Monday, June 27, 2005

Quake, On Your Mobile Phone !


One of my favorite games is making its way to a mobile phone near you! Quake, the famous 3D Shooter from id Software that was responsible for some of the truly bad marks I got in my college studies, will be released for 3D-enabled mobile phones next month. Developed by a company called Bare Naked Productions, Quake Mobile has been tailored specifically for mobile phones handsets that feature dedicated 3D graphics hardware.

I’m sure the hardware will be much better in mobiles phones than what we were using on our desktops in late 90s, at least. So everyone put your armor vests on and load up your rocket launchers, Quake Mobile is coming.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

The toppling of the greatest giant of all



Cricket has witnessed its fair share of one-off upsets in the past - in fact, until today, Bangladesh's only realistic crumbs of comfort have been a victory over Pakistan in the 1999 World Cup and against India on Boxing Day last year. But this result was something entirely different. Say it out loud. Bangladesh, whose record before today read Won 9, Lost 96 have just beaten Australia, the triple World Champions and the most menacing team of assassins ever to have stalked the covers. Nope, I still don't believe I'm hearing myself right.

"The bigger they come the harder they fall" is a cliché that has been doing the rounds since the days of a certain shepherd-boy and his slingshot, but never in the history of international cricket has there been a greater giant-slaying act than the one just witnessed at Sophia Gardens. This is rated biggest one-day upset EVER.

Final Score available here.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

MSN Search Toolbar Users Get Browser Tabs


One of the great features that both Opera and Firefox offer is tabbed browsing. Having multiple pages quickly accessible in different "tabbed" windows is a huge timesaver.

While it's true that some apps that utilize the Internet Explorer engine (Netcaptor, Avant Browser, etc) offer tabbed browsing, the actual IE browser doesn't. That was until today, sort of. Now, if and only if you use the MSN Search Toolbar, tabs are available. This sounds like a stop gap measure until IE 7 is released.

But my favourite Internet Explorer based browser is still Maxthon (after Crazy Browser due to its compact size, thanks to Rameez). Give these a try, or wait for Internet Explorer 7, or may be GBrowser (from google).

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

War is Still ON, AOL's 2GB Email is Here...


Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail were not enough? I dont think so, America Online (AOL) launched its web-based email services with 2GB storage capacity (AIM MAIL).

America Online aims to compete with the free mail services being offered by Microsoft, Yahoo and Google . AOL's AIM Mail, which is available to all AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) users, offers free antivirus scanning and spam filtering facilities. AOL said that it would offer unlimited email storage to its US ISP customers.

Well, my AOL AIM Mail account is kaschif@aim.com, need one? click here

Monday, June 06, 2005

Let's Help...

When 24000 people die EVERYDAY from hunger thats around 11 , 9/11 tragedies EVERYDAY, right? (Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five ) Therefore just decided to add the thehungersite link to this post and request whoever happens to read this to visit thehungersite atleast once a month (or better, once a week).

Go to thehungersite and find "Give Free Food" button. Your click on the "Give Free Food" button funds food for the hungry. FREE...no Jokes, their sponsors pay for your clicks. DO IT NOW...

Picasa by Google (Version 2)

Today I tried Picasa 2 (2nd version of Google's Image Management Utility). Well, I am impressed. Picasa is a wonderful thing for a lazy user like me, usualy i lose my saved images because (mostly) i dont remember where i saved them. But here is the cure...

When you install the app, it immediately scans your system for photos and collects them into a single library. By default, Picasa scans your entire hard drive, but if your system is particularly cluttered, you might opt for a scan of just your Windows desktop, your My Documents folder, and your My Pictures folder. The app collects not only JPEGs and GIFs, but all sorts of other image formats—even video files.

With past versions of the app, this photo library acted independently of your Windows file tree, but now the two dovetail quite nicely. One section of the library, dubbed Folders On Disk, shows how your photos are organized within Windows, and you can easily move photos from folder to folder.

Like just about all of Google's other services, this program has that asthetic touch that is very eye-pleasing, plus the functionality you would expect from the people who invented GMail and Froogle, not to mention the world-renowned Google web search. Everything is simply amazing! It has great editing features and the orginazation is key, plus the batch renaming is great when I want something more than just "S410020114".

