We have moved

This post is to announce that Teeth Maestro's blog has now officially moved to

teeth.com.pk/blog

Please kindly update your bookmarks

Conversion almost complete

Friends: I aplogize for my protracted absence from blogging, especially since Blogger as been a pain in the ass for the past week. Last night when I tried to post, frustration almost made me pull my hair wild. I have my fingers crossed if this post goes through on the first attempt.

My move to Wordpress is almost in its final stages, I finally have a hosting service and hope they will have me setup soon, once fired up, all I need to do is transfer my testing site to the new host that should be easy. BUT then I have my fingers crossed with blogger.com if it will allow me an uneventful FTP transfer. Hopefully the next post on this site would be to announce the new URI of my blog.

Pakistani Tech Forum by KO

I would like to draw your attention to a new forum created by KO which will discuss Technology issues in Pakistan. It is a MUST visit forum to stay abreast of the latest developments in our country

Check it out @ Ko.offroadpakistan.com/forums

Karachi and Chicago - Sister Cities

According to a report appearing in Dawn, at a meeting held in the office of Naib Nazim Tariq Hasan, Tariq G Malhanens, the representative of Chicago City Government, said that on Hasan’s desire, Karachi and Chicago were being declared as sister cities.....

I am at a loss for words..... What the........

@ Dawn.com

My Birthday too

Isn't it surprising when you accidently find that some other person happens to have the same Birth date as yours. Well I was surprised to find that Shirazi and myself having the same Date of Birth which is 5th April [mind you I have no idea if our year coincides; PS- dont wanna know as I think one of us; more likely myself; might end up to be older ;) ]

This reaction is strange as there are a few billion people on Earth and only 365 days to be born on so I wish the rest of the couple million or so folks having the DOB on 5th April a very Happy Birthday.

Wish Shirazi a Happy Birthday at this link

A Project worth Supporting

Poverty breeds the evil in our society; it brings out beggars and also the thieves out onto the streets to survive. Thatta Kedona (Village Dolls) is an organization which I feel is a remarkable achievement of a select few visionary individuals to be able to realize this problem and have come together to create change for the poor living in Pakistan.

This organization simply allows the poor to be creative and use their limited skills combined with the limited resources around them to create a piece of art. These beautiful toys and dolls are dressed in traditional Pakistan clothes and are simply spectacular.

Have a look at Thatta Kedona to better understand this noble cause.

Blog Development

Friends - For now I have only designed the banner header and have not worked on other items but I would really appreciate if you would be kind enough to look at the new banner and the theme? I feel it is important for me to get feedback from my blogging friends, does it appeal or would some other banner/theme would be better suited.

I would appreciate if you would be honest and comment sincerely, I may or may not heed to the comments ;) but still would love to hear them and maybe it might help me evolve the new blog.

Testing site @ teeth.negimaki.com

2nd update - Blogger to WordPress move

As you might have noticed I have gone MIA (Missing in Action) for the past few days, the reason being I am in intensive development stage (I am well past puberty so its not growth development) It is development of my WordPress blogging site. Here is the update

I have obtained a testing site at "teeth.negimaki.com" the hosts at negimaki were generous to offer me 1GB space + a gallery with an unlimited bandwidth. This site is my work in progress until I get hold of some good hosting service - will update you of the change on this blog.

Domain: I already am an owner of the domain teeth.com.pk which was basically registered to be used by Alvi Dental Hospital, I plan to use a subdomain either blog.teeth.com.pk or teeth.com.pk/blog, I await your input on the better subdomain to use.

WebHosting: The domain teeth.com.pk is hosted on Nexus.com.pk servers who have been my registrars for the past 4 years they until now provided me with mail + 15MB hosting + 2-yr domain registration for an unbeatable price of Rs. 2,300 (a good deal). When I move to WordPress it requires PHP and MySQL, nexus does not offer these services in its basic package. On a detailed hunt I found many cheap sites but seems like I will stick with Nexus for Rs. 5,000 for 1 yr Unix Lite hosting (do you think its a deal I should take or is there anything cheaper, but still reliable host)

WordPress: Installation is a piece of cake, the 5-minute install script is indeed good if not quicker. After that its onto the world of customizations, you can install from a selection of hundreds of themes and numerous plugins available freely on the web (but to install each plugin you need to upload them physically via FTP and ensuring that the CHMOD settings are ok?)

Design: Honestly I ain't an expert designer/ programmer that I would come up with an amazing unique idea so honestly I am gathering stuff from all over, but when you look at the html code its all in PHP code and PHP to me is like reading French, but something which you can learn, so this dentist here is busy studying PHP code ;) - fret not I'm up for this computer challenge.

Move from Blogger: I would love to move away from blogger as the quality of service is on the downhill, an outstanding tutorial was specially written for me by Yasir Memon (thanks) I found a few others at Catstutorial which uses Andy Skelton's Importing tool (PS if someone has this tool please email it to me as somehow my computer refuses to open Andy Skelton's website) also give a step-by-step pictorial guide to help move to wordpress. The biggest problem is how to tell your followers to update their bookmark - Honestly it is not easy and I also shall remain grateful to all for their understanding.

Will keep you all posted hopefully on a daily basis, I would like to thank Shirazi for pushing me to maintain an open journal putting pen-to-paper all my hurdles during this stage of development, this may also serve as a point where we all can discuss problems during this stage of development.

Led Zeppelin playing Satanic Messages

Conspiracy theorists have created stories about each and every issue of our normal daily life. I myself grow tired of these claims, which I feel are just pure coincidence. I am sure many of you recall the $20 bill fold a few times showed the world trade center, heck if I folded the $100 bill a million times I might even get a million dollars

Of all people Led Zeppellin being blessed by satanic powers (hmmm think about it maybe?) His famous track Stairway to Heaven if played backwards reveals a satanic message.

What do you have to say in this satanic conspiracy theory?

Check this link out on Jeff Milner

Courtesy Omar Q

It's my Country Too

Just recently BBC aired a documentary by Salman Ahmed on the conditions faced by the US based Muslims in the post 9/11 era.

