Looking for audio and video equipment in Pakistan for video recording

In recent months i was involved with home studio setup and usage. It is a complete subject itself to understand the lighting, audio techniques along with the editing of recorded videos. There is very helpful content out there in video and text form for every one who is struggling to set up recording for VLogs, training content etc. Once you have concepts, understanding for all these areas then next phase is to get the equipment like camera (if you are looking other option than your cell phone), microphones, lights, lighting accessories, backgrounds, noise reduction coating etc.
To my surprise these accessories and equipment was not easily available even in Hafeez Centre Lahore and Hall Road market Lahore. Even not a good variety was available at online sale portals like Daraz. Importing these items is not suitable due to custom duty and related complications.
After discussion with some people in market i came to know about couple of suppliers with good variety of audio, video and lighting equipment with associated accessories.
You can also take a look at products on following link and also order there

• Hashmi Photos Karachi
• ION Karachi

Freshers first job guide

Getting a good job is like a dream come true for every graduate. Working with corporate, technology and starting to earn your own is a fantastic feeling that may keep you in trance even for weeks and months. It is ok and normal however there are some aspects that if you keep in mind would be very helpful in coming time.

Changing your daily routine and starting working for hours demands some planning and personal management. If you ignore these aspects then there is high risk that sooner or later different challenges will break your health, mind and career may end in very beginning by quitting the job.

Following is a very brief description of expected challenges and some tips to keep the things smooth.

Access

Access to working place is the first thing that you need to manage and keep as much convenient as you can. With a full demanding day ahead it would be a very bad idea to consume a portion of energy in effort to reach office. Spent more amount on traveling mode if it required and save energy for tasks at job.

Working environment

Offices try to provide best facilities to employees however there are some steps at your end to ensure the healthy and comfortable working environment.

• Check your desk and chair. Coordinate with administration at early if you see any issue and get those change. Or at least convey your concern if it cannot be addressed at the spot.
• Take an idea about your requirement for snack and water. Many people experience hunger while working continuously at desk. Avoid juices but make sure availability of plenty of water. Personal water bottle is a good idea for it.
• Sitting and sitting for a long time will consume you much faster than you think. Do not ever sit continuously for more than 2 hours and try to take a walk to any other fellow desk every one hour.
• Try to adopt the dress culture prevailed in office so that you do not have to diverge your mind while comparing your attire with others and justifying it to yourself. 
• Make friends and try to limit the domain to light topics of interest rather than family discussions and monitory transactions. These may complicate your office life.

Work and efficiency

Now let us come to the core point that is work and efficiency for which you are hired. I have a very good tip on it that will save you from complicated thinking. 

• Try to share work load of your manager/boss/immediate reporter whoever is giving tasks to you. Trying to take over his tasks will release his pain and also will provide you a measurable metrics of performance. 

Above was a primary strategy. Along with that it would be very helpful to grow if you can follow couple of other points

• Make sure that you are clear about the task that your are assigned and going to start.
• Do not hesitate to learn from senior. Believe me he will be very happy to guide you (exceptions are expected).
• If you have time then do some research for any task you are going to do. Or at least note it for later research.
• Get business domain knowledge for tasks that you are on. Business domain knowledge may be very important and crucial in some roles and less in others but it is not a thing to just ignore.
• Keep in touch with reporting manager for his/her views about your performance and shortcomings. Do not wait for annual reviews but make this thing regular.

Remember integrity and sense of responsibility are traits that you need to build for success always as a professional.

Taking shot against the food items contamination

We know that laws are hardly followed in Pakistan for food items. Government has dedicated departments and authorities for this purpose but they are not doing well. As a mature citizen we should try at our end to give tough time to those who are involved in food items contamination as it is destroying us as a nation. 

I recently submitted the milk sample for testing in laboratory of UVAS. It has good testing facilities with very nominal charges. I daily buy milk from a shop who claim to have good quality of milk and i thought to test their claim for my satisfaction.

I got a sample of about 200 ML raw milk and submitted at UVAS lab. They took a day to perform tests for various contamination components in milk. Next day of submission i got the verified report and a good surprise that milk was free of contamination like urea, detergents and starch etc.

