Continuing to fight against one of the most fatal female cancer in Pakistan, Warid Telecom is again supporting National Breast Cancer Awareness Drive this year in collaboration with Pink Ribbon, Pakistan.

Marking October 2011 a Pink Month company-wide, a series of pink activities are planned for both employees and general public to create awareness. A workshop for Warid female staff was organized with the mission to train the attendees so they can take care of themselves and can also volunteer to further educate others in their surrounding communities. Warid Customer Service staff at Business Centers in Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi are volunteering in distributing awareness material on the fatal Cancer and the importance of its early diagnosis. Company’s official website carried awareness material for web surfers while a text awareness message was also broadcasted to Warid customers.

Group photo of Warid female staff at Breast Cancer seminar held in Lahore this Tuesday, aimed attraining staff to volunteer and further spread the word around.

Battling cancer is one of the most devastating experiences for a woman and her family. They never say and are never told they are cured – only in remission. Doing its part earnestly by searching new and creative ways to help local community, Warid Telecom has always shown strong commitment towards the well being of the society.

by Jawad Bokhari

Corporate data tends to grow at an alarming rate yet 80 percent of it usually sits idle, chocking the production environment. Data gurus claim that most of the time the bulk of the data is never referenced nevertheless it occupies production storage space and more than often creates bottlenecks in its wake. The need of the day is to archive the bulk of this seldom used data to a cheaper storage medium for long term retention. At the same time seamless search and convenient retrieval of this invaluable information is crucial to any business enterprise. A recent survey has revealed that 57% of large and medium sized concerns have a need to manage email and file server storage more effectively by offloading it to less expensive storage, 46% have a need to handle routine e-discovery requests and 34% have a need to extract older electronic content for regulatory audits.

So what should be a regular approach to data storage and information accessibility? File archiving is a definite answer.

Business and Legal concerns involved in e-discovery, storage optimization and records management always have an eager eye for efficient solutions providing:

• Reduced file storage costs
• Centralized file management
• Reduced data volumes to help reduce backup times
• Increased File Server performances
• Transparent access to archived files
• Intuitive search and e-discovery options

It is imperative for them to protect their business critical information and this alone can be achieved through a potent File archiving system. Electronic information is preferred to paper documents, because it usually carries the benefit of metadata such as date and time and provides the Litigators pertinent evidence in lawsuits. Executives burdened with paperwork frantically search for new avenues to convert their records into retrievable PDF documents. Storage volume management taxes employee efficiency to a greater degree costing businesses billions in lost revenue and wasted time. Rigorous and day to day backups are essential and can only be achieved in a timely manner if an efficient File archiving solution is deployed. These day to day needs urge enterprises to adopt a user friendly File archiving solution that puts them in control and a File archiving solution such as ShareArchiver’s FA solution is indeed the answer.

You must have come across the term Enterprise File Archiving. The term encompasses the following strategic areas:

1. Storage Management:

Companies are constantly struggling with the amount of data and constantly shuffle data to create space on a temporary basis; File stubbing technology greatly reduces storage by leaving a tiny stub for users to view hence reducing file server’s file data volume. The stub provides seamless access to users regardless of the desktop client in use i.e. Apple Mac or Windows. By employing de-duplication techniques ShareArchiver’s FA has managed to reduce file server’s file data volumes up to 90%.

2. Centralized Repository:

A state of the art File Archiver such as ShareArchiver’s FA provides a central repository for all archived material where it sits indexed and easily and very quickly searchable.

3. Data Security:

Passing on privileges to users is an important aspect of File archiving. It is important to determine what a user can access and what information is off limits.  Only a privileged user can search and access the archives. This entails transparency of operations and enforces employee accountability.

4. Stable Production Environments:

Production environments must run with zero downtime. Crash programming is often high on the agenda, for companies which value a stable production system. File archiving solutions such as ShareArchiver can be a real blessing in case a production system experiences a crash. In normal circumstances data recovery can take hours especially when data size is tremendous and the date is to be restored from a backup, but using ShareArchiver this can be achieved in a matter of minutes.

5. Enhanced Productivity:

Few hours are generally wasted each day by employees, managing their historical files, or searching for important documents which may have been misplaced in the wrong place, With automatic archiving employee productivity can be enhanced manifold by giving them back time they can spend on current projects rather than searching and managing information. How do you expect an employee to search efficiently for a Purchase Order that may have been saved in a wrong folder mistakenly, a ledger restored from a backup or a misplaced digital memo. Searching can be a costly affair for companies, meaning lost productivity. Having ShareArchiver means you never spend more than a mere few minutes to restore or find that lost memo saving the organization huge amounts of time and money.

