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While filtering applicants at rozee.pk from a pool of hundreds of CVs we received for 2 of our recent jobs for SEO Interns and Snr. SEO Manger, I have realized that how a majority of applicants are possibly destroying their own careers by not reading the Job Description before hitting the ‘apply now’ button.

Despite of writing in the Job description that these posts are for only Lahore based candidates, we literally were swarmed by out of station candidates. There were almost equal amount of CVs of candidates from other cities and all of them without any cover letter. Cover letter is important too but that’s not the point I am going to make here. There were loads of CVs which were not relevant to the job at all still the ‘apply now’ button seemed attractive enough to them to try their luck. But excuse me, that’s the ‘bad luck’ you are in fact clicking. No, it does not really matter how juicy you are, if we are going to get apples, we would not settle for oranges. Did you ever realize how this supposedly ‘little’ action on your behalf, makes employers job more difficult which can very well cost you any relevant future employment opportunity in same company. I know it may seem hard to you but please do yourself and employer a favor of not getting into the temptation of spontaneously clicking the ‘apply now’ button. It is not a ‘lucky draw’ and NO, you are not increasing your ‘entries’ of winning a job this way.

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And man, I desperately wish to have an infraction  system with a ‘spam’ button at rozee.pk to report users who send their CVs without reading the Job Description. While thinking for a solution, thought to share this idea which really worked for one of my client in the past on moderating a large community. Hope you can make that work for you as well.

How about an infraction system, Monis? Where each spam report by employer would earn the candidate an infraction and upon reaching ‘x’ infractions, candidate’s ability to click ‘apply now’ for a job automatically gets restricted. (Passing on another line of revenue where you can actually milk some more cash from candidates as well by putting a cap on the number of jobs they can apply in a month.) So one way or the other, this can help reduce spontaneous applicants to a posted job resulting in better service for employer, professional grooming for candidates and less load on your servers.

What do you guys think?

TIECONPK 2010 Photo by Kamal Subhani

Ok, before you move forward, just want to make clear that it is not a writeup of the event. I am just talking about things which either inspired or bothered me at the event.

First of all, it was really ironic to see a government ‘chairperson’ as the chief guest for an event which is all about a ‘change’ in the current system, so to make sure that they never get to that chair again. But, since, it’s the government, and she was already being made a part of it, so we had to bear with her in the shape of one hour delay, typical of a Pakistani marriage, waiting for the bride to come from the parlor and everyone else desperately looking at the door, here she comes, here she comes. So the 8:30am event actually started on 9:45 am.

It started with recitation of the Holy Quran. After that Monis as President TIE Pakistan, inaugurated the event formally.

Honorable Mr Razaaq Dawood said that “entrepreneurship is not a trip it is a journey”. Well, I can relate to that definition but don’t you think all of the journeys end some where while entrepreneurship never ends? Or we may call it a ‘never ending journey’ to be more accurate? In my last 5 years being an entrepreneur myself, what I have realized is that entrepreneurship is a ‘disease’ with no known cure. Once the bug bits you, you are doomed for rest of your life to live with it, giving you a ‘lifestyle’ incomprehensible by 9to5 crowd and your family. This ‘lifystyle’ is very selfish and at times can cost you irrecoverable damages on your relationships. And did I mention that like every other disease, it has a toll on your health and on your wealth as well. With external pressures of adopting a normal lifestyle, it’s virus can some time gets into its hibernation mode but it never dies down as long as you are alive and can come back with even greater force by attending such an event or by just sharing some dialogues with another victim.

I was very distressed after listening to Mr. Razaq Dawood’s final comments regarding stage 3 of entrepreneurship where you have already lived to your dreams and achieved whatever you ever wanted to and yet there comes another journey of maintaining that successes within the family generations, something an aspiring wanna be like me can never think of. It was nice to know how one feels when you are up above the hill, having done that already but at the same time it was very disturbing to know that there is no rest, no peace on the other side. I started to think that may be the 9to5 crowd is better than us, not having to sacrifice so much and at peace at the end with the satisfaction that they were able to keep the balance between their work and life. But then again, I realized that once you have it in your blood, there is no escaping from it. There would be no satisfaction at the other end if you have not lived your dreams in the first place.

Then came along Mr. Amjad Saquib of Akhuwat, and only then I got introduced to an entirely new meanings of entrepreneurship. It is not about being selfish in pursuit of your dreams, its about taking care of your family. It is not about doing something extraordinary but doing something purposefully. It is not about winning, it is about surviving the tides. I congratulate you Mr. Saquib of playing a very important role for the change we desperately need and I salute you for being a real change agent of our society.