It was a good experience and just to mention that if contamination was positive then i was going to submit the report in Punjab Food Authority office. We should take interest and spend some time to deal such problems. It will mobilize the Govt authorities as well and  will have good impact.

LESCO peak hours for electric power bills

Power charges get increased during peak hours. You can save significant amount by avoiding the heavy consumption during peak hours. Major consumption electric devices are cloth iron, water motors, vacuum cleaners, juicers, blenders etc.
Following is the schedule of LESCO (Lahore electric supply company)peak hours during different seasons of the year.

Review of Sony Ericson Xperia Ray (ST18i)

Xperia Ray is my first Andriod phone. I found it wonderful in terms of design, display and performance. Its specs are not much lofty however comparing price and performance it is a good choice. General specs are 3.3 inch screen, 8 MP camera, Andriod updatable to 4.0.4 ICS. It has good audio quality and due to relatively small screen size battery time is quite good. Internal memory is 1GB (not all available to user) with about 512 MB RAM. However you may experience lack of CPU cycles as it is 1 GHz and not able to handle very heavy applications/games. I am satisfied with its performance and enjoying its use.

Nokia E63 asking for lock code after firmware update

In my last post i discussed couple of considerations while updating the Nokia E63 firmware. If you have executed the update process through Nokia PC suite, then you may be asked about lock code after the update process. The situation would get worst if you ever changed the default phone code and then abandoned its use.

What to do

• First of all, try the default code that is 12345. If it does not work then go for following option
• Dial 112 for emergency call, code prompt would leave the screen. But this is not solid solution. Code prompt would be there after every restart of phone.
• Now install Nokia OVI Suite and re-update the firmware to same version or next available one.

Update through OVI suite would prevent the prompt of old abandoned lock code. 

Update Nokia E63 Software / firmware

Nokia E63 was launched in 2009. With querty keypad, good display and stable software it is considered one the good selling product of E series. To get the firmware version of your Nokia phone dial *#0000#*. Currently firmware version 510.21.010 is available for update.

What is new in new version
Documentation for new features is not available however after the update i have noticed the improved Nokia Email. And may be a little better battery performance.

Important points for update

There are couple of points that may save you from post update hassle.

• Backup all your data. Updating the firmware would erase all the data from phone and memory card. It also includes SMS, address book, notes etc. 
• Use OVI suit instead of Nokia PC suite. 

Update with PC suit may lead you to a situation where you would be asked for a previous phone code. It is the code that you set last time as phone code, then disabled the code check and forgot it. Update may be around 100 MB.   

Post Update

Cell phone is restarted at the end of a successful update. Now restore your data backup and preferences.

If Already dumped
If you are here after update through Nokia PC suite and being prompted for a forgotten lock code then click here to read about the way out.

What to do, when you get a suspect job offer letter?

Recently i came to know about a case where some one started coordination with a fresh graduate (i would call Mr. X) about a job contract. A Email was send with attached contract letter and Mr. X was asked to send a signed and scanned copy of offer letter along with scanned copies of passport and photographs. Email and contract letters were showed to be from Shell Company Malaysia. A lucrative package was offered as salary and benefits. Also some amount was mentioned for visa processing in contract letter but not demanded at the moment. 

Facts  in Case

• Mr. X never applied for Shell Malaysia
• He was never called for phone/online test/interview
• Offered package was much more than normaly being offered in market
• Mail senders were insisting for one day for document submission

Further investigation revealed

With these apparent points, Mr. X further investigated the issue and came to know that 

• Domain used for Shell Malaysia (deducted from email) was proved fake as Shell official domain pointed to its domain in Malaysia, that was totally different
• EMail of Malaysian man power ministry was provided the further cover the case
• That domain (concluded from Email) was also proved fake as original Malaysian man power ministry website was found on Malaysian domain

Potential threats

This was terrible effort of disguise and fraud. It involved following major threats.

• Signatures on scanned agreement were subject to potential misuse
• Scanned photographs and passport may also be misused in very dangerous manner
• With further home work and disguise Mr. X may be convinced to pay a suitable amount on behalf of case processing or documentation

What to do?

If you get any such agreement/ proposal from unconfirmed sources. Then try to confirm the origin of offer. You may easily verify the domains related to EMail used in whole coordination process. Try to talk on phone also. You may involve the related departments to get verification of suspect employer. And most important thing is that never ever expect that some one would issue you a job contract without any test/interview and without your application for that job. Be extremely conscious for over seas offers because that may be complex to verify and may result in great loss.

