Pakzilla » Software Industry

P@SHA LaunchPad, an envent to foster up entrepreneurship in Pakistan

Tahir Akram — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:29:00 +0000

P@SHA (Pakistan Software House Association) has come up with a great idea to promote entrepreneurship in Pakistan. They are conducting an event LaunchPad. Previously the president of P@SHA, Jehan Ara was involved in conducting session called Startup Insiders. A panel discussion where people ask question about their startups to the people who are from silicon valley and startup gurus. LaunchPad has similar flavor to it.

This event is going to held in Lahore and Karachi. Where young entrepreneurs, students and industry professionals are welcomed to discuss their ideas and business plans and get the feedback from industry leading people in Launchpad panel. Great opportunity for business connections. Nomination form is available here. For more details, see the LanuchPad flyer, or read Jehan Ara’s blog.

I am planning to visit the event with an idea. I will submit the form for my nomination in evening.

Sun CEO’s internal memo to employees, before his resignation

Tahir Akram — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:07:29 +0000

Today I found that Jonathan Schwartz has tweeted about his resignation as Sun CEO. Due to the new control to Oracle. Schwartz sent following memo to his employees. Jonathan is an avid blogger used to blog on blogs.sun.com/jonathan.

He also tweeted about his last blog post on Sun.com, saying “Where Life Takes Me Next“.

Read the memo on AllThingsDigital.

Sun.com is dead now

Tahir Akram — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:35:29 +0000

Just found that sun.com is now redirecting to oracle.com. Some days back I visited Sun’s original website. But it didn’t took long by Oracle to make it red. Well I am a regular visitor of Sun forums. And with this change, I am trying to adjust myself with this transition. As I am having some issue in finding contents.

After some browsing Oracle’s website I found they were some thing to say to Java developers community about continuing Sun Developer Network.

Sun.com now redirects to Oracle.com

FAQs for Sun Java developer community:

What will happen to Sun Developer Network, java.sun.com, and BigAdmin?

For the near future, all these sites will remain in their current form. We know that these resources are important, so you can continue to access them just as you always have at the same URLs and bookmarks. At some time, we foresee an integration of these sites into a newly redesigned and re-architected Oracle Technology Network, and we welcome your feedback about this process. We will make sure that any changes are communicated well in advance so that you will continue to have access to the tools and resources that you need.

And there are some other promises too about continuing Sun things.

I also found a Sun blogger saying good bye to blog.sun.com. Due to some Oracle policies that they can host only those blogs that targets to their products only not personal topics. You can read that blog post here.

Oracles message to Sun customers and challenges IBM

Tahir Akram — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:49:21 +0000

Just found on Oracle website that they have placed a message for Sun customers about their objectives and their focus on Solaris and SPARC. And more interestingly you can find Larry Elison (CEO of Oracle) challenging IBM to compete in hardware business. A marketing tactic.

Picture reference: oracle.com/features/suncustomers.html

Non CS skills every CS graduate or programmer must have

Tahir Akram — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 11:27:49 +0000

CS graduates come up with superb knowledge of computer, networks and other IT skills. If they are programmer they write sharp logic and design and code software well. These skills helps them to advancing them in their technical career. But being a technical practitioner a CS junkie should know some non-CS skills and abilities. Because in job they have to communicate and interact with many other people who don’t the CS background. And these skills can help them in more advance positions.

So to reach that level one should know these skills to prove better in other areas too. I consider following skills that a programmer or a CS graduate must have. You can add your comments to enhance this article*.

1. Business communication

A fresh CS graduate must have a very good verbal and writing skills. To present well his idea to managers. He should know the art to put things on white board what he has in his mind. I found CS people are lacking very much in it.

2. Inter-personal skills

It can be merged with above. But being better in inter-personally means to be a good listener, behaving effectively on different situations. Convincing power compliance with logical arguments. Interacting well with different niche of people like client, colleagues and managers.

3. Knowledge of business, economics & international affairs

For me this is the thing which put leadership in computer science people. When they started thinking globally. They know whats going in international and local markets. What are the causes of global economic recession. They know what are the means to earn money if they start their own business. How they can market their ideas. Thinking in this way cause them to be entrepreneurs. And hence they start taking risks and giving jobs rather waiting for a job in a cube.

* Note: My this post is a response to the research that Mr. Nadeem Ghafoor from COMSATS IIT is doing on “Non-CS Aspects of Undergrad CS Education in Pakistan“.

Tips for a successful career in IT

Tahir Akram — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:57:55 +0000

Information Technology has completely changed our lives. No matter who you are, you can’t escape to be affected by it. It has a divining force on our lives. I have drawn some tips that I have come up by discussions with friends, colleagues and students directly or indirectly attached with IT fields. These tips can apply equally for those people who are in other professions other than IT.

Recognize Yourself

That comes first. Ask yourself whether you want to be an IT enabled professional. I have seen people who take their decision by just taking influence from other people. Later they came to know the direction they choose didn’t suit them. We should be on our own. The earlier you identify yourself, less time you are likely to waste in a wrong direction.

Identify Your Key Technology Areas

Information Technology is an abstract term. Whenever you think of it there it comes with all sort of stuff bundled under one umbrella. You can consider a divide between programmer and networking expert. If you are a best problem solver, writing a lot of code is a fun for you, riddles attract you then you can choose to excel in programming and software development. If you are new into IT education then its ok to get a mix and more diversified technology diet otherwise you must need to decide for your career prospects.

Always Remember the Basics

As people who are pursuing career in IT and software they must keep sharpening the knowledge of basic foundations and principles of their skills. A lot of jargons and buzzword are trailing in the market in the form of libraries, APIs and frameworks. By keeping a strong eye on basics and how stuff is working can cause you to develop such things. More usable and more useful.

