mr. Edhi!

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , , , , ,

Jun 23

A lot of people continuously bombard me with the questions as to who the best online payment processor is, from where can I get an online merchant account for their website to accept payments, is there an alternative of Paypal, How can I get a paypal account, etc.

So here is my condensed list. Over the days, I will slowly make public the reviews I had done on each and everyone of these payment processors / gateways, etc.

For now, be content with the list, hope it helps. If you know of any other, please do write it down in the comments section.

2CO
Alert Pay
Alter Gold
Authorize.net
Bank of America
Blue Pay
Cash U
CC Avenue
CC Bill
CC Now
CDG Commerce
C-Gold
Charge
Concorde FS Net
CyberBit
Dao Pay
Durango Merchant Services
eCharge
EBS (Processor for Indian companies only)
EC Suite
Echo Online
E-Gold
Elavon
Electracash
Entropay
ePassporte
Face Book Payment
Application

Fail Safe Payments
Fastspring
First Pay
Gate2Shop
GloBill
Go Real Time
Google Payments
iKobo
InstaBill
Internet Secure
iTransact
Liberty Reserve
Link Point
Miva Merchant
Money Bookers
Money Gram
Net Billing
No Chex
Pay Omo
Pay Pal
Pay Pay
Payoneer
Pecunix
Planet Payment
Plimus
Plug n Play
PS Bills
PSI Gate
RegNow
Revolution Money Exchange
Robo Xchange
RTWare
Safe Charge
Safe Pay Card
Safe Pay Solutions
Skip Jack
Trans First
Via Klix
Western Union
WM Transfer
World Pay
W-Pay
Xcoin
Xoom

Entries in Bold, needless to say are the most well-known ones.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jun 17

Britain says high risk of attack in UAE DUBAI, June 16 (AFP): Britain has warned that there is a high risk of a terror attack in the United Arab Emirates, according to a statement posted on its embassy website. “There is a high threat from terrorism. We believe terrorists may be planning to carry out attacks in the UAE,” said a travel advice posted online on Saturday. “Attacks could be indiscriminate and could happen at any time, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers such as residential compounds, military, oil, transport and aviation interests,” it said. It informed Britons in the oil-rich Gulf state that they should “maintain a high level of security awareness, particularly in public places.” The embassy said that over a million British visitors travelled to the UAE in 2006, and more than 100,000 British nationals are resident there. (Posted @ 13:00 PST) - Courtesy DAWN.

If you’ve lived in UAE long enough and know friends who are locals (i.e. Emiratis), then you would know for sure that it can be cited with confidence, that almost one-in-four Emirati works &/or reports to the domestic Emirates Domestic Intelligence Services. If you listen close enough, and have candid enough relations with Emiratis you will know that it is rumored that the State of Emirates pays through its nose to terrorists to make sure nothing happens on their soil.

It is not by virtue of example that UAE has not had a terrorist attack. It is becuase they pay that such shit doesn’t happen in their country.

Any attack on the UAE soil would have serious economic reprecussions for the Govt. of UAE. What’s my point? Draw your own conclusions.

written by FK \\ tags: , , ,

Jun 15

A teacher is explaining biology to her 4th grade students. “Human beings are the only animals that stutter”, she says.

A little girl raises her hand. “I had a kitty-cat who stuttered”, she volunteered.

The teacher, knowing how precious some of these stories could become, asked the girl to describe the incident.

“Well”, she began, “I was in the back yard with my kitty and the Rottweiler that lives next door got a running start and before we knew it, he jumped over the fence into our yard!

“That must’ve been scary”, said the teacher.

“It sure was”, said the little girl.

“My kitty raised his back, went ‘Fffff, Fffff, Fffff’…And before he could say “Fuck”, the Rottweiler ate him!”