Like many other people I was eager to see what looks like to be our last hope for a change, Mr. Imran Khan of Pakistan Tehreek Insaf. But he was invited for being the Vice Chancellor of NAMAL University and was going to share his experience of establishing yet another of his legacy in the education sector as well. He came is his usual attire of Shalwar Qamees (really loved that). I hope once you get to chair the Government you keep on presenting the real Paksitani inside you with same appearance (and attitude) every where you go. In QA session, things got politically heated as one lady raised a question about the lack of team on behalf of PTI. Which Imrak Khan responded that “do you want to see same faces or need new ones” which takes time and that he is having a team who were there with him from the very start. (But very sorry to say, that I disagree with you here, in my city, some of the key posts of PTI are being given to people who have a history of corruption and lotaism in their family. And it was a nice blow to people like me to become less interested in PTI activities and raised a question in my mind that the change you always speak of is going to be a Top-to-bottom type of thing or from ground-to-up? Like do you think that a right kind of person at top can really make the difference? Even if he is surrounded by the same useless money hungry lot? In such a case, would not dictatorship be more appropriate as it comes with absolute power? And if you don’t believe in above then can you please explain why we can see some opportunistic shady characters as title bearers in your team?

Secondly, I raised a question but somehow the language barrier did not let me put it in the most suitable manner. So here it is again. Is there anyway we could bring this change without any involvement of government or without looking at them for any help? As if it was their priority, they would have been doing it in the first place. So do you think that these private social entrepreneurship initiatives by private sector are enough to bring the change we all very desperately need? And do these initiatives have the power to change the faces in politics at some point with sincere and honest leadership?

(Sorry to say but really disappointed on behalf of management that Imran Khan should have been given the QA time right after his speech as the very next person came had such a slow pace that he finished a 15 minute speech in almost an hour.)

Rest of the speakers had great stories to tell about their respective journeys and had lots of wisdom in their speeches.

I also met a few wonderful entrepreneurs there who was just bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, with limited resources but lots of energy to realize their dreams. One such guy is Farhan Riaz with his award winning, internationally acclaimed product Max99. I wish him all the best.

It would not be fair to not talk about Mr. Kamran Rizvi, know he does not care much, but as he was the only person who kept on waking people up time to time with his nice jolly wits. I only wish him to be moderating complete show and it would have been a much better experience for everyone.

This went on like that till the end where we finally had the Top3 of 25 brilliant case-studies from Pakistan as one of the management guy later put it very appropriately that “We have saved the best for last”. Among them, Mr. Kashif ul Haq from Corvit systems, opened some new horizons to understand success for other newly turned entrepreneurs. He explained my favorite quote on success that “it is how beneficial you have become on a social level and how happy you are on a personal level.”, saying success has two sides, on one side it is the measurement by the external elements about your achievements and on the other side it is about the level of satisfaction you have received from your ventures and amount of happiness you drive out of it.

So TIECON2010 PK was concluded for me with this understanding of success in my mind that if everyday, you wake up with a smile at morning, greet your family on your side, look forward to come to your office eagerly, meet your colleagues with a happy heart, face the daily challenges with a candid attitude, recharge your energies in friend’s company at evening, and prepare yourself to embark on yet another day in the comfort of your home at night with your family still on your side, know that you have succeeded in this never ending journey of entrepreneurship.

I encountered a few people after the event saying it was a dull, boring, long day, food quality was not good (as only they were there for it.), moderator was too serious to keep the crowd involved till the end and only a few handful of speakers were able to inspire, well, some of the arguments are quite valid and I agree that the event could have been a blast but hey see on the brighter side. See the ‘Half” which is ‘Full’. At the end of the day, there were so many new ideas born, so much energy being induced in some of the young entrepreneurs there and so many revivals of the dreams that makes every second spent on the event worth it. So hats off to the TIE Lahore Chapter for arranging such a wonderful event. I hope they will learn from their mistakes and it only will get better in the future.

Photo Courtesy Kamal Subhani

Well, imagine a few situations;

“You are driving in a very populated area where every minute some one is either trying to get under your car/bike or over your car/bike and all of a sudden your mobile phone beep starts. You think this must be the address you have been trying to reach from past one hour sent by your friend. You just push the break, escape a narrow accident and eagerly unlock your cell phone and read the message. To your utter surprise it is your carrier telling you that now you can download some new ringtones from their site.”