A few sections were interesting especially when Salman talks with Dr. Hassan's family, a millionaire muslim family who is now a staunch supporter of Bush Jr, it is documented that he considerably supported the Bush campaign and also funds the website Muslimsforbush.com. A few excerpts form the documentary.

Salman talk with Seeme wife of Dr. Hassan

SALMAN: ... you know, a lot of the Muslims in the world feel you know, scared, that hey, my, my Muslim country might be next.

SEEME: Personally I wanted to invade Iraq, because I think if there is a country that will not allow us into its borders and has the money and the reasoning to attack United States, then we have to go in, because -

SALMAN: With force?

SEEME: Yes. Absolutely, because – look what one 9/11 did to us American Muslims. I don’t want a repeat.

SALMAN: I mean if you disagree with the United States, it gives the United States the right to go and blow up your country?

SEEME: So sooner or later they were going to go in, I mean it just happened that it got linked with 9/11, but sooner or later it was going to happen, I mean Saddam was asking for it.

Excerpt of discussion with Aliv - cousin of Seeme, the media junkie and the key person behind the website Muslimsforbush.com

ALIV: I was asked off an, off of an aeroplane. Aliya was with me, so we both had to leave the aeroplane.

ALIYA: I mean we were treated very well, and it was awkward to be taken off the plane and everybody looked at us, and we came back and everybody looked what’s going on.

ALIV: The bigger incident was I was checking into a plane at LAX, in Los Angeles, and I was surrounded by four LAPD officers. They read me Miranda rights, and then they said if you’re the terrorist that we think you might be then we’re going to take you down to the station, and I had to wait there in that terminal with four LAPD officers around me, while everybody was getting their tickets for one hour, and then the FBI agent showed up.

SALMAN: Cat Stevens, also known as Yusuf Islam, was deported from the airport, so I was trying to figure out, these people, how can there be a questionably on their -

DR HASAN: Under the same programme under which Cat Stevens was deported, Senator Ted Kennedy was denied boarding of a plane because he was on a terrorist list. Now who in this country does not know Senator Edward Kennedy?

SALMAN: Except that he’s a Democrat.

DR HASAN: It doesn’t matter. I’m telling you, we never had a training to be an imperialist or a police state. So anything to do with enforcement of the law is done so poorly, because this is not part of the fabric of this society.

ALIV: Those incidents happened pretty close to each other and I told Mum and Dad, and Mum and Dad, Dad, told the administration, and they listened to it seriously, they took it very seriously, and from that point on I haven’t been interrogated again.

I was shocked to hear such comments from a spoilt rich family. I am saddened to hear that as muslims they still believe that the invasion of Iraq was necessary read Seeme's comments when Salman asks her about the Invasion.... Ruthless.

Secondly it irks me when the family openly claims to have used contacts with the White House, where is the so-called justice or does the Patriot Act allow such things to happen.

I anxiously await your comments on this development....

Text Manuscript of the documentary (Link)
BBC - This World (Link)
Muslimsforbush.com

Shut the Fox Up

Frequent visitors to this blog must know my feelings about Fox News, just don't get me started on this biased news channel. I simply hate their gutts, I can bitch about it all day, who the F**K cares, but my opinions remain my fundamental right and I simply like to rant on Fox News and their biased reporting style. Check out FoxBlocker.com a dedicate website for Fox-hate fans.

Personally I think its taking it a bit too far....

FoxBlocker.com

Bluetooth Virus coming to a Cell Phone near you.

Savvy cell phone users be aware of a virus slowly traversing the world. Bluetooth enabled cell phones are at risk of getting screwed big time.

Read in detail the article on slate.com where a certain paragraph caught my attention

Once smartphones have complex enough operating systems, it won't be hard to write a worm that burrows in, harvests all your info, and squirts it out to a mailbox in Pakistan. That's precisely what virulent computer worms like Sobig and Bugbear do.

Pakistan is no doubt famous thanks to our Brain.net brothers. On a side note cell phone users Beaware !

Read on Slate.com Perfect Worm: Coming to a cell phone near you

Pen & Paper Essay - DUH !!!!

Gone are the days of classical essays, where emphasis was on composure, spellings and punctuation. In comes our new generation which is fluent in computer based word processing, replacing the classical pen and paper. It seems 'that old style' is to cumbersome.

How do you still fare on the pen and paper method of writing compared to computer based essay writing?

World Jump Day

People at World Jump Day organization (WJD) want all humans to jump at the precise co-ordinated time on 20th July 2006 at preisely 11.39.13 GMT on any concrete surface so that a worldwide unified effort would then change orbital path of the earth. This will then have a favourable affect on global warming, extend daytime hours and create a more homgenous environemnt. Read more at WJD website (link)

Asia, Australia, Middle-East incuding Pakistan is not listed in the timezones for a coordinated jump, so I dont know if we, on this side of the world are allowed to take part in the world changing jump or not. On second thought maybe we could start an Anti-Jump Day co-ordianted exactly with them to negate the effects of WJD and we could counter argue to ensure that our deal 'ol earth stays on its original course ..... How dare they leave us out ...

WorldJumpDay.org

Do you believe that WJD can impact the orbit, and if Pakistan is not listed for WJD would you join an effort for an Anti-WJD ?

Contemplating to Move to a Domain

I give full credit to Blogspot to have completely captured my attention and I am now whole-heartedly stuck to blogging, long gone are the days where I used to idle aimlessly on the web, the world of Blogging has my undivided attention. The passion has gone to such an extent that my family need not talk to me, and can check my blog to know my whereabouts.... Is this a disease????

Taking the passion a bit further, I am in the process of jumping away from blogspot, When? You you might ask, I can't exactly say when, but I have been seriously thinking of having Teeth Maestro starred on www.teeth.com.pk/blog (I already own the teeth.com.pk domain) that way I can then take this new found passion to another level and use WordPress in all its glory. I am aware that the transition is going to be bad, for that reason I have to be very meticulous ensure the new blog is up to speed before I actually hop onto it. If that day does come, I know you all will be understanding. I would also appreciate any recommendations or past experiences in this transition.