6. Policy Based Archiving:

Knowing how your file storage is being used and wasted lets you plan for more efficient ways to archive the data. Policy based archiving means having easy to use tools for reporting, analysis, and easy to set up policy rules. Files that are older than a specified time period, unneeded, or unused, based on file metadata such as Created, last modified, last accessed date, size criterion are automatically moved to a file archive where they are compressed, encrypted and stored for automatic retrieval.

7. E – Discovery:

Electronic data is sought, located, secured, and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal litigation. File and email Metadata such as File Creation Date, Last Modified Date, File Type and Extension, Size, sender recipients, bcc, message headers etc are information needed for the purposes of evidence. Archiving can optimise E- Discovery preparation by making digital information easily accessible.

8. Document Tagging:

Allows users to enter key information to a document known as tagging. These tags subsequently can be indexed making document search comprehensive and easy.

9. Compliance:

Regulatory bodies often require organizations to preserve electronic business records in a secure, immutable but easily accessible manner. In order to comply with these regulations file archiving is mandatory.

10. Reduced Long Backup Times:

Backing up hundreds of gigabytes or terabytes is a big nightmare. Once ShareArchiver has reduced file server’s file data volume by its state of the art file stubbing technology data backup times are greatly reduced as a result. No longer do you need to wait for hours for a backup job to complete.

Jawad Bokhari is technology veteran currently working as CTO at ShareArchiver LTD – an emerging leader in providing effective solution to small and large enterprises for data storage, data management, addressing storage and e-discovery challenges.

Ad Placement Locator

The new version offers better performance, new value-added features and an improved Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Leading online marketing product ‘Ads Placement Locator’ has launched today version 2.0 that comes with amazing new features and value-adds. The product for the first time comes with a limited time opportunity to have a 7 days free trial and a life time membership for just $134.

Launched in June 2010, Ads Placement Locator received enormous response from the industry and already has thousands of satisfied customers worldwide. With the launch of new version, the product has now become unmatchable and the solution to online marketers’ worries when it comes to hunting high quality traffic at a low price.

The new version comes with these major features & improvements:

• More Powerful & Faster Adsense Locator Software: It helps online marketers finding suitable placements where Google Adsense is installed. By searching for placements against targeted keywords using the upgraded and more powerful locator software, a good number of placements can be discovered within minutes that can be exported to your Google Adwords account in seconds.
• Partner Finder Software (New): Through Partner Finder, companies/marketers can find potential partners that can join hands with them to develop their business to the next level.
• Video Training Course on ‘Conquering Google Placement Targeting): A well detailed course to let you understand and utilize the power of Google placement targeting. Many marketers do not know much about using placements targeting effectively. This course educates about how can you get massive traffic to your website and improve your RoI using Google placement targeting.
• Free Google Adwords E-Book: You also get a free E-book titled “20 Powerful But Little Known Secrets To Dominating Google Adwords”. This e-book reveals secrets that you should know as an online marketer about Google Adwords.

In addition to above, you also get access to our video library that has valuable videos on social media and many other useful topics related to online marketing and traffic generation. The new version also has added Quantcast and Alexa feature, easy exporting of searched results and a better filtering system.

Jeffrey Benson, CEO of New Business Marketing, while commenting on the launch said “I am really excited about Ads Placement Locator 2.0 release and expect great response from the market. Google placements targeting is a relatively underutilized area for online marketers and our product let marketers find placements that can bring them quality traffic. And above all, it saves a lot of cost as well. I am very confident that the new version of Ads Placement Locator will be a big success and our customers would love using it.”

24/7 Customer Support

The new version comes with 24/7 online support. Customers can ask questions and seek assistance in using the product.

Free Trial

This feature rich and powerful product also comes with a 7 day free trial. You can use a fully functional version of this product for free for up to 7 days so you only pay when you are satisfied.

To try free or buy this product, visit: http://www.AdPlacementLocator.com

About Ads Placement Locator:

Ads Placement Locator is the flagship product of ‘New Business Marketing Limited’ that helps you to identify the most lucrative, sniper-targeted webpages where you can place your ads at a very low price and can get targeted traffic to your website. Not just this, Ads Placement Locator, also lets you choose online partners with whom you can join hands for mutual business growth. For more information on Ads Placement Locator, visit: http://www.AdPlacementLocator.com

About New Business Marketing Limited (NBM):

Founded in 2009, ‘New Business Marketing Limited’ is equipped with marketing and software professionals who brought to the company 2 decades of marketing experience and technological strength. At NBM we have helped and keep helping global business owners to quickly set up marketing ‘mastery’ plan (or blueprint) and help them to rapidly implement it with the minimum amount of effort and cost.

