A Pakistani Students Develops a Foot Mouse: ProPakistani

A Pakistani Students Develops a Foot Mouse
Convofy: Social Networking for Enterprises
Veena Malik Becomes a Web Celebrity

A Pakistani Students Develops a Foot Mouse

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 04:11 AM PDT

A Pakistani Students Develops a Foot Mouse is a post from: ProPakistani

clip image001 thumb1 A Pakistani Students Develops a Foot Mouse

The foot mouse, as name suggests is an innovative computer mouse that users can control with their feet.

It is being developed by Mohammad Ahsan, a computer information system engineering student at NED University of engineering and technology.

This hands free mouse is a true reflection of Pakistan youth hunger and desire for innovation.

The foot mouse currently is in its development phase. Ahsan has designed three prototypes using different materials. Firstly using wood for the sandal's structure, then rubber and finally with current composite material product, wooden base with rubber upper. The product is being further improved.

This innovation will significantly help disabled persons to work on computer effectively.

According to an Express tribune report, the association of the physically handicapped Adults (APHA) says that 10 percent of the people in Pakistan are disabled in one way or another.

Initially foot mouse was exclusively designed for people with disabilities, but later Ahsan found it suitable for every one. It can help users increase typing speed and can also be used as a pointing device for gamers.

Ahsan is planning to develop more products like a Braille keyboard which is currently not available in Pakistan. He is working towards the idea of 'E can do IT' which stands for "Every one can do Information Technology". Main objective behind 'E can do IT' is to make computer education easy for physically disable people in Pakistan.

Ahsan is seeking a manufacturer and investor who can help produce the item in large quantity and also market it.

No doubt Ahsan is a distinguished young genius of Pakistan and government should support his venture both financially and morally to uplift the image of Pakistan as a technology friendly country and thus bring more investment in the country.

Convofy: Social Networking for Enterprises

Posted: 10 Apr 2011 11:59 PM PDT

Convofy: Social Networking for Enterprises is a post from: ProPakistani

The expansive universe cultivated by Facebook demonstrates the changing trend in networking and social behavior exhibited by the internet populace. Left behind are the days when one would find pen pals in corners of the world; we now find friends through a web medium that not only gives a brief intro, but also provides some assurance in terms of common contacts.

If one is to review the history of Facebook, a common story with the release of the motion picture "The Social Network", the interesting factor found common is the initial thinking that led to the planting of the roots for this giant. It was exclusivity; a club that only a few could get into, while everyone wanted to be in it. In fact, even Orkut employed a similar technique in its heyday, requiring an invitation from members to join.

However, opening up the club proved to be the best thing for Facebook, propelling it into the heights of the internet world, and of course, making a billionaire out of its founder.

Instead of emailing your friends and family and attaching pictures, you could simply share your life and even your daily routine with your world; all through one portal. As the popularity has climbed, more developers have taken to this one platform to share their wares, from games to markets. And this has meant that the time spent by an average user of the site has also increased dramatically, in some cases, alarmingly.

This is one of the reasons why many workplaces have restricted worker access to social networking sites from the office, with information security and confidentiality also playing vital roles.

The various researches done so far have shown diverging results on what would be the best solution for a more open and productive workplace. In fact, a recent Gartner report showed a decline in the use of email communication corresponding with an increase in social network mediums as primary contact platforms. The hypothesis by the report states that social platforms could become the solitary modes in the next 5 years for all forms of communication; email, notes, messages, photos, etc.

Taking into account the global trend, enterprises have to make decisions on how to utilize the social platform; incorporate or segregate. Some organizations have welcomed Facebook openly, relying on the strong member base to promote and market their brands and environment. Others have kept the gates closed.

This is an arena that has become the new battleground for software houses, with Yammer and Salesforce applying the early breaks to introduce enterprise-specific social portals.

The model utilized by these enterprise options is similar to Facebook's historic model; allowing people of one domain network to connect. In such cases, an enterprise deploys a social platform for all its employees to utilize for all communication, at the office and beyond the doors of the workplace. For a large organization, this is one of the best and low-cost ways to have its people get to know each other, especially in light of the segmentation and segregation that most large entities employ for efficient working processes. Additionally, with Admin control remaining in the hands of the company, the chances of mischief can be minimized.