What do you have to say, Would you move away from blogspot and be ready to take your chances on a seperate domain?

Update 15th March: Check out the post by Yasir Memon where he describes the best way to migrate slowly from the Blogspot address to your own domain.

Yasir Suleman Memon : Migrating your blog from blogger.com to WordPress, BlogCMS and others

Email Privacy does NOT exist in Pakistan

Email privacy is probably the last thing on our minds in a country where Human Rights and Freedom of Speech does not exist. Take a look at a post by Yassir Suleman Memon on his Blog where he sheds some light on our agencies monitoring all email messages in and out of Pakistan.

My twsit on this issue, I seriously doubt that the agencies are so well organized to be able to filter through thousands of messages in Pakistan, how long will it last is for all of us to find out with time. I think for now we can rest easy

What are your concerns? Are you worried?

Email Privacy: No more baba....

Jahil Online

I am sure you all must know of our famous MNA cum TV personality Dr. Aamir Liaqat Hussain. For the past few months rumors have been circulating that he is a fake doctor finally I have evidence. In a detailed investigation conducted by a local newspaper 'Ummat' and recently published in South Asia Tribune, some really interesting fact have indeed come forth surely worth a NAB 'chappa'.

Dr. Aamir appears to be one of the biggest local scams of Pakistan. For the past couple years he has been the host of 'Aalim Online' on Geo TV where he brings together Islamic Scholars to shed light on the religion of Islam. I have always disliked watching the show as it always appeared as a scam, a snazzy looking Dr. Aamir preaching Islam some how irritated me, but that's just me, I have for sometime labeled his show as Jahil Online. It now appears to be entirely true. Dr. Aamir had been preaching Islam with such authority that it had the nation fooled for years including our General who has appointed him as a Minister of Religious Affairs (probably in a deal with MQM)

He has graduated from 'Trinity College and University' with a Bachelors of Arts in Islamic Studies (conferred on March 17, 1995). The next degree that he allegedly pursued was a Masters of Arts in Islamic Studies (conferred on March 15, 2002) and amazingly 20 days later was awarded a doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy in Islamic Studies (conferred on April 5, 2002). All these degrees were awarded by Trinity College based out of Spain. The going rate for these 'degrees by mail' as published on the Trinity College website (link) is

Bachelors = $ 212
Masters = $ 332
Doctorate= $ 500
Or a one time deal all three degrees for a bumper price of $ 850

Trinity College on its webpage claims the following slogans "providing degrees based on your previous life" and the best slogan "No Residency or Attendance is required in Spain Everything by Mail"

Dr. (Fake) Aamir Liaquat Hussain contested the National Assembly elections based on these degrees and successfully won, he stands to be disqualified for providing fake degrees to support his candidacy (which as you all recall was strictly limited to graduates). The Higher Education Commission Pakistan has also declare in a letter that Trinity College is not a authorized degree awarding university. How can it be since its just one of those online stores that awards these degrees. Check these pictures out as they sure are incriminating evidence.

Copy of his Bachelors of Arts in Islamic Studies degree
Copy of his Masters of Arts in Islamic Studies degree
Copy of his Doctor of Philosophy in Islamic Studies
Election Commissioner 'provisionally' accepting his degrees
Higher Education Commission declaring Trinity College as a fake
A sample degree issued by Trinity College (Side-by-Side)

Detailed report on SA Tribune
Get your fake degree --> Trinity College Website

I leave you with considerable evidence, for you to decide

Update 13th March: In a Google search of our fake Aalim I came across this interview from Daily Times

Daily Times: What are your predictions about the Pakistani politics?

Aamir Liaqat: I am really disappointed with the Pakistani politics. The biggest despondency is the involvement of Maulvis in the mainstream politics, who are raising local issues at national levels. I am not hopeful with the national politics. The politicians of my country fight only for their own interests. I request General Musharraf to give me a chartered plane, and I would take all the politicians to Iraq. Then I would ask all those who claim to be great Muslims to come out and fight against the anti-Islam forces. If I could not take the airplane to Iraq, then I will destroy it in the sea. I would sacrifice my own life for this noble cause.

I am foreseeing a bloody revolution. Sorry to say, the democracy would bring nothing better in this country. Pakistan needs a bloody revolution. A person is required here, who will eliminate all the politicians once for all, and then intelligent and young people of Pakistan will come forward to lead the nation. I fear that in revolution the geographical situation might also change.

Reverse Spamming

How many times have you, the internet surfer, wanted to ask a one-time question on a website and for that simple one-time use you are forced to register by providing a valid email address.

In your heart you know for sure that later on you will be spammed to hell for this small wish of yours. I used to pull one of my junk email addresses, coutesy of Hotmail and enter it into the email field. Then I have to go and fetch that emial from the hotmail account and click-thru to finally activate my account. The future then holds a barrage of Viagra / Phd degree spam emails that I am doomed for life (my junk email account to date recieves 200 junk emails daily). I find it irritating that spammers get to hit me later to their hearts desire, I wish I could bombard them with tons of - "No address found emails" Now I can ...... read on .....

Some creative domain owners have found a solution to defeat the spammers at their own game, they now provide you with a random email address for 24 hours this allows you to receive that critical activation link sent straight to your email account, use it and after the 24 hr time limit the address simply vanishes into thin air and now potential spammers get that Vaigra email showed up their ass. I now call it Reverse Spamming ....

Check it out on spamday.com

What is your creative idea to defeat spammers at their game?

Computer Disaster Story

It is with a sobbing heart I relate to you my recent computer disaster on one of my office computers which was the "main server" on our peer-to-peer network. The story is for you all to learn from my mistakes.

Our main server has been serving us for 4-5 years started off with Win 98 which I later upgraded to Win XP and as you all must have guessed this upgrade literally killed the speed of the processor and it now used to take ages to complete simple tasks as it had a P3 256MB RAM, so one fine day 'yours truly' decided that it is essential to downgrade to Win 98 SE, which I felt would be more generous to my aging processor.