Media Contact:
Tel: +44 (0)844 588 6113
Fax: +44 (0)871 237 2704
Email: info@adplacementlocator.com

Blackberry CEO to speak at GITEX 2010

49 years old Jim Balsillie, CEO of Canadian company Research In Motion(RIM), maker of the world renowned Blackberry wireless solution will be speaking at the 30th anniversary of GITEX Technology Week on October 18th. UAE is having about 500,000 Blackberry subscribers and as TRA [Telecommunications Regulatory Authority] in the UAE has mysteriously withheld the expected ban on blackberry services in the region, his presentation will be of great importance. The deal among UAE and Blackberry is still a secret as no one knows if Blackberry agreed to install a server in UAE and to give access to the personal data for national security concerns showed by the local governing bodies.

He may be unleashing the new Blackpad to the region in competition with new Tablet PCs like iPad by Apple as samsung is also looking forward to launch its Galaxy Tab.

GITEX 2010

Gitex 2010 – One of the world’s biggest IT event is about to start from 17th October 2010 at World Trade Center, Dubai . Everyone is counting days to experience the gathering of IT and Telecom titans to show the world what their fresh releases and future strategy. Like every year, many companies are waiting for this event to unveil their latest models and research projects.

Cloud computing, Voip, Gitex shopper, elite speakers and a lot more is expected to be offered on 30th anniversary of Gitex Technology Week.

Airtel website with Apple iPhone 3GS

Airtel put the iPhone 3GS promotional animation on its website as well. The company is emphasizing on Apple’s GUI, speed, video camera and voice control features apart from operator’s own promotion of free 500MB data transfer. “Load web pages, launch apps,open attachments, and take pictures faster than ever before. iPhone 3GS makes your entire iPhone experience more responsive.” says company’s website.

Free 500MB data transfer per month offer will be valid for a period of 1 year. With this, users can enjoy free Internet for the whole year, provided their Internet usage does not exceed mentioned volume of 500MB.

Abtul Bindal, President Mobile Services Bharti Airtel earlier said: “We are delighted with the opportunity to bring the eagerly-awaited iPhone 3GS to India. Combining the strength of the Airtel brand and network with the great user interface of iPhone 3GS, we are happy to bring to our customers an experience that will take mobile communications to a whole new level.”

Although this launch was much awaited and it took more time than usual to launch iPhone 3GS in India, it is expected that it will improve iPhone sales in India and will shake mobile handsets market. For some it is an expensive luxury whereas some are dying to buy it for its innovative design and hype.

Gartner, Inc. has identified 10 mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2011 in ways that will impact short-term mobile strategies and policies. Investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011 as organizations emerge from the recession and ramp up both business-to-employee (B2E) and business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile spending.

“We are highlighting these 10 mobile technologies that should be on every organization’s radar screen,” said Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “These mobile technologies were selected because they will evolve in ways that affect corporate strategies, significant numbers of customers or employees will adopt or expect them, or they will address particular mobile challenges that organizations will face through 2011.”

The 10 mobile technologies to watch in 2010 and 2011 include:

Bluetooth (3 and 4)

Two new Bluetooth versions will emerge by 2011: Bluetooth 3 will introduce 802.11 as a bearer for faster data transmission, and Bluetooth 4 will introduce a new low-energy (LE) mode that will enable communication with external peripherals and sensors. Both versions will include other technical improvements to improve battery life and security. Gartner believes that Bluetooth 3 will facilitate corporate and consumer functions demanding large bandwidth (e.g., downloading images and videos from handsets). Bluetooth LE will enable a range of new sensor-based business models in industries such as fitness, healthcare and environmental control and will be used by handset and PC peripherals to enable new functions, such as PCs that autolock when users move away from them.

The Mobile Web

By 2011, over 85 percent of handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser. In mature markets, such as Western Europe and Japan, approximately 60 percent of handsets shipped will be smartphones with sophisticated browsing capability and the ability to render conventional HTML sites in some manner. The growth in smartphones with relatively large and high-resolution screens will encourage greater numbers of people to access conventional websites on mobile devices, and will make it possible to deliver some B2C applications using conventional Web tools without adaptation. In mature markets, the mobile Web, along with associated Web adaptation tools, will be a leading technology for B2C mobile applications through 2012, and should be part of every organization’s B2C technology portfolio.