If that’s not enough, here is another scenario,

“you were up all night finishing off the project/paper/assignment with remote class/team mates and were dead tired after submitting that and nothing seemed better than a good 3 hour morning sleep at 6:00 am and you were just so close when all of a sudden the beep buzz in to scare the hell out of you thinking may be there were some problem with your submission, with trembling hands you try to unlock your cellphone, but put the wrong code, you try again and this time you are in, you press the read message and spontaneously thank Allah that it was not your greatest fear come true but a message again from your carrier about their new way to exhaust your mobile balance.

So how do you feel about it when you get a wrong message at a very wrong time? Do you get pissed off like me or start saying your prayers that you finally have been able to receive a new message?

BTW, if you are not the one likes to get spam messages either  from carriers themselves or from any advertisers then here are some interesting findings. Most of you guys are probably aware of this shoe company  Timberland but not many of you probably be aware of the class action law suite settlement against them. check this link.The crime was actually being committed in 2003, the company was sued in 2005 by Jeff Weinstein of Chicago and just had the settlement a few months ago.  A huge whooping $7 Million Dollars Fund for everyone who has received a message from them in all these years (2003-2008). That makes at-least $150 for each recipient.  Here are some more details. Pretty interesting?

Now you must be thinking that hey receiving unsolicited/forced sms is not as bad as it may look provided we too have a Jeff Weinstein in Pakistan.

ok, stories apart, tell me do you really like to get such sms. Don’t you think at times they can be pretty annoying and in certain cases can lead to swear accidents. (although you are not supposed to check your sms on the road while driving but well we do that all the time as if this is an adventure as well.)

So what is the role of government in such a case. They did what they are good at. i.e., passed another bill. Here is the cutting regarding the new cyber laws coming directly from the presidency.
You can also check a very hot discussion here on our all time favorite blog of dear Dr. Awab..

Well it is still unknown on how they are actually going to implement it as it has not been put forward in the assembly as of yet and besides I do get local spam  emails every now and then. So there is a lot to be done.

Coming back to the topic, may be that is the reason why the un-wanted SMS, even when the new law clearly points out that you do not send any sms  as well,  are on the rise. people are not afraid of the laws. companies are not afraid of the laws. I remember some time back there was a post on developing a DNC (Do Not Call) list and giving that to the carriers so that people like me could opt-out  from getting any such call but I guess PTA is least botherd about any development in this regard. So I am not sure if there would be much interest in developing and maintaining a DNSMS (Do not SMS) list but at-least what these carriers could do is provide an opt-out way in their messages to give me my freedom back of not receiving any offer from them. The point they are missing is that they are inflicting more damage to their brand then making people use their new services. I for one, would hate and never use such a service and I am sure there must be many more who take their freedom as seriously as they could. SPAM is SPAM in any form. Either it is an email, a phone call or SMS, as long as they do not have explicit conscent by me to receive such messages and as long as they do not provide a clear way to opt-out, this should be considered as a pounishable crime.

And btw, just to mention, if I have to call on their paid number to stop receiving their messages, that’s even bigger nonsense, why on the earth I would like to get charged for a service which i never wanted to have at the first place. These companies have huge budgets at least they can afford to integrate an opt-in and opt-out system with their sms messages so they could at-least give us a feel that they really care about us and not there to bug us with their wrong messages with extremely efficient odd timing.

PS: Did anyone actually ever take a look at any form you fill up while you get a new sim? I mean, back then, I did not but I am not sure if they have any thing related to receiving of messages in that form or in their terms and conditions.

PS2: I intentionally have not added spam messages sent by individual advertisers. Sure they also bug but their frequency is very limited and in most of the case they offer some thing better than a new ring tone.

I have read a blog post on Pak alert a couple weeks back regarding a second 9/11 attack to implicate Pakistan.

http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/a-second-911/

Well,  I know another 9/11 has been speculated to great extent but I was thinking that although America want’s to disarm the only (declared) Muslim nuclear power from its nuclear assets in any case but can they really afford to have such kind of massacre on their own land, especially with the new party and supposedly liberal President in the white house?

No!

They can’t afford to have it especially at such a time when their economy is almost broke already and a large number of Americans are suspicious about the first attack as well. But they really need to get their objectives, i.e.,creating a reason to disarm Pakistan from Nuclear weapons. So what could look like a possible solution in this situation is use someone else’s land and what better option could have been than India?

So I see a relation here. A second 9/11 may not took place far far away from us if it really has to happen. It may very well be planned in our neighbourhood as well. And the recent Mumbai attacks can be part of a greater conspiracy for a collective attack on Pakistan.

Please share your views.