Scenario: I have two partitions divided equally on the 40GB HD so in preparation for the Extreme Makeover I moved everything over to the secondary partition which was the D: Drive. Booted up with a boot disk CD, which I was lucky to pull out of my CD-wallet and found it also carried a copy of Win 98SE - Perfect I thought, the computer Gods must have an eye out for me, little did I know then that it was the evil eye ;)

Using that old boot-disk I started the computer searched via the DOS prompts and found only the C drive tried in vain to locate the D drive but turned up empty, I presumed it was some reading glitch and presumed that the C Drive would still exist so I continued to format C - BIG MISTAKE #1. Copied Win 98 files from the CD to the Hard Disk via the Dos prompts - MISTAKE #2

I then ran the 98 installer but it kept prompting me that there was an invalid file system, hence I jumped to FDisk found that C Drive which was being labelled as a Non-Dos file system (ofcourse I had thought then, Stupid me Win 98 does not run on NTFS) and D Drive was labelled as an Extended Dos System (See the D Drive was safe and sound - I was happy). I continued the process in Fdisk and deleted the C Non-Dos partition and re-installed it as a DOS primary partition - MISTAKE #3. Once this error was solved the Win 98 continued to do a full clean installation of Win 98 on the computer. Finally when it got done I opened up explorer and to my horror no data existed and my critical D drive which was a literaliy a clean slate apart from the Win 98 installation folder and nothing else. Shocked at the loss of all my data I was then followed up by a series of panic and heart attacks as I had literaaly misplaced 4 years of unreplacable critical data ;) 0- the old story - never thought it would happen to me.....

Analysis:After a few hours of sweating I finally figured out the problem and also my mistakes. C drive was the root folder of Win XP so it was formatted in an NTFS system while the D drive was still as an old FAT system, technically when I used the "old boot disk" which was based of a win 98 system boot disk, the computer only read the FAT system and it never could read the C Drive NTFS system so in my ignorance I clean deleted everything on the D Drive (which was being mis-labelled as C Drive). I then copied win 98 installed on D over-writing a lot of the primary data on D Drive. C Drive continued to exists until ..... I Fdisk'ed it later and now I had technically destroyred all existing data and had myself a virgin system.

Recovery: I downloaded Bart's PE Builder and also installed a *cracked* version of Getdataback NTFS and FAT version (a good data recoverng software) and ran it from the Bart's Protected Enviroment CD this ensured that all the scanning etc was done off the CD and no data got overwritten on the Hard Disk in an attempt preserve it as much as I now possibley could - too late but I needed each and every inch of the data on the Hard Disk, with the GetDataBack FAT I scanned my D drive which was FAT based and luckily found ALL the data and recovered it to my C Drive.

Moral of the story - be careful when you format hard drives pay special attention to the file systems, but if incase you accidentally do destroy any hard drive don't worry carry around a version of the Bart's PE CD (A must have for all techies) and recover data with GetDataBack it will almost surely recover all the data. Many people have told me and I again tell you critical data needs to be backed up onto CD's. I have indeed learnt my lesson ;) the hard way

Bart's PE Link
GetDataBack Link

Is Islamabad Really Dead?

I was in Islamabad for two days to visit the US Embassy for a visa so that I can go to the US to continue my training at UPENN in Microscopic Endodontics.

The visit was OK as the Gods of the INS Authorities found me "qualified for a visa", but I dearly missed the hustle bustle of my beloved city Karachi. Islamabad to me was a dead city, people appeared to be in bed around 9 or 10pm with no one around on the streets, I did get to go to dinner late night (8-9pm considered late in Islo terms) came back by 10 and the streets were dead.

Islamabadi's continued to say that its only fun if you have "contacts to parties on the weekend", but then you mean to testify that apart from weekend parties the city is technically dead. Karachi on the other hand wakes up at 10 to continue to 1 am thats my life, one does not always need party tickets to enjoy the night in Karachi, a drive around town is entertaining enough - I LOVE YOU KARACHI

Prove me wrong Islamabadi's !!!!!

Zinio is an online magazine reader where you can read the complete copy of your favourite magazine right on your computer.

To usually get a year's worth of subscription one needs to fork over some hard cash. Fortunately for us cheap folks on the net some companies offer a free 1-year sibscription to a couple of good magazines, sign up from the link below and enjoy the comfort of reading PC Magazine right on your computer for one whole year, an offer you can't refuse..

The links can be found on Fatwallet Forums

X-Posted on [G3]-TechNews

Disclaimer: I cannot tesify to the legality of this offer,
please proceed at your own risk

How to Compile Software in Visual?

As you all must know by now that I am a plain simple dentist, a little familiar with computers but not to the extent to be able to compile a source code - ;) I hear it ain't too much of a big deal.

The software that I am after is open source and the source code is freely available for anyone to compile and use but if one does not know how to compile it the company can then do it for you and charge a horrendous $200 a month for a year for this simple service - What a rip off. So understandably I'm not too keen on paying for this software (btw who is in Pakistan?)

The software needs to be compiled in Visual C# or Visual Basic (I once ran to the computer store to grab a CD of Visual but only came up with Enterprise version and that simply did not load properly, must have been a busted CD or corrupt version or something). The software is a dental practice managment software and in my opinion a very versatile software as the dveloper has worked to hard to put in all the softwares into one neat package a sort of All-in-One deal and probably better then most dental softwares in the market. In my practice I presently have 3 different softwares and it is indeed a nightmare running them all together I feel that Open-Dent may fix the problem for me once in for all but before I switch I need to mess around with the full version before I migrate into this open source deal.

The instructions are on this page Link
The download page for the source code is Link

Have a look at it and maybe someone might be able to guide me in the right direction, my goal is to learn how to compile it as the company releases updates every month or so and I don't wanna be running around trying to find help. Any help would be appreciated.

and the pictures......