Mobile Widgets

Widgets are installable Web applications that use technologies such as JavaScript and HTML. Many handsets support widgets running on their home screens, where they are easily visible and accessible. Despite the lack of standards, widgets provide a convenient way to deliver simple, connected applications, especially those involving real-time data updates (such as weather forecasts, e-mail notifications, marketing, blogs and information feeds). Because widgets exploit well-understood tools and technologies, they have lower entry barriers than complex native applications, and thus can be a good first step to assess the demand for an application on a specific platform before undertaking expensive native development.

Platform-Independent Mobile AD Tools

Mobile platforms will become more diverse through 2012 although consolidation will not have started, and, in some markets, five or more platforms may have a significant presence. Therefore, tools that can reduce the burden of delivering installable applications to several platforms will be very attractive. Platform-independent application development (AD) tools cannot deliver a “write once, run anywhere” equivalent to native code; however, they can significantly reduce the cost of delivering and supporting multiplatform applications that provide a more sophisticated experience than the mobile Web and operate outside signal coverage.

App Stores

App stores will be the primary (and, in some cases, the only) way to distribute applications to smartphones and other mobile devices. App stores also provide a range of business support functions, such as payment processing, that assist smaller organizations. Gartner believes that app stores will play many roles in an organization’s B2C and B2E strategies. They will be a distribution channel for mobile applications and a commercial channel to sell applications and content (especially in international markets), and they will provide new options for application sourcing. Many applications will exploit ecosystem cloud services.

Enhanced Location Awareness

By the end of 2011, over 75 percent of devices shipped in mature markets will include a GPS. GPS will be the primary, but not the only, means of establishing handset location. Wi-Fi and cell ID systems will remain important in situations where GPS is unavailable or unreliable. The popularity of location-aware handsets will enable a wide range of B2E and B2C location-aware applications, and will serve as a foundation for more-sophisticated contextual applications in the future. However, organizations must be sensitive to local privacy regulations, ensure that applications that expose location are “opt in,” and remain on alert for new risks and concerns that will be raised by location awareness.

Cellular Broadband

During 2010 and 2011, the availability of multimegabit wireless broadband performance will continue to grow as mobile networks enhance their broadband performance. Continuous improvements in wireless broadband performance will increase the range of applications that no longer require fixed networking, and make cellular broadband a more effective fallback when fixed connections fail. Embedded cellular networking will become a standard feature of many corporate laptops, and will enable new types of network-connected devices and business models, such as e-books and media players.

Touchscreens

Touchscreens are emerging as the dominant user interface for large-screen handsets, and will be included in over 60 percent of mobile devices shipped in Western Europe and North America in 2011. Touch-enabled devices will also make increasing use of techniques such as haptics to enhance user experience. Organizations developing native handset applications may need to exploit single and multitouch interfaces and haptics to give their applications a compelling and competitive user experience.

M2M

Many network service providers increased their commitment to machine to machine (M2M) in 2009, so a good range of both national and multinational M2M service options will be available in mature markets during 2010 and 2011. Although the M2M market is very fragmented, it’s growing at over 30 percent per year. Low-cost M2M modules will enable a wide range of new networked devices and business models. Key applications include smart grid, meter reading, security/surveillance, automotive systems, vending and point of sale, remote monitoring, and track and trace.

Device-Independent Security

This isn’t strictly a single technology, but refers to a collection of security technologies, application technologies and sourcing options that enable the provisioning of applications that are secure, but less tightly tied to specific devices and platforms, and that, in many cases, do not require security tools to be installed on the client. It includes thin-client architectures, applications as a service, platform-independent forms of network access control (NAC), portable personality, virtualization, and hosted security services, such as “in the cloud” virus scanning. Device-independent tools cannot provide the rigor of fully installed security, but a blend of several of these tools can enable CIOs to deliver applications that can run on a wider range of devices while reducing security risks.

In view of the importance of local contents and applications for future promotion of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) industry and infrastructure, PTA in collaboration with Motorola organized an exclusive conference on “Promoting ICT Sector” here, today. Secretary IT & Telecom, Naguibullah Malik, Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, Member (Finance) PTA, Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi, Member (Technical) PTA, Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar, leading representatives from IT & telecommunication sector and renowned academic & research scholars attended the conference.

Through this conference, a unique platform was provided to potential content providers to present their applications and ideas linked with ICT usage and development. Nine (9) local content providers displayed their applications during the conference which were highly appreciated by the ICT industry.  This conference was planned to spot the latest access technologies in the country and understand the challenges faced by telecom industry in terms of high cost of ownership and OPEX.