ROLF!

written by FK \\ tags: , , , ,

Jun 15

As many of you know the popularity of Nintendo’s Wii. Well the Japs who are tech crazy have some up with something even more crazy for the console. Its called Super Pii Pii Brothers - in short, A video game for the Wii that simulates a male urinating. Its all the craze in Jap-on! Eve women love it (I wonder why - perhaps its a ease of taking a piss while standing up!) :)

Check it out…

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/superpiipii.html

Also contains a video. Presumably not work safe, but then again depends where you be working.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jun 13

Here is a perfectly safe video to watch…. it’s a 5:17 minute video of an autistic man drawing the
Roman skyline from memory, after only seeing it once from a 45 minute helicopter ride. He’s phenomenal! You will be amazed at the details of the drawing and the accuracy. The end-result is a 5 yard panoramic paper with a highly detailed pencil sketch.

http://my.break.com/content/view.aspx?ContentID=353759

Work safe. Contains Audio.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Jun 13

Here is a truly unique website I came across. Its shows people, events, pictures, scenarios of failure… you simply have to see this pictorial representation of what is failing in the world. Truly entertaining.

http://failblog.org/

Presumably worksafe. Only pictures. No audio/video.

written by FK \\ tags: , , ,

Jun 13

This little boy is visiting the zoo with his father. They stop to have a look at an elephant and the kid just stares at it in fascination. Eventually he asks his father, “Dad, what’s that thing hanging down?”
“That’s the elephant’s trunk,” replies his father.

“No, I mean at the other end.”
“Oh, that’s the elephant’s penis.”

“That’s funny,” mused the little boy, “Last time we were here, Mum told me it was nothing.”

“Well,” said the smiling father, “You have to remember that your mother is a very spoilt woman.”

written by FK \\ tags: , , ,

Jun 12

For all those people who are immigrating or have already acquired a foreign passport, here is a good link that will show you as to how many countries you can visit visa-free.

http://www.henley-partner.com/visa_restrictions.htm

Courtesy: Henley & Partners

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Jun 12

This has got to be one cool optical illusion. Don’t worry there is no screaming voice or a ghost that would suddenly appear.

Just keep staring at the screen until the instructions on the screen ask you not to start any more. Full size the video and stare directly at the center.

Then when you are to move away, suddenly look away and focus on somethin nearby you. Preferably the face of someone sitting nearby and then you will know what I am talking about.

Totally work safe.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , ,

May 20

I’ve been hearing this rumor from a lot of people, but recently 4-5 people who happen to know Abid Beli very well [who is (was?) the CEO of Beliscity] has gone awol!

Rumor has it - he’s jumped town and with about US$ 2 Million and gone to Canada…. and that US$ 2 Million is NOT his money. Its money borrowed from investors / friends, suppliers, etc.

Beliscity website is still running however, the blog has not been updated for a while.

If this IS true… and he has indeed gone to Canada with investors money, it is relatively easy to have him tracked down and confronted. The best place to start with is to write to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , ,

May 20

Nathan Sawaya is so much obsessed with Lego that he left his lawyer job in NY to become a master lego builder

Website: http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/mindblowing_lego_art.php

written by FK \\ tags: , , ,

May 20

Yes, it really is Abdullah Yusuf (Chairman CBR - Now known as FBR):

Watch it before the video gets pulled from YouTube….

Thanks to Tee Emm for spotting it.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , ,

May 18

Its lectures like these that make me want to go back and continue to study my first love, which is electromagnetics.

written by FK \\ tags: , ,

May 17

How would you like to wear one of these…

written by FK \\ tags: , , ,

May 17

Check out this website - its Hanson Robotics… they’ve made real-life like robots. Also check out their “Humankind” line fo robots from their Pics and Video section.

Here is another video of a Hanson Robot… its pretty darn realistic.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , , , ,

May 17

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, and then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed his stupid ass against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn’t the same elephant.

written by FK \\ tags: , ,

May 04

Well after taking some very much needed time off from blogging and devoting the same energy to work, moi is back. Will start filling up content on the blog from now onwards…

FK

written by FK

Apr 11

I am travelling on business, expect a blog break for the next 2 weeks.