Convofy

Scrybe, an Adobe Systems Inc. & LMK Resources funded Tech company, (with roots in Pakistan) has become the new member of the social networking arena, launching Convofy.

Being the proud creators of a popular calendaring and personal productivity suite, the new product aims to revolutionize the social networking experience for enterprises. Key features that its founder Faizan Buzdar has been quick to highlight include:

Features:

Microblogging & Status Updates - See your team’s updates in real-time and never miss what your co-workers are sharing. Your team comments on the posts you share, and you see all conversations in real-time. You can talk with your co-workers, not at them.
Sharing Files & Images with Unlimited Storage – Upload and share images or documents with your co-workers or groups without a worry about storage limits. Quickly get your point across using annotations and context.
Sharing Blogs, Articles, Web Links – Create a knowledgebase for your team simply by sharing links and capturing conversations on the signals within those articles. Sharing links is literally as easy as drag and drop.
Sharing To-Dos & Milestones – Share to-do lists and milestones with your co-workers. Multiple people can interact with a task list, in real-time, so everyone in your team is on top of what is going on.
Presence and Company Chat - Know who is online at your workplace and available for chat. You can start a private chat with one person or you can start a chat within a post so all relevant teammates know what’s going on.
Motivational Analytics – The size of the presence bubble tells how actively your co-workers are contributing in to the system. Each post shows who you are most likely to chat with. Your contacts and groups are organized based on your interaction with them.
Employee Profiles – Find relevant information about co-workers and discover domain experts across your organization.
Mobile App – Convofy’s mobile web app is available for any modern device including the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, etc. Stay connected with what is going on at work, even when you are not there.
Private and Secure – Your security is Convofy’s top priority. Work in a private and secure environment in the cloud.
Groups – Create private groups for teams, projects and topics and invite relevant coworkers.
Unlimited Storage – Share away with unlimited storage on Convofy.
Unlimited Users – Your entire company can join your private network. Only a work email address is needed.
Administrative Tools – Claim the data in your company network. Manage and moderate content with advanced administrative tools.
Guest Users – Work with people outside your network, such as clients and contractors by inviting them to groups.
Security Controls – Convofy is safe and secure. Customize password and usage policies. Restrict usage to an IP ranges, or restrict guest domains.
Network Wide Keyword Search – Search the entire network for keywords in one click.
Priority Support – Access to our enhanced support option for any queries from your company.

User experience seems to be the vital aspect considered during the design of Convofy, and the only way to get the complete feel for it would be to try it out. The viral impact of the product has already had several competitors sign up to review the platform, while also enticing large enterprises to join and give their workforce a vital connection tool.

Just like all of us would like our mobiles to be the all-in-one device, Convofy aims to do the same with the office environment. Still early days to predict the success factor, but things are appearing green at the moment.

Take a look for yourself and share the experience: http://www.convofy.com

Have a look at following preview video:

Veena Malik Becomes a Web Celebrity

Posted: 10 Apr 2011 10:15 PM PDT

Veena Malik Becomes a Web Celebrity is a post from: ProPakistani

When I say Veena Malik, the first thing that would pop into most of our minds would be Big Boss. Her actions in the Indian reality show “Big Boss” have been dissected and discussed by millions of Pakistanis and has remained the major topic of conversation for countless TV shows, baithaks, hang outs and what not.

Admit it or not, all this talk surrounding her has made her somewhat of a celebrity. She was actually in the top ten twitter trends worldwide after the Express News interview she gave and as ProPakistani first reported, she’s the first Pakistani woman to ever achieve this feat.

Her controversy sold and she became the most talked about woman in Pakistan, seemingly overnight.

Well that's not it. The real news is that Veena Malik has become a world wide celebrity. In fact, these days, a video of verbal spat between her and a religious scholar on the Express News interview she gave (on her return from Big Boss) is circling around the web, including Digg, Huffington and various other notable places.

Entitled, “This woman is AWESOME. Pakistani Actress Defies Mullah Accusing Her of Immorality”, the video has English subtitles as well, providing this issue an international audience.

Just to add to your knowledge, this video has been viewed more than a half million times in just less than one month.