Addressing the conference Secretary IT & Telecom said that for the promotion of ICT sector in Pakistan, there is an acute need of bringing consensus among the Government, IT Industry, Telcos and academia to map out effective strategies for the best utilization of available opportunities in this sector. In this regard, he appreciated this initiative of PTA for providing an important platform for some constructive dialogue and discussion.

Secretary IT drew attention of the participants to four main focus areas which could give a boost to the development of ICT sector. Those areas include IT & Telecom education, research, entrepreneurship and local industries. He said that to carry out productive work in these areas, support of an efficient policy is also mandatory, for which the Government is working extensively and soon this policy will be introduced to the industry.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that the telecom sector of Pakistan has shown a rapid growth in the last few years. Especially the voice segment has been leading the other segments of telecommunication. Today, we have around 97.6 million cellular subscribers with total teledensity reaching upto 63.5%. However, the sector is still under-served as far as broadband is concerned.  He said that the key issue in further development of data segment is non-availability of local contents and applications which can contribute towards formulation of ICT-based economy.

He also highlighted the role of academia as a potential contributor of this sector. He said that a few educational institutes in Pakistan are already engaged in conducting useful research work but the contributory role of academia at large is, unfortunately, a ‘missing link’. At present, Pakistan’s telecom sector is in dire need of establishing strong academia linkage with industry and government to accelerate future technical excellence and entrepreneurship. He said that we need to encourage the participation of all stakeholders in this effort so that the issues, problems and barriers faced by the industry in the promotion of ICT sector may be highlighted and addressed properly hence the appropriate way outs to those problems can also be identified.

In reference to its endeavors for the development of ICTs in Pakistan, Dr. Yaseen said that PTA has taken number of initiatives to launch and promote new innovative solutions for the betterment of telecom industry and society and would continue its efforts till the set objectives are achieved completely. He invited all the stake holders to join their hands with PTA in order to bring about spectacular growth in the ICT sector as well as to enhance their own business in the market.

It may be mentioned that development of ICTs has become an important growth factor for countries around the globe. With every passing day, the world is edging into an information-based age. The rapid evolution of ICTs is clearly re-shaping daily lives, enhancing productivity and transforming the economies.

Tech and gadgets portal

With names like Storage Point and Aptimize already in the market offering performance optimization for SharePoint, Sharepoint still needed a software offering features both of these have alone. Today, Alachisoft has released such a product that does both data externalization as well as content optimization alongwith strong caching features. NCachePoint is Alachisoft’s new product focusing ‘SharePoint Performence & Scalability’. 

Some of the main features of NCachePoint includes External Binary Store (EBS), content optimization, session caching and list caching. Through EBS, users can store all their content (documents/images etc.) in an external storage. Content Optimization feature allows users to reduce the payload that gets transferred over the wire in form of ASP.NET ViewState, Javascript and CSS. Session Caching reduces the load on SQL Server (Which is used by default for sessions in SharePoint). List Caching feature allows users to save the output of different lists displayed in Calander View, Gantt View, Data Sheet View or HtmlView and prevent database query that retrieves the data of list from Sql Server.

It is expected that this product will grab a major share in SharePoint performance area. NCachePoint holds a competitive edge over StoragePoint & Aptimize as it has more features than these products individually have.

NCachePoint, SharePoint performance improvement solution is available at: http://www.Alachisoft.com/ncachepoint

The QoS surveys is a regular activity of PTA and the objective is to ensure that the interests of the consumers of telecommunication services are duly safeguarded and that the licensees are providing the telecom services as per the service quality standards of the license.

PTA, from time to time, has been repeatedly informing PTCL about its poor QoS and PTCL was directed to improve the quality as per license conditions, however, no improvement made therein despite ample time provided to PTCL.  As a result, show cause notice has been served to initiate the proceedings against the licensee as per rules.

According to the details, survey was conducted across Pakistan including major and small cities and rural areas from August to October 2009 along with the PTCL representatives on a mutually agreed survey methodology. It may be mentioned that this is the first instance of PTCL being show caused on account of poor quality of service which clearly shows the PTA’s resolve for not compromising on sub-standard services to the telecom consumers.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that ensuring quality services to consumers has always been priority to PTA. This is evident from the continuous surveys conducted by PTA for both mobile and fixed line sectors. The recent establishment of Consumer Protection Directorate, providing fast and easy complaint registration mechanism is another major step in protecting and safeguarding consumer interests.