FK

written by FK

Mar 31

Pics you usually don’t get to see, if you like space and are curious about the International Space Station, here are some pics worth looking at.

http://www.texasjim.com/NASApix/NASA%20pix.htm

WS/NN.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , , , ,

Mar 31

The world needs a new weapon: The estrogen bomb.

Just think. You drop it on an area of violent conflict. Men throw down their guns and hug one another. Then they apologize, say it was their fault.

And then they start to clean up the mess.

Yep, we definitely need the estrogen bomb!

written by FK \\ tags: , ,

Mar 30

Check out some of the amazing pictures from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

These images are available on Dark Roasted Blend and if you have not visited this site, you must, it has some amazing pictures/categories.


CERN: Large Hadron Collider

written by FK \\ tags: , , , ,

Mar 30

I accidentally came across this blog - I tell you one heck of an effort has gone into this. You must read it (more like view it).

The blog can be found on: http://istheday.blogspot.com/ - aptly titled Today is the Day


Today is the day

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , ,

Mar 29


show_me_the_money.PNG

I’ve been reading a lot about how one company or another in Pakistan is going to be bringing e-commerce – specially internet payments or even mobile payments. How we will be able to have our own eBays-look-a-like and our own Amazons and god knows what else.

Various efforts have been done, but then seriously think about it – are you using it? On the top of my head if there are any Pakistani websites where I have used my credit card – it is undoubtedly www.libertybooks.com and www.airblue.com – I have not used my credit card anywhere else on a Pakistani website.

If one were to take the days of Digicom (now long gone) when it started its ISP operations in Pakistan as a benchmark date as to when the web was born (1995) here in the sub-continent, then 13 years later – we have to gauge ourselves from a consumer / commercial point-of-view - where are we standing? Pretty much in the same place… nowhere!

As much as we think about the ingenious ideas about payments, the mass appeal has still not kicked in. Is it our timings? I highly doubt that (read my article on TCS Listen Up!).

Are the payment solutions themselves immature (my opinion is hardly).

Are the banks to blame which can push the much needed traffic towards e/m commerce? ( a definitive yes!)… but there is something else that is missing. Government? (who care would be my answer).

There is surely something that is stopping us from using digital money. Wouldn’t you agree?

Let me digress for a few minutes… consider the following… An analogy is voice-mail.

Used everywhere in the world, but not in Pakistan, India, UAE, Bangladesh, and most of the Asia-Pacific countries. Voice-mail is used very heavily in Europe and Americas, but why not here? To be honest, I don’t have an answer to this question, but it does beg to ask another – is what is impeding our growth have something to do with culture / people rather than technology? I for one say – maybe yes, this could be anomaly in the whole equation of electronic/mobile commerce in Pakistan.

Craigslist is now also in Pakistan (Mr. Craig even left a comment on the blog). So why aren’t we a nation that is plugged into online classifieds? Why is it that WorldCall forums are selling stuff – but only limited to those who are on those Go4B.net forums. Even if we had the payment methods – we are still shy about using them.

I feel trust is an issue. I know I can trust Air Blue and Liberty Books (well I really don’t trust Liberty Books, but then what the heck, every now and then you gotta take risks). But UBL’s Orion – I wonder and ask myself why I haven’t bothered signing up on Orion? Why isn’t everyone else using Orion? Lootmar which is an up and coming start-up hoping to make it big into the auction space in Pakistan – has a long way to go, but it’s a start – but then again, why aren’t we all using it? (I’m sure Lootmaar would have a long list, but that’s not the point). The point being – we have everything, but stimulus (for lack of a better word) is stopping us.

On Orkut and Facebook, Pakistanis are clicking away-a-plenty. Same goes for Blogs. We novices have even mastered the art of cut-and-pasting Google AdSense campaign code into our blogs but yet, when it comes to buying online, we are very shy.