Here are the pictures of the event we held at Alvi Dental Hospital to launch the 1st Dental Microscope in Pakistan - the event was well covered in the press, News reports appeared in PTV Khabarnama, ARY News, City News and Indus News, articles appeared in The News, Daily Times, Pictures were seen in many other newspapers including Jang. So overall we were quite pleased with our efforts and ofcourse the Lunch was great ;)

Dr. Awab Alvi addressing the event

Dr. Arif Alvi adressing the event

The press gathered for the ribbon cutting

One of my banners on display

The stage with the Hospital as the backdrop

Freehand designs

It was for the very first time I played with Freehand Mx together with Photoshop to come up with these designs - In the process I got to learn a lot and now can attest to the fact that these two programs are indeed the BEST publishing softwares to date.

These 2'x5' vertical banners which elaborate the various different technologies that have been implemeted in our hospital, the designs were printed on Pan-Flex and mounted on stands to display in our hospital during the Dental Microscope Launching ceremony they looked impressive if I must say so myself.

1st Dental Microscope Launched

I'm back ......

Today afternoon we had a very impressive ceremony at the Alvi Dental Hospital to launch the first dental Microscope was offically launched, the ceremony was attended by more then 250 influential poeple of Karachi with the Chief Guest as Justice (Retd) Saeeduzaman Siddiqui and also Mr. S H Hashmi the director of Orient McCann-Erikson. A short adress by Dr. Arif Alvi, Justice SaeeduzZaman, SH Hasmi and myself was followed by a one-to-one demonstration of the microscope, this allowed the people to actually appreciate how important tool it is to a dentist in doing treatment.

I will soon update this post to enclose a few pictures, and also a few Freehand designs I made - novice work as it was the first time i used the software but they looked good anyway.

Thank you G3 and Shirazi for all your kind supporting words.

Second driver seat belts

The National Highway Safety Council has done extensive testing on a newly designed seat belt. Results show that accidents can be reduced by as much as 45% when the belt is properly installed. Correct installation is illustrated below:

Found on Journal Entry Blog : Permanent Link

On Leave

To all my frequent readers,

I apologize for my absence, I am a bit preoccupied with a project and hopefully will get done this Saturday. It is a major event being organised by us (Alvi Dental Hospital) to launch the 1st Dental Microscope in Pakistan to the public, for that reason on Saturday 26th Feb we are having a huge press conference in an attempt to get some press coverage.

See you in a few days.........

15 Things Not to do in a Public Restroom

.... In a public Restroom.

1. Walk out of the stall and say, "Huh, I've never seen that color before..."
2. Stand on top of the toilet, grunt reeeeally loud, then drop a heavy object in the toilet. Sigh Relaxingly.
3. While in the stall, say loudly, "Awwww, isn't it sooo cuuuute?!"
4. Poke amirror underneath your neighbor's stall and say "Peek-a-boo!"
5. Say when you walk out, "Huh, I don't remember eating that..."
6. Whenever someon tries ot get in the restroom, dart in front of them to block them, bark at them, whack 'em in the head, or scream "MINE!!"
7. Get a bottle of Mountain dew with squirty lids, run around the room with it between your pants, squeezing it, and shouting "WOAH NELLY!!"
8. Walk out and say "Maaaajor clean up in stall #3.."
9. Get 73 bottles of water with squirty lids and squirt them non stop in the toilet. Sigh Relaxingly
10. Bang on an occupied stall and scream "AAHH!! THE POTATOS ARE COMMING TO GET MEEEEE!!"
11. Grunt really loudly for 10 minutes, like you're in labor
12. Some how, get into and occupied stall, tell them you're not potty trained and ask for help.
13. Start singing the 'I'm too Sexy' song, start stripping, and throw your clothes into other people's stalls.
14. Reach underneath other peoples' stalls, complaining of a lost contact.
15. Go into the opposing gender's restrooom, pointing, saying " WOAH! What the heck are those?!", "Oooh, where can I get one?", or stare like you're very interested, perhaps pretending ot take notes.

Credit to wolffire @ Deviant Art

Branding the Lie

It is well known fact that major brands openly lie to the public! People more often then not forget to read the 'Astrerix'

Imagine you are the owner of McDonaldʼs.
Question: Whatʼs the truth behind your brand?
If the truth is:

1. Your food is not healthy but tastes good.
2. Your restaurants look and feel outdated.
3. Your brand’s ethics have been questioned in the past.

How does the brand acknowledge this? Interesting dilemma! I have never seen McDonald's acknowledging the fact that their food sux or their restaurants are a stink bomb?

But somehow those Big Mac's sell like crazy, It all has to do with a carefully choreographed marketing campaign - simply do not acknowledge the truth that it even exist, continue to lie and soon the public perception gets numb to the lies and then believes the LIE

Read more of the manifesto from Changethis.com

X-posted on Shirazi

% Growth in Internet use, Dec 2004

Internet use continues to grow, even if the rate of growth is slowing. Figures for December show that countries such as Spain, Switzerland and Brazil saw a decrease in active at-home users. The UK added more than a quarter of a million users to register a 1.2% increase.

• Brazil -5.1
• Spain -1.7
• France -0.3
• Germany 0.1
• US 1.1
• UK 1.2
• Hong Kong 4.3

Courtesy: Nielson//NetRatings

How NOT to cross the road on a Red Light

Be careful when you cross the road even on a redlight. A little graphic but a take it with some light humor, take a close look at the reaction of people around.

How Much Did You Spend On Flowers?

We all know each and every flower shop now knows the importance of "Phool Wala Din" (Flower day) and the prices shoot up - I would like to know how much did you spend on flowers this would be a good barometer on the various prices across town/country

Valentines Day facts

I wish you all a very happy Valentine's Day with your significant other. Here are some intersting facts so - Did You Know?

- 2.2 million marriages take place in the United States annually. That breaks down to about 6,000 a day.

- 138,600 marriages were performed in Nevada during 2003. So many couples "tie the knot" in the Silver State that it ranked fourth nationally in marriages, even though its total population that year was 35th.