Nationalism or Islam, Nation or Ummah, have to make a choice

During my Childhood
Like any other Pakistani boy i grew up with strong lessons and slogans of nationalism in my course books, TV, newspapers and schools. We were used to put CRUSH INDIA badges on shirts. India was primary enemy of Pakistani nation and Islam. Kashmir was burning issue and Govts were used to exploit the sentiments of people over Kashmir as it was national as well as Islamic matter. Israel was always unanimously cursed by all segments of society. Later my nation got engaged with Russia in Afghanistan. Even then it was OK as Russia was a threat to Pakistan and Islam as well. Those were very good old days.

Middle phase came
Then there were some matters where i like other common people was disturbed by US attacks on Iraq. I was not satisfied by Govt stance on these issue. Collation forces captured the major resources and sensitive points of Arab world (till today). Any how it was still not a threat to nationalism ideology as Pakistan was not involved in any of collation activities there.

Along with that Ex-Jihadi groups appear with war slogans against US and west. Osama Bin Laden declared war on America from Khost. US navy targeted that camp through cruise missiles by violating Pakistan's air space. It was a clear response of USA for Osama's declaration. Till here nationalism did not confronted the Ummah or Islam.

9/11 also destroyed my ideology
Then time came when Al-Qaeda launched attacks on USA on Sept 11 2001 and US president called for a clear distinction of friend and enemy. He rejected the option to stay neutral. Pakistan at that time was under the rule of dictator Gen. Musharraf. Due to extreme strategic importance and Afghan connections US leadership asked the dictator to assist the collation forces for culmination of Taliban regime and Al-Qaeda activists. For whatever reason dictator stood on the collation side and offered every type of support to US lead forces from 35 countries of the world.

USA brutally carpet bombed Afghanistan with ferocious weapons. Pakistan on his side captured the great Arab mujahedin and sold to USA. Several ex-jihadi individuals were killed at the spot without even a single crime on their record against the state of Pakistan. Even women were sold as later came the case of Dr. Aafia Sidiqui. Here i did not find any way to satisfy my nationalism and Islamic ideology both at the same time. Along with twin towers 9/11 also destroyed my innocent and very firm bond of nationalism and Islamic ideology.

Dictator Gen. Musharraf grasped this reality very much and introduced the attractive but mean slogans like "Sab say pehlay Pakistan". And crushed every local/international individual/organization with some aim to apply Islam in society.

National Security set ups
Almost a decade has past after 9/11. Pakistan is bound to wage a war that is against the mujahideen of Islam. During this process we have created more enemies and less friends. Intelligence Agencies and national security set ups are extremely patriot without any doubt but they are totally failed to justify their actions according to Islamic perspective. This situation leaves no way to opt either nationalism or Islam. Or in other words opt nation or Umma.

Main Concern
The main concern is how could we put nationalism and Islamic bond back same as it was before and what should be done to make sure that in future nationalism and Islam would not be mutually exclusive?

Javed Chaudhry comments and sugestions about mosques environment in Pakistan

In his recent column Javed Chaudhry has analyzed the mosques environment in Pakistan. His criticism was based on following observations

• Shoes were scattered all around 
• There was dust and water drops
• Noise was being produced by snoring and other activities of people during wuzoo
• Windows and fans were covered with dust
• Imam sahib was provoking the people against India, Israel, America, media and other unseen enemies
• There was no discipline among people while leaving after prayer
• Design of wash rooms in mosque is not up to date

After sharing these observations J Chaudhry came with following suggestions to poor nation.

Diplomatic Shuttle transport Service, The Most expensive road travel

Few days back i had to visit an embassy located in Diplomatic Enclave Islamabad. It was my first visit since the intense security measures have been implemented in the area. About 5 gates like Sareena Hotel side gate and PM Secretariat side gate were closed for General use and only gate one was there to enter the diplomatic enclave. It was disturbing for me as i had to cover about 3 KM for entering the diplomatic enclave through only available gate at Quaid-e-Azam University and Bari Imam road.
Any how i passed through a security check post at main entrance and reached in front of Diplomatic Shuttle Service Terminal.