My definitive arguments and conclusions are at the end of this post, but very quickly I too want to pitch in an idea.

Almost everyone has a mobile phone and a bank account. So here is the gist of my proposition:

• Go to the bank – get your mobile phone registered to your bank account
• So I go to this website and I like this USB stick. Its for Rs. 2,000, I place it in my cart and proceed to checkout
• The website owner is also registered with the bank and had a mobile account associated with its bank account
• So upon check out the website gives me a total: Rs. 2,000 and its merchant number and transaction number
• I from my mobile send an SMS to my bank – entering the transaction number and the amount
• My bank checks my account balance and since I’ve linked my mobile to make transactions on my account it (the bank) will provide me be back with a 10 digit code via SMS (valid for 30 minutes)
• This code will ONLY make payment to the defined Merchant Account that I had sent and for Rs. 2,000 only
• This code will not make sense or be of any use to anyone should my mobile get stolen
• You are probably going to ask if a PIN is used and if so, when a mobile is stolen wouldn’t the PIN be in there – the answer is no PIN is used and if your mobile is stolen I am pretty sure you will be letting your cellphone company know of this, which in turn will stop it from transmitting any SMSs to your bank account for any transactions.
• I place the code on the website and hit ‘Submit’ and the website will verify the transaction – and complete
• In either case of data-snooping, cellphone theft, etc. No information is compromised.

Whilst it may seem mundane and boring, but the simplicity element and security are paramount in this setup. The merchant will never know my mobile number (rather does not need to know), its unique one SIM to a Bank account – but it does require a clearing house at the bank’s end (interfacing).

Before you shred this idea to million pieces… let me assure you, its not the idea that I want to emphasize here. Like I cited, ideas that can work are many. It’s the adaptability that is missing.

We are ‘carry-thy-wallet-to-the-merchant’ nation. We physically want to be present. We are a Cash-on-Delivery based economy. For larger ticket items – we believe in going to the store ourselves. Our ground and overnight shipment can still be improved but companies like DHL, Fedex, TCS are still not up to the mark. I mean for crying out loud, if I need bubblewrap – TCS cannot deliver it to me (to be fair, neither can the others). Packaging material like (airbags of space utilization, Styrofoam peanuts and bubblewrap) are all absent.

Tracking options are slowly being improved upon. There has not been a concerted effort by the banks to push electronic or mobile commerce in Pakistan. This is a fact. There is an old-school management in place who still don’t dwell very well upon such ideas. The new breed might (and we would have to wait 2-5 years for them to take over) who would probably then instill such ideas into a bank’s business plan.

The government has been a silent spectator of sorts. Promised were the days of automated systems and this and that, well frankly I haven’t seen it. For a country that still uses Hotmail and Yahoo! as official addresses – I don’t pin much hope siding with them.

What we can do and the picture is not so bleak, is promotion! It’s the only tool we have left out for the masses. If we all promote such businesses like Lootmaar and other Pakistani merchants who are trying to sell online (Beliscity www.beliscity.com and Makarts www.makarts.com) we can make a difference.

The Start-up Initiatives taken by P@SHA – are also a great place to take relatively new start-ups and give them support – give them hope. Incentive based programs can be drawn by these merchants to bring traffic towards them. They can promote themselves with bloggers and need to have viral and word-of-mouth advertising maximized. They need to quickly go from Version 1.0 to Version 2.0 and so on and so forth. But not at the expense of quality, security and breaking-what-was-working-already!

Side-lookers like banks, mobile companies, ground shipping and handling companies, credit card companies, ATM owners, consumer marketing companies, merchants-in-waiting, all are looking at us, so you can chin-up and rather than just moving on to the next blog read, perhaps you too can contribute towards the local start-ups who are trying to make a difference. After all, we only have ourselves to blame.

written by FK \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,