- 25.3 and 27.1 are the estimated U.S. median ages at first marriage for women and men, respectively, in 2003. The age for women is up 4.3 years in the last three decades. The age for men is up 3.9 years.

- The proportion of women 20 to 24 years old who had never married more than doubled between 1970 and 2003 — from 36 percent to 75 percent. Changes were also dramatic for men — the corresponding rate for men in this age group increased from 55 percent to 86 percent.

- 54% and 57% are the percentages of American women and men, respectively, who are 15 and over and currently married.

- There were 4.6 million cohabitating couples who maintained households in 2003. These couples comprised 4.2 percent of all households, up from 2.9 percent in 1996.

- There are 118 single men (i.e., never married, widowed or divorced) who are in their 20s for every 100 single women of the same ages.

- There are 33 single men (i.e., never married, widowed or divorced) age 65 and over for every 100 single women of the same ages.

- 24.6 pounds of candy per capita was consumed by Americans in 2003; it is believed a large portion is consumed around Valentine's Day. Candy consumption has actually declined over the last few years; in 1997, each American gobbled more than 27 pounds of candy a year.

- The combined wholesale value of domestically produced cut roses in 2003 was $52 million for all operations in 36 states, with $100,000 or more in sales. Among all types of cut flowers, roses were second in receipts to lilies ($70 million).

- There were 28,914 jewelry stores in the United States in 2002. In February 2004, these stores sold $2.4 billion worth of merchandise — a much higher total than in the preceding month or succeeding months.

Heated discussion on Jew-Muslim Conflict

For the past few days I have not made any post on my blog - the reason being I was involved in composing a well drafted response to an argument which took a strange twist, since a cerain commenter named 'Mark' labelled me as 'borderline Anti-Semetic'. I was surely indeed taken-a-back as my comment had no religious intent but was geared more so politically, read the entire post and discussion on the blog Light Within.

Link to the actual post is - Fox News Buys Al-Jazeera

PS- my response is long many apologies

Patriots - SuperBowl XXXIX Champions

Followers of NFL football must have seen the victorious New England Patriots stomp out the Philadelphia Eagles in a closely contested battle 24-21 to grab the Vince Lombardi Trophy and also a memorable SuperBowl ring.

The highlight of the mega-event is ofcourse the game itself but strangely the commercials are also an aspect which is closely followed by the 15 million viewers, a 30-second ad has been priced at a whopping $2.7M, for which there is intense competition between the companies, some make it and some get rejected due to content. One gets to see some real creativity which is interspersed with hilarious comments throughout the commercial, I must advise all visitors to the blog to surely take a look at some creative ads the world has to offer, it can surely put our local industry to shame. My rankings are as follows

Funniest Ad

• Ameriquest: Tazer Scare
• Runner up: Bud Light : Parachuting ad

Sexiest Ad

• The Tabasco bikini Ad
• Runner up: GoDaddy.com Ad

Best Banned Ad

• GoDaddy : Senate hearing Ad
• Runner up: Wynn LasVegas

Watch these ads on ifilm.com : Link
Read reviews on adjab.com : Link

R I P - Pakistan Cricket Team

Passionate cricket fans must have seen the funeral march of the Pakistani Cricket team in Sydney on Sunday. Bowling staff perfomed well again restricting the Aussies to a fragile 239 and mind you without the so-called heart throb Shoaib Akhtar whose presence is not dearly missed. Infact we could do India without him.

The batsmen on the other hand flashed and flashed hard to end up again short of the total. It sure has been a disappointing tour, losses upon losses and to top it off the Shoaib Akhtar controversy. When the team left Pakistan on its tour of Australia we did not expect miracles and almost had anticipated this result, but it gives me hope that our batsmen might have gotten used to the bouncy pitches to be prime ready to meet India surely a more critical tour for all supporters out here. Don't loose hope we are known to be fighters, Are we?

Stock Image Search

I have always been in search of good photgraphs to mainly use on my desktops and sometimes even for designing concepts. A few good free-stock image sites are mentioned below you are more then welcome to add to this list for the benfit to all.

• Deviant Art - link
  
• Stock.xchng - link
  

Shoaib Akhtar in Aussie Bar Party

A couple of revealing pictures of our Pakistani Cricket Heart-throb Shoaib Akhtar, who reportedly went to an Australian nightclub for 'relaxation purposes' as he wanted to rest his injury. The next day he was 'unfit' and later in the week a 'rape case' was lodged against him, though the rape claim turned out to be a fake stunt by a local Aussie newspaper as the witness could not be produced.

These so-called representatives (Ambassadors) of Pakistan need to shape up their act and not set a bad example at the highest level of exposure. My opinion on this Heart-throb is that he has an over inflated ego with a major Psychosocial issue and he needs to be placed in the right 'trash-can' once healed he should be allowed to resume his bowling, and if by that time we already might have found a new crop of fast bowlers. I have no idea why the BCCP is stuck with this player, he does sometimes get wickets but I feel he is more of a liability than an asset he should be sacked.

What do you have to say?

Update: It has been rumored that Shoaib Akhtar accuses these pictures to be fake, I honestly see no evidence of it being tampered. BCCP has also given a show-cause notice to Shoaib to clarify four violations in his contract (which at his whim was upgraded from a 'B' contract to an 'A' category contract). I honestly wish the BCCP can find a good excuse to axe this physiological maniac.

Needle-free Anesthesia

Enough about politics now let the Teeth Maestro shed light on some news related to dentistry - a new invention has been recently approved by the FDA which is a non-injectable anesthetic named Oraqix.

Oraqix is applied directly into gum pockets by means of a special blunt applicator. It provides localized anesthesia for scaling and root planing. Scaling and root planing is a treatment performed to thoroughly clean the tooth above and below the gum line The result is the removal of tartar, and plaque leaving the crown and root of the tooth with a smooth clean surface.

Oraqix is a liquid at room temperature which solidifies at body temperature. In doing so, it becomes an elastic gel which enables it to stay in place. The gel releases local anesthetics which are like those used for injections. After application of Oraqix®, anesthesia of the gum tissue occurs in 30 seconds and lasts for about 20 minutes. It can be reapplied if needed, only treatments involving soft tissue.