Cons: It's a RAM hog. Don't attempt to use this on older computers. I also wish that the export/create functions allowed for more customization. For example, the create movie function doesn't allow you to modify the the title of the movie, which is simply inherited from the album/folder name. Since the title actually is inserted into the beginning frames of the movie, it's a major oversight.

Download it from here http://www.picasa.com/download/index.php, YOU'LL LOVE IT..

Apple Wed Intel

As expected, Steve Jobs said today Apple is ending its 11-year partnership with IBM to standardize on a new generation of microprocessors from Intel.

Yes, it's true," Jobs said. "We are transitioning from PowerPC to Intel processors."

Well, this is hopefully great news for PC users, so, we'll see Apple's OS running on a PC, and markets full of Pirated Apple OS sofware.........

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Actual Tariffs of Pak Cellular Service Providers

Following is the REAL PREPAID TARIFF of Cellular Service Providers of Pakistan. It also includes Warid Telecom's Prepaid tariff. Please remember that Advance Tax (10%) is deducted when you recharge your connection, so, when you'll make a call, amount displayed under "with GST" will be deducted from your balance.

Calls Within Same Network
(For example Warid to Warid, Ufone to Ufone....)

Service Provider
Airtime/Min in Rs.
With GST
With Advance Tax
Warid
2.00
2.15
2.25
Mobilink
3.50
4.03
4.44
Ufone
2.99
3.44
3.80
Paktel
3.75
4.31
4.75
Telenor
3.99
4.59
5.05
InstaPhone
3.99
4.59
5.05

Calls To Other Cellular Networks
(For example Warid to Mobilink, Mobilink to Ufone etc....)
Service Provider
Airtime/Min in Rs.
With Mobile Termination Charges
With GST
With Advance Tax
Warid
3.00
5.00
5.75
6.33
Mobilink
3.50
5.50
6.33
6.96
Ufone
2.99
4.99
5.74
6.31
Paktel
3.75
3.75
4.31
4.74
Telenor
3.99
3.99
4.59
5.05
InstaPhone
3.99
5.99
6.89
7.58

Calls To Fixed Line
(For example Mobilink to PTCL, Warid to PTCL...)
Service Provider
Airtime/Min in Rs.
With Fixed Line Charges / 1-5 min
With GST
With Advance Tax
Warid
3.00
5.01
5.75
6.33
Mobilink
3.50
5.51
6.34
6.97
Ufone
2.99
2.99
3.44
3.78
Paktel
3.75
3.75
4.31
4.74
Telenor
3.99
3.99
4.59
5.05
InstaPhone
3.99
6.00
6.90
7.59

Free 2000MB (2GB) Hotmail Account

Do these exactly as follows or else you'll not get the free 2GB hotmail account.
This procedure is working for me, let me know if it is working for you or not. (Post a comment on this blog obviously)

1) GO to Start menu --> All Programs --> then click on the MSN Explorer (YOU MUST SIGN UP for a @msn.com e-mail from the MSN Explorer e-mail whether you like it or not)

2) Then follow the instructions to create a new account (click on I already have Internet Access )It will proceed to ask you questions about password / secret question / demographics (Choose United States as your country and Florida as state)

3) once you create your username & passowrd, click on the Mail (within msn explorer NOT INTERNET EXPLORER) icon and on the left it will display 0% of 2000MBthe

These free 2GB (2000MB) accounts also have POP access

POP3: pop3.email.msn.com
SMTP: smtp.email.msn.com

Thursday, June 02, 2005

My First Date...

Have you watched anyone prepare for their first date. When you want to grind your teeth and yell, its no big deal, stop fussing. But still you have to be polite and say "Wonderful", "Beautiful"etc etc. Tough isn't it? I will tell you what is tougher. Its getting ready for the first date. You want to make a fantastic impression and your best friend is just not helping you .

Writing the first few lines in the blog, is feeling something similar to that. You want to dazzle the readers with your wit and wish that they would be impressed and will bookmark the page and await with eagerness nowadays reserved for J.K.Rowling; the next posting. But the muse refuses. And you are left staring at the screen till the screensaver makes the appearance.Therefore instead of waiting for the big idea, the best one liner, and spending months over preparing for that, I thought i will begin NOW, Happy Blogging...