Now this is an interesting scenario for a multitude of reasons. First of all, this is one of those rare stories to surface on Digg (and get popular too) from Pakistan . It's a personal experience that stories from Pakistan don't usually pop on Digg, regardless of how interesting or pop-worthy they are (Power diggers will concur here).

For those of you who think that I'm being too much of a conspiracy theorist, have a look and see how many positive stories about our country were Digg’d the most:

http://digg.com/search?q=pakistan&sort=digg

Personally I feel the way this issue had the whole nation gripped, is disturbing to say the very least. It's not like enough doesn't happen in our country that we elevate a person, whose very work is to get talked about no matter how that may be achieved, to an internet celebrity status.

Another point to ponder here is why do these types of stories make headlines in western media that show Pakistan in a negative light? Are these stories the best Pakistan can do? Or is good stuff so hard to come out of Pakistan these days?

All stuff like this does, makes us "the laughing stock" for countless people. Things could have gone differently in this case if Veena Malik had refused to go to the show. Having gone there, she could have portrayed our culture and the situation lot better.

Even after having done all that stuff, she could have at least accepted that she was at fault instead of denying and blowing this issue out of proportion.

On the other side, the host of that show could have thought of Pakistan before setting up an incendiary encounter he knew would have gone the road it did. As for us, why was this issue more important than the life and death issues this country faces everyday?

I think it's a call for us to have a soul search. Instead of discussing whether an entertainer was scantily clothed or not, we should focus our attentions on matters more critical. It's not like we've run out of them.

It's time to think for a better image of Pakistan, instead of increasing our personal ratings, advantages, profits and individual interests.

Computer Tips From A Computer Guy

How to Use the New Advanced Search Features in Windows 7

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 04:22 AM PDT

With every new release of Windows, Microsoft has upgraded the search facility to allow users ever better ways to find the myriad of files, folders, images, videos and even e-mail on their computers. Windows 7 is no exception, though its advanced features are not very well known since Microsoft chose to hide them on the results page.

In any event, the first step in finding something on your computer, is to click on the Start menu, and then type in something you'd like to find:

Notice that as with Vista, you don't have to type the Enter key, as Windows displays results based on each key you type.

The results of your initial search, though likely very helpful, don't give you the full power of the search facility; to get that you need to click just above the search box, on See more results:

Doing so brings up the results page (which is actually nothing more than a search version of Windows Explorer File Manager). On this screen, there are several things to notice; at the top, there is a menu option that allows you to save your search for future reference:

Just above the Save search option, under Tools, is Folder options…

Clicking on it brings up a popup window that allows you to modify the way your files and folders are presented; but one little gem among them is under the Search tab:

Which of course allows you to search the contents of every file on your hard drive for a certain string of text.

At the top right corner of the results page is another little search box; this one allows you to change the text you've typed:

It also allows you to further narrow down your search by Kind, Date modified, Type and Size.

Kind refers to the kind of document you are after,e.g. document, e-mail, folder, etc. Type refers to which kind of file extension it has,e.g. .doc, .jpg, etc.

And at the very bottom of the results page, after scrolling all the way down, there is this little menu:

These icons allow you to search, respectively, your individual libraries, your home group, and your whole computer. And of course it allows you to perform a custom search, or to search the Internet using your default browser.

The reason Microsoft has chosen to give you so many options, is because Windows doesn't always search everything during its default search; it only searches items it has indexed, which generally means, files that are in your local libraries. The other options are there because sometimes a search returns too many hits, so the option to search in a more locally defined way can reduce the clutter dramatically.

This is the case with the Libraries menu choice; clicking on it causes Search to look only in your local libraries.

Similarly, clicking on Homegroup, causes Search to look only at stuff that is shared by others in your home group.

Clicking on Computer, on the other hand, widens your search options by forcing Search to look at every single thing on your computer; be forewarned, it can take awhile.

Choosing Custom brings up following pop-up:

Double-clicking on files or folders causes them to be added to the bottom window, which allows you to search just those files or folders.

And of course, clicking on Internet, causes your default web browser to launch with your default search engine with a predefined search using your text.

In summation, Microsoft has give users far more search options than ever before, though you might have to work at it to figure out how to get those results.

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How to Use the New Advanced Search Features in Windows 7