There is a ray of hope for those people still scared of the long injection needle, surely a step in the forward to finally achieve thje ultimate goal of Needle-free anesthesia.

Oraqix

The Human Clock

The Human Clock is a website which shows a photograph of the current time with the photo changing every minute of the day (all 1,440 occuring minutes on Earth!) Thus you end up with a rotating picture clock.

Link Humanclock.com

Miserable Failure GoogleBomb

For those who are not aware of this old trick - simply type "Miserable Failure" in google search bar and the first relevant search will bring up the official George W. Bush biography from the US White House web site.

As descibed in Wikipedia - A Google bomb is an attempt to influence the ranking of a given site in results returned by the Google search engine. Due to the way that Google's algorithm works a website will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page all use consistent text

While a search for 'waffles' will bring up John Kerry's election site. I reserve my opinion on Mr. Miserable Failure but I surely do like his nickname.

Democracy @ Gunpoint

Here is the cover of 'The Economist' which aptly describes the Iraqi Elections on the 30th

"The Election is in danger of seeming paraody of democracy. Almost two years after George Bush toppled Saddam Hussain, fear and murder stalk Iraq. How free is an election in which the citizen who dares to vote stands a fair chance of being shot, blown up or beheaded for his pains? America's efforts to stablize Iraq have so far been ineffectual that even the location of the polling stations is having to be kept secret until the last minute...."

Courtesy Economist.com

Microscopic Dentistry now in Pakistan

This post is to all wanders that happen to pass this blog of mine - I had to get this out of my system.

We at Alvi Dental Hospital are proud to have recently acquired a Dental-Surgical Microscope (Carl-Zeiss), a first ever for Pakistan infact the 'only' dental microscope in Pakistan. Its surprising that only 2% of all practicing dentist in the US, use this as a tool to achieve perfection, while the worldwide percentage is barely in the fractions.

The microscope is used to do dentistry at 24x magnification, which is a substantial leap from the 1x by the naked eye (which most dentists use) or 3x with magnification glasses. You can actually do more acurate dentistry overall. I am now the only dentist in Pakistan to perform Microscopic Endondontics now have the ability to do cutting edge dentistry right here in Pakistan. It is indeed an honour, See me in action here.

Pre-Rigged Iraqi Elections

Can you honestly believe that the upcoming elections in Iraq are fair and transparent. A few rules of the election day are as follows

• Iraqis have to vote for 'parties only' since the names of the contesting candidates are to be kept secret for the sake of their security - that's really nice, so any tom-dick-and-harry (read USA) can write any person's name into the parliament ledger after the elections who happens to toot the right tune. Try doing such an election in Pakistan, I can just imagine our nation going crazy for a National Assembly seat.
• With such secrecy how would the people know who stands for what. This is an extreme end of the so-called party based free-elections.
• Iraqis are not allowed to congregate anywhere during the election day, vehiclur traffic is prohibited. in actual sense people have to walk to the polling station and similarly - so long for the 'naray baazi' (party chants).
  

These elections have been trumpeted as the cornerstone to a Liberated Democratic Iraq. What a fiasco - call these elections free and fair, M Y - A $ &

Next Blog >>

The Next Blog icon is indeed a unique way to surf the net.

At first, the concept did not appeal to me much, as I mostly landed on a "no-name / no-activity" site, or it was usually in an altogether different language which made no sense.

But recently the Next Blog icon has gabbed my attention. I have seen that this small icon just requires one to be patient and in process of clicking, you may have to hop 3-4 sites before you land up with a winner where indeed you actually spend a few precious moments to glance at the headlines, and maybe speed-read the text. I think google came up with a winning idea similar to their "I'm feeling lucky" search item. Creativity at its best

Do you Next Blog>> ?

Teeth Maestro Re-design

I'm sure frequent visitors to my blog must have noticed a graphic re-design, to tell you the truth I am an amateur at HTML coding so errors might be there which may need attention - so please critique away.

On a side note I would like to thank G3 for designing a banner for my blog. I was almost going to use G3's design until I accidentally while playing around with Photoshop a created something which appealed to me. I still would like to thank G3 for his effort

G3's Banner: link

Eid Mubarak

I wish an very Happy Eid Mubarak to all visitors

How Do They Measure Wind Chill?

Despite what you might hear on a weather report, wind chill isn't actually a measure of how cold the air feels.

A wind chill temperature is, rather, a calculation of how cold it would have to be to cause the same rate of heat loss from your skin if there were no wind blowing.

Wind chill approximates how cold it feels because the rate of heat loss corresponds with skin temperature, and skin temperature is what our nerves sense.

Confused -- follow this link to the actual mathematical formula that actually calculates the wind chill.

Bhutan The First Nonsmoking Nation

Bhutan has taken the lead in the world to entirely ban the use of Tobacco throughout the nation. Since Dec. 17, it has been illegal to smoke in public or sell tobacco. Violators are fined the equivalent of $232—more than two months' salary in Bhutan. Authorities have heralded the ban by igniting a bonfire of cigarette cartons in the capital, Thimphu, and stringing banners across the main thoroughfare, exhorting people to kick the habit -- As if they have a choice.

Read more @ Slate.com

Spammers sue Spamee

Found on SlashDot

In an interesting take on the law, some (alleged) spammers are suing some poor chap who got them blocked by ISPs due to the fact they kept sending him spam. According to Spamhaus the company doing the suing is on their books as spammer, and also as a spyware company... If this case goes the wrong way, things could get very sticky for anyone wanting to report spam.

SlashDot Link

Picasa 2.0. released

Those of you following the constant development of the Google empire should check out the latest release of Picasa. I started off with ver 1.618 have liked it over other off the shelf products but who can beat something for free.

Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you know. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized. Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. And Picasa makes it a snap to share your pictures you can email, print at home, make gift CDs, instantly share via Hello, and even put pictures on your own blog.