National Response Center for Cyber Crimes (NR3C) is co-hosting the InfoSec 2008 – 4th International Conference on Information Security being held in Marriott Hotel, Islamabad on 27th August, 2008. Most important thing is that many distinguished Pakistani & International speakers will participate including Mr. Zahid Jameel of DNDRC fame. He will be speaking on cyber crimes and cyber prosecutions even his role has been very controversial on this subject. Well, I am concerned now. I don’t know how many cases have been resolved by NR3C so far and if they have played any role in the infamous djuice.pk case. But I really appreciate them for co-hosting such an event to help generate some awareness regarding IInformation Security.

On the contrary side, I do not see any professionalism (at least by looking at their website) at all. They look like typical Govt. employees who are least bothered on how their site looks and do not understand the vital role it can play to help spread their very cause. I have taken a few more screen shots (well, you can say I’m getting habitual on making screen shots.) to show the layout and information problems with their site.

Another thing I have noticed is that they do not have any information of this event on their site. Come on, don’t you think that the people most related to such events check website of the host?Should I come all the way from Lahore to attend this event as much as I want to when I do not see any info on your site about it? Is it intentional? Thanks God, that I have received the info from a reliable source so I may go and check it out but heck, for the sake of all other related parties please do provide some details on your site as well. For those who want to attend the events can download the pdf invite and call following person for more details.

Invitation to InfoSec 2008 – 4th International Conference on Information Security, Islamabad. (Please right click to save as)

KHAWAJA Mohammad Ali, CISA

Regional Coordinator

National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes (NR3C)

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)

Government of Pakistan

Karachi Regional Office

Direct: +92.21. 9266 007

PBX: +92.21. 926 NR3C

Fax: +92.21. 9266 733

Emai: khawaja.ali@nr3c.gov.pk

This also reminds me of a projector presentation for Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX), Dubai along with a few awareness screen savers and posters on Information Security I did few years back for a big Saudi Giant Al Faisaliah Group and Al-Elm Information Security.

Posters:

Screen Savers:

Projecter Animation:

You can see it at the very top. Full width can be viewed here.

I still have some more unfinished story boards which I can “donate” for the cause of Information Security Awareness. NR3C, let me know if you want to take a look at it or anyone else.

I would report back if I could attend that event and provided, FIA did not arrest me to confessing the crime of illegally entering to PKNIC domain panel. But in any case, please leave some comments if you like to.

I don’t know if you are going to get it back ever but just in case, if you do get a chance, please, after being so much publicised, you should not be working as a Chief Justice of Pakistan. Your profession requires not to mingle so much with public so any relation developed may not interfere your judgment and corrosponding decision. You have been exposed to media to a great deal and great friendships being made as well. One can think that you may use your power to give the favor back to the “particular” community who have helped you in getting your seat back.

Here is a better course of action for you.

Come into Politics, please!

In the current scanario,  Mr. Asifali Zardari, would never get you back on your seat and may use all of his might to keep you ou of judiciary. On the other hand, Mr. Nawaz Sharif would never rest un-till you are back on your seat and cancel the NRO. So it would be much better of a choice to not being played by both parties and come into the Politics. Join a party which you think is better than all or else form your own Political Party. Come into the competition, Really, we are all tired of seeing old faces with new tricks. They does not seem to amuse us any more. We need a real man to see where these leaders could not. We want you to lead us toward a better Pakistan and a prosperious Pakistan.

Please Help us save the remains and build a stronger nation.

LONG LIVE PAKISTAN. Insha Allah!

Pervez Musharaf has Resigned! yes you have heard it right. He has finally been forced to resign as President of Pakistan.

Well, it was a regime spanned on almost a decade. Now as he has left now, the most important thing is how we are going to deal with the impeachment process. Is their a deal been already made for a safe passage or he is going to face the court?

Considering our past record, no armed official has ever been put to Jail or faced trial in the 61 years of history. So I am pretty confidant to say that he will get a safe passage. Chapter closed.

Question is, who is going to be the next president of Pakistan? The real battle begins. Now we will start seeing all the tu-tu, mein-mein, chik-chik between the coalition parties every where. I am not a pro-Musharaf but the leadership we have is not any better than him. Infact, everything seemed alright before the incident of Lal Masjid and Chief Justice. The things I am going to be worried from now on are.

- Would there still be selections based on merit as I have seen that happening in the past in many departments.

- Would the new leadership will accept the media in the current form? Can they let them enjoy so much liberty-to-air almost anything?

- Would they actually start doing something to make the life easier for a poor man now they have solved one major issue according to them?

Well, I am sure many more questions will come up in every ones mind soon. Let’s see how many answers we get from them.

14th August 1947 was the day when we (common people) had gone through a change of our masters from Gorra Lords to Desi Lords. It’s been 61 years now they are sucking blood out of our veins and we are still determined to feed them as they may please.

