Unprofessional Customer Service

I was planning on leaving for AbuDhabi, when I wondered If I could take my new GSM connection with me, so that I woudn't be totally cut off with the people I know. So I dialled off to my service provider's help line, catching a look at my watch, hoping that I'd make the call before dinner was served. I was bounced from menu to menu on the voice menu, and then forced to listen to their suffocating theme song - 'Dil To Aik Hai' - for about twenty minutes while no one answered my call. Disgruntled with the failed attempt, I put dinner plans aside and hopped on to the internet, hoping that I'd find an answer to my question on their website. Again, I was forced to face the music. Literally, and actually. But their website, too, proved to be extremely inadequate.

Then I realized that this is true of most communication companies in Pakistan. The customer service (staff and system) is extremely unprofessional, and matches the ranks of what one would expect from fresh college graduates or internees - not corporate geniuses. But then again, in the words of Elbert Hubbard:
"Genius may have its limitations,
but stupidity is not thus handicapped."

Shot Dead!

Today I was riding the bus, when the conductor, standing in the ladies section, caught my attention – well, he caught everyone’s attention. The man was standing in the middle of the ladies section, with ragged clothes, the top three buttons on his shirt undone and communicating full throttle with the driver of a passing bus, with the most distasteful of language choice.

These are the kind of people that should be stood in a line and shot dead. They have no intellect, no taste, no culture, and as such no reason in life. Their sole purpose is to disrupt the natural balance of human harmony and stature. These are the kinds of people who prevent the human race from pushing forward.

I’m sorry that I speak of such people with such hatred. And I can understand why a person would wear ragged clothes, but not why he would keep the top three buttons undone. Not why he would have messed up hair and an unwashed face. Not why he would use the distasteful language that he was.

Then I saw a board to his left: “Respect Women”….

Computings Top Twenty?

I doubt so.
Recently, Tim Bray (the co-inventor of XML), published a list of people who he thought were the 'names' of software history. He mentions people who are related to software - in such great ranks as Tim Berners Lee (founder of the www), James Gosling (the Java guy), Dennis Ritchie (of C and UNIX fame), Richard Stallman (founder of the GNU project), and others.

But the list is FAR from complete. I will not attempt to complete his list, for I deem not myself worthy enough to challenge his opinions, but I will point to three of my computing idols, to narrow the gap.

1. Alan Kay - Creator of Smalltalk - the under-acclaimed and one of the earliest OOP languages out there. You can get a taste of the original by using this emulator right here: Sqeak Smalltalk. He also worked intensively with GUI's.

2. Steven Wozniak - and any list would be incomplete without this _outstanding_ engineer. Designer of the Apple II - the first mass-selling personal computer which could be used by human beings! It was the first computer to ship with a monitor! His design was so revolutionary that he accomplished 10 times the power of the low-cost computers from those days with just half the parts! It set the tone for what a Personal Computer should be like, and thus computing departed from tin boxes with lights on them, to set-top boxes and towers and keyboards and monitors and mice.

3. Douglas Engelbart - Nothing said about this incredible engineer will describe in full justice the incredible ideas he put forward. He set the tone for modern computing, and his ideas have only recently been brought to the masses: email, teleconferencing, collaborative computing, hypertext, the graphical interface idea, the mouse, a one-handed keyboard, online help systems and much much more! His ideas were materialized as the NLS, an integrated idea processing system, which met an unfortunate end. His vision, however, was an inspiration for engineers at XEROX PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), which created some impressive systems such at the ALTO, and the STAR. The work at PARC was in turn an inspiration for Apple which is, today, the leading innovator in computing technology.

I know I am missing out on a lot of people, but I'd write more about them when I have more time.

Laptop, anyone?

Okay, anyone wants to buy my PowerBook? :P You'll understand the joke once you read this. According to a British research institute, carrying laptops on the laps (duh!) has an 'irreversible' infertility risk, and it is suggested to use laptops on desks. The heat generated from the laptop spreads through the thighs and 'important' areas to raise the 'testicular temperature'... you better read it yourself!

On a similar note, why not convert your laptop into a tablet pc? Or to be more precise, a tablet mac!? Yes! A single mac enthusiast picked up where Apple left off, creating the so-called 'i-Tablet' out of an iBook G4! Looks good and no irreversible infertility risks! :D It's a good read even if you dont particularly like Apples - you could do this with _any_ laptop out there!

Silhouettes Are In, Baby!

It remains no mystery, that the iPod phenomenon is raging in full swing, with white earbuds everywhere! And though you wont find them here in Pakistan, the silhouette iPod ads have become quite popular (you get a shot of that on IM these days, masqeurading as an ad for one of their shows). So why not get your own self 'iPodified' as the folks at iPod My Photo call it!? For just $19.95, they will convert your photograph into a high-quality Silhouette for the heck of it! Complete with iPod, earbuds, bold title, and the pure cool factor! You can then put these up anywhere - coffee mugs, T-shirts, or your desktop wallpaper. (If you chose the third option, you really need to go out more!)

Check out some of their samples!

Heart Attack

A friend's dad just had an heart attack - his second. And it just made me realize the volatility of life, the inadequacy of man.

Just a thought.

Lets all pray for his dad.

Resemblance

I was just looking at some photos of my nephews taken on Eid. One picture in particular caught my attention: A picture of Zohair (the 'older' nepew) standing, and that picture reminds me a LOT of another picture of his dad when he was a kid. You gotta see this!



Well I guess we know how he's gonna turn up! :)

RSS Yay!

I just added RSS to my blog last night. Now you can subscribe to my blog using your favorite RSS reader instead of endlessly pressing refresh on your browser (yeah, there's laughter in my head! :P)

Here's the RSS link:

http://absarshah.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Keep on reading!

Communicate With The Future!

Today I sat wondering on the edge of my chair - for whom am I writing this blog?
"For the future - the unborn!"
How could you communicate with the future!? It is, of its very nature, impossible! Either the future will resemble the present, in which case it would never listen to me; Or it could be different, and it wouldn't care for my thoughts!
This very disturbing thought set me back a little, but then I realized that all I had to do was to transfer to the blog the interminable monologue that goes on in my head without worrying about how and why. All I had to do was to be imperfectly aware of what I set down.
And suddenly all my strenght to reason flowed from my body and evaporated into the restlessness of the air I breathe. No longer am I afraid, No longer am I aware of what I may impart, No longer am I worrisome of the responsibility that I undertake. I am just a writer, a human being, an ambassador of the present.