Doodie Animations

For a lighter side of the web tune into the flash animations from Doodie.com some are whacky and some hilarious check them out. Would recommend you to check out WhackYourBoss

PS. Its a bit off the edge humor so don't get grossed out.

Courtesy - BandBaja.org

Blog Shares

Be it Real Dollars or Blog Dollars - we still love the '$' symbol

Blogshares has created a stock market for people to invest in potentially aggresive shares - aggressive blogs are those that are basically incoming links from other sites hence these links in turn lends credability to the actual blog.

BlogShares is a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by incoming links.

Personally I dont see anything positive coming out of this - except for that fact that my blog started off at B$ .15 and landed at B$ .41 in a span of 2 months a significant rise to my original share value - with the so called money, I in turn invested into by blog buddy G3nu1n3 and his price rocked up to B$ .62

Have a look at your own blog and see if its worth shit - mine is ;)

Change This

Are you an optimist?

Sometimes it seems as though our disagreements - over everything from politics to business to a controversial run-out decision - are more serious and more divisive than ever before. People are making emotional, knee-jerk decisions, then standing by them, sometimes fighting to the death to defend their position.

And yet, we're optimists.

ChangeThis is creating a new kind of media. A form of media that uses existing tools (like PDFs, blogs and the web) to challenge the way ideas are created and spread. They are on a mission to spread important ideas and change minds.

To find out more, head over to ChangeThis

Army Covering up Rape in Balochistan

Presently there is a massive Hush-Up operation underway by our most honourable Pakistan Army - black-out exists on all local media outlets to prohibit them to report the rape of a cerain Dr. Sadia.

The Army has also prohibited them from naming the primary accused rapist who is a serving Captain in the Pak Army known as Captain Ammad. The estalishment has also forced the lady doctor to deny all reports and she has failed to identify the culprits. Read more on the SA Tribune website which has done three extensive reports on this issue links are as follows

• Balochistan Police Release Anti-Army Rape Documents
• Balochistan is Potential Trouble for Musharraf
• An Army Rape, a Cover-Up and Rush to Kill

If you cant access the site then use this Anonymizer link

CyberWireless Wi-Fi Hotspot Joint venture with Mobilink

I had a meeting with a the Cyber Broadband Product Manager and he had come to pitch for creating a Wi-Fi Hotspot for my Dental Hospital. This is a joint venture with Cyber and Mobilink and the goal is to setup numerous hot-spots around Pakistan so you are virtually always connected.

To access the network all you have to do is send an SMS to the Mobilink network in turn you get an Login ID and PWD and presto you are surfing the net at 512K speeds. Mobilink will in turn bill you the cost per hour might hover around 50/hr (not sure of the exact price). Our dental Hospital will in turn gets free access to the DSL line and all installation costs are borne by Cyber+Mobilink.

I probed the guy to find out whats "the-catch" but nothing came out - I am awaiting the contract which might spell out more details - though they might want a plaque of CyberWireless prominently displayed in the area.

Sounds sweet and I don’t mind giving them advertising space in my place here but nothing is free — or is the cost of advertisment enough to cover the expense? Will keep you posted on its progress.

What is a Tsunami?

For those who would like a better understanding of what is a Tsunami? Can visit this NY times website to get a through explantion via its animated series of explanation, shows how this tragedy occured and its devastation hour by hour on the 26th Dec 2004.

Courtesy New York Times

Blogs worth a mention

I have been an active reader of various blogs and some very good blogs out there are as follows

Spider Blog
A group of 10 or so odd people actively envloved with keeping us informed

KO - Blog
Khalid Omar - neat layout and a very old blogger, I personally came across this blog long time ago while keeping uptodate on his comprehensive post regarding the World Call broadband fiasco

[G3] - TechNews
I have recently started following this blog the author "G3nu1n3" talks about everyday technology, more importantly I am impressed at the way he updates his posts everyday, not one but usually a couple of good posts each and everyday - where he finds the time I would love to know in this ever so busy world of ours

Blog away people we are watching you

Dictator Musharraf in for the Long Haul

Well it ain't news no more and the world knows it well by now Musharraf plans to rough it out longer then his promise and our expectations, he conveniently amends the constitution and justifies it that Pakistan "needs" him to stay longer. The Pharaoh also felt the “need" to stay longer but someone (The Almighty) just would not have it and the tables were overturned. The general perception is that he now has a hunger for the power and feels that without him the world/Pakistan will collapse the very next day, what a dilemma I am sure all past dictators and rulers, not only in Pakistan, but throughout the world have usually left behind a devastated country with a crippled infrastructure, these dictatorships have during their term showed a bed of roses but later it was more a bed of nails than being roses, I doubt Pakistan or Musharraf is the odd man out in this historical equation– though I wish otherwise for the sake of my beloved "Land of the Pure"

Our ruler talks about better economy well it might be the case upfront but the economic indicators show a low GDP of 4% while inflation is at a horrendous 9% and only $400 million foreign investment in the last half year. How is the economy buoyant and how are the stocks at an all time high, is a question that remains unanswered, artificial buoyancy usually will result in catastrophic disasters.

Karrachay never sounded bettaah - RJ on FM 103

I am sure the city of Karachi must have heard this DJ on FM 103 -"DJ Craaasssalaaaaaa" (I really don't know the exact spelling but that's how she says it)

In my opinion and many others out here in Karachi, believe she falls into the worst of the worst category. The airwaves are loaded with so many "Angerz-dan" DJ's that one could go numb trying to pick apart the accent interspersed with the horrifying English they conjure up at the spur of the moment. But our dear 'ol DJ tops the list, she rambles on and on and does not allow you to hear the sound track even for a brief passing moment....

Read this rant on BandBaja written by KO, Mahera Omar and Gul Nawaz - deserves a Pullitzer.

Welcome '05

I wish all those who happen to drop by this blog a very Happy 2005 - put your past behind you and look into a prosperous future. Simply let yourself loose and embrace the New Year as a reawakening and grasp it with both hands and may it lead you to your ultimate goal in life

All the best from this Blogger out here in Pakistan