Happy Independence day to the few ruling (ruining) families of Pakistan, for the rest Happy In-Dependence day!

PS: I had this crazy idea of asking Amams from every sect to do an Ijtamaye prayer of Hajit on 14th August to get rid from all the leeches of Pakistan. I am sure that even the people who have not casted their votes, people who have not participated in any long/short march and even people who have not seen mosques in ages would come to join the prayer and bow their heads on such a call.

I thought this will be confusing for users to read/comment on both posts.

Please check the original post to see their reply and my subsequent comments on their supposedly “minor bug”.

Touseef

Well kind of as last night I had successfully been able to add following domains to my PKNIC (Pee-Kay NIC) domain panel.

zong.com.pk connect.net.pk telenor.com.pk google.com.pk onlinenews.com.pk dailytimes.com.pk express.com.pk fbise.edu.pk app.com.pk newsline.com.pk jang.com.pk kse.com.pk frontierpost.com.pk nation.com.pk

(I have more screen shots and evidences of this software bug of PKNIC. These email owners must also have received an email of changed authorization codes to their site last night.)

I could have changed anything from registrar/billing/technical information to DNS entries.

Should I have just changed their DNS to point them all to my site?

Well, even a small change in the DNS could have rendered any top Pakistani site, out of sight (and out of business) for at least 72 hours (due to double propagation delay involved) and sure, it could have become a real nightmare for PKNIC but I think I am a nice guy to deal with (Please pay me thanks by may be having my full size picture (with a caption of “ba’a-baa’ay Internet Pakistan ) on the first page of your site for at least a few days or I wont mind an exclusive interview for your site as well.)

A few more screen shots of zong.com.pk site edit page and google.com.pk whois results. (Telenor and Zong should have given me life time of free air time. heheh)

These screen shots itself speak volumes about the responsibility PKNIC assumes in handling this domain business. Looked like, some nice coder out there at PKNIC had been messing with the live site and had the debug code (may be) on. So when I hit the submit button to get my new authorization code I was surprised to see it on the very top of the site. I immidiately checked my email and there was it. The same code. With fingers crossed I tried to import my domain name and yep. It was imported. I tried to generate a new code and I was given the information that it has already been imported and you should contact the person who has imported it. Imagine if you have to contact Mr. X or PKNIC to get your domain back?!?

They have now taken care of the bug by removing the SQL “SET” query display which contained the authorization code when you tried to generate a new one. They also have moved back all the domains to their previous owners/agents so I don’t see none of these domains anymore in my account.

You can imagine the possibilities (or may not like to imagine them at all) of your domain control being transfered to some crack head to play some domain peek-a-boo with your visitors. But the point is should we let them easily get away with this nonsense? When, if we all try, this event can really become an eye opener for them (Pee-Kay-NIC) and we may very well start seeing some professionalism from our “beloved” Pee-Kay-NIC.

Please feel free to leave some comments on how can we use these evidences for better domain registration/maintenance services in Pakistan.

As usual they are trying to get away by saying that it was a “minor bug” and I had not have the access to modify anything.Well, I guess, I owe a reply to this answer to let you guys know what exactly has happened that night in a bit more detail.The first time I checked the edit registrar details for jang.com.pk, I could go into the next page where you modify the details and change the email address along with all other info. For a few minutes, I did think of changing the email address just to prove that I could do this change but I realized that it may not be appropriate to do so I passed on this.

Then I went to the DNS area, and I had the access to assign new DNS to these domains.

Then I had to attend the great “Wapda Show” for full one hour. When that ended, I checked again, I still had all those domains in my panel but the bug was fixed by then. I noticed another change in the “edit” link to change registrar info that an AJAX powered pop-up now appears and ask for a written authorization to change these details. Till that time, I still could change the DNS settings. I was very confused on what to do now and then gathered some courage and made up my mind to make it public. I made the screen shots, wrote the last blog post, sent it to a few friends and went to sleep as it was late at night. On morning, when I woke up, all of the domains were moved back to their last state.

I seriously wish, I could have video taped all these acts.

A few questions to PKNIC are,

- What if those domains were not belonged to some giant companies, would they have taken the same speedy action they took in this case?

- YOU are PKNIC, come on! a lot of people in Pakistan has put their future in your hands. They have invested huge sums in a domain name managed by you. Even if that was a “minor” bug to you, why, WHY it did happen in the first place? If you can slip this one away, it is quite possible that we may see even worst leakage in future as long as you are not taking full responsibility of this business.

I would really like to help make the system as secure as possible and would be delighted to have your comments/replies over here so we may sort things out for the greater interest of domain owners and Internet users of Pakistan.