Make Smart Use of Internet

Making smart use of Internet doesn’t mean less use. But smart mean productive and meaningful. I know it sounds trivial a trivial idea but if we give it a thought than people who are addicted to use it in a smart ways knows when they see their colleagues stuck up – and remain there – with issues answers to which are just a few click away. Making smart use of internet require force and practice. Every time you face an issue ask yourself how to narrate it so that others can give you solution or can guide in right direction. I got pinched when any of fellow developer used to say that he never found solution on forums and mailing lists. Internet is full of information; we just need to know how to use it rather re-inventing the wheel.

Socialize yourself

Make your communication as a super power. Be a voice on table. Attract people. Engage with them, give arguments, make your point of view clear and leave a solid impact behind you. There is a general perception that technical people lack communication skills and they remain introvert. But I disagree with it. Being as a developer me never found myself falls back in discussion and socializing. And it really can put you out of the crowd.

Develop a ‘Financial Sense’

People pursuing an IT career pose a general risk of being labeled as a ‘purely technical’ entity. Usually we end up marking limits around that force us to remain a techy for the rest of our life. And it is not just about perceptions alone. A technical person who does not have a good financial sense would face problem sooner or later. Whether job requires it or not, we need to try to develop a financial sense that relates directly to our technology area.

That’s all I have scratched my mind to write on this topic. Well things never stop. Make your comments and let others know what you feel to be a successful IT professional and a very good human being.

Non CS skills every CS graduate or programmer must have

Switching platform from Windows to Linux for Java development. What you will miss?

Tahir Akram — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:20:20 +0000

It’s been some days in my office an activity is going on to shift operating system of all machines from Windows XP to Fedora and Ubuntu. Most of employees got their PC’s operating system changed and remaining are under process. This is a great edge to use Java and open source based softwares that you can say bye to Windows smoothly. Organizations save a lot of money by shifting to Linux. If they really keep their selves to use such kind of software which are open source.

Well the app servers where our application deployed are already Linux based. Developers use putty programs to access them. For just writing code and SQL queries, Eclipse IDE and database explorer are available in their Linux binaries. But their are other softwares too which facilitate your office work. Some softwares I use for graphic designing and web page development, but their Linux binaries are not available. I have to look their alternates. I have to make my MP3 files work too.

I think it will be a smooth transition and ‘Write Once Run Anywhere’ spirit of Java will not let developers to stay uneasy on Linux based system. I hope it will be a good expirience.

Oracle has acquired SUN Microsystems. So whats the impact?

Tahir Akram — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:39:15 +0000

On 20th April Oracle has eaten up another company. SUN Microsystems which was dangling around in the corridors of IBM, now at last got settled with Oracle on price of approximately $7.4 Billion in equity value or $9.50 per share in cash. Both companies have been collaborating in Java platform and have strategic relationships. Oracle has built up its faces specification ADF Faces which is based on Java Server Faces. Oracle also has JDeveloper IDE for Java in its stack. But after acquiring SUN, Oracle happens to add an operating system (Solaris) with a wide range of server systems (Spark) in its stack.

I am managing here the list of software products by both Oracle and SUN Microsystems. The list is not complete, will update if I found more information to add.

	Oracle	SUN Micosystems
IDE	JDeveloper	NetBeans
JVM	JRocket	SUN JDK
Application Server	BEA Weblogic	Glassfish
SOA	Oracle SOA Suite	Open ESB
Database	Oracle DB	MySQL
Single Sign-on	Oracle SSO	OpenSSO
Portal	BEA Portal Server	SUN Portal Server
Directory Services	Oracle Internet Directory	Open DS

Now lets see how Oracle merge all SUN products into its products. There are certain question which arise with this acquisition;

What will be the future of MySQL?
What happen to other open source initiatives by SUN, like OpenOffice etc?
What will be the status of community initiative, JCP (Java Community Process)?
How Java developers and other open source circles take this acquisition?

Well the list can be goes on. But I think Oracle will regard the open source projects of SUN and will keep supporting the community working behind these projects. Being the biggest in proprietary database market and now the biggest in open source too, Oracle will support Java because of its middleware. There are good roads ahead. Resources:

My participation in ComSPEC’09

Tahir Akram — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:26:01 +0000

Yesterday I participated in ComSPEC’09 and presented my final year project with my group member Aisf Shehzad. This event was organized by computer science department of CIIT Lahore. My project was Open Source Healthcare Management System which we guys developed as our degree project under supervision of Nadeem Ghafoor with the intention to make it in production for public sector hospitals in Pakistan. It was I think a month ago when I was told about this event by my friend to make the project ready for it. So it was an activity in off office hours, I keep myself involved in fixing bugs and usability issues.

It was great response by students and other participants on COS-HMS. They appreciate our efforts discussed about the design and architecture. By this event I got chance to meet with my teachers especially Muhammad Aman Ullah, Muhammad Emran, Muhammad Farooq i Azam & Nadeem Ghafoor (COS-HMS adviser) and other alumni members. This is even was a great effort to bridge students between those guys who are in school and those who are graduated and working in the industry or pursuing their higher education. Student who came to us were full of questions that how the market is going on and how students of CIIT are rated.

And then we got the judges for evaluation process. These three people one from MCB Bank and two from ITS evaluated our system by seeing working application and asking questions about design, domain & standards. There were seven to eight projects were there for evaluation, otherwise if categories were made like embedded systems, industrial automation, MIS etc. I was sure to have rated my project first in MIS. Following is the application tour presented at exhibition.

Working 100% time

Tahir Akram — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:11:35 +0000

Agree…?

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