Pakzilla » Technology

Pakistani flag S60 theme for Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Tahir Akram — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:02:20 +0000

I just found Pakistani flag Symbian S60 v5 theme. Tried on my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. And it looks great. I should found this theme on 14th of August.

You can download theme file from here.

iPhone theme for Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Tahir Akram — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:47:13 +0000

The most interesting thing about iPhone is its usability. People love to customize things like they want to see them. I also searched out a theme that gave the iPhone look to my Nokia 5800 XM phone. I like the icon set of iPhone and this theme has tried well to look alike.

You can download theme file from here.

Upgraded Nokia 5800 XpressMusic firmware on v 50.0.005

Tahir Akram — Sun, 30 May 2010 11:18:02 +0000

Last day I made another attempt to upgrade the firmware of my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to latest version that is 50.0.005. I was running version 40 before it. I read a lot on Internet that people are facing troubles after upgrading their phone software to this version.

I upgraded from OTA (on the air). I dialed *#0000# check for the latest updates. Connected it to the WI-FI Internet and upgraded it. I also face troubles when I upgrade my phone software last time. My phone keep on restarting after some time. At that time I keep my memory card inside. But this time I put my memory card out in this upgrade process. And there are no restarts till now.

So I suggest if you want to upgrade to this version, try this trick. Put your memory card out while downloading and installation.

Social media websites affected IMs

Tahir Akram — Sun, 02 May 2010 13:35:53 +0000

Since I started using Twitter and Facebook I found my usage of IM has been decreased. I believe that social media websites has affected greatly the usage of messengers. Google did a good job to me that I don’t need to add people explicitly into Gtalk. The people to whom I ever wrote some thing are my buddies. And if I talk about MSN messenger, I fever (or can be say no) received any add buddy request. But if I see network on Facebook or Twitter, it is expanding.

People are not using IMs. And they focusing more and more on these sites and spending time on them. This is the big shift. I believe people use IMs for their official purposes. And for the entertainment and friends networking, now there are social media sites.

Google Buzz, yet another Google’s failed product

Tahir Akram — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 08:04:09 +0000

The list could be long where I want to tell that which products are really crapped that made by them. But I just want to mention Buzz here. Which I believe badly flopped and unable to gain popularity.

Some days ago one of my friends told me that he is getting Google Buzz from me. It looks strange, because I have turned them off in Gmail. So from where all that coming. What I found is whenever I post some pictures in my picasa album. A buzz generated.

I found all of those buzzes in my Google profile. So to get rid off Buzz, I have to delete my Google profile. duh. Now I dont know once I delete my profile, will Buzz will be back into action when I create profile again?

I wonder, if any one out there is using Google Buzz. Google should invest its efforts on things which are most widely used by people. Rather trying their luck to compete with Twitter and Facebook things.

The bad usability is, there is not an easy way to get rid off Buzz. I have to delete my profile. I am saying it again. I hate it.

Read on Veera’s blog, how you can disable Buzz.

Get Google Wave invitation

Tahir Akram — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:49:05 +0000

I got 28 Google Wave invitations. I am inviting my friends. I want to bring people in so that they can try it out. If they find it useful. So if you guys didn’t tried it yet. Just leave a comment by filling your correct email address. And I will bring you in.

Google guys take some days to deliver the invitation. So be patience.

Wave is in development phase so not available to every one, except invitations. You can also request Google to deliver you.

Read more about Google Wave.
[ad#co-2]

How to register an app with Twitter

Tahir Akram — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:47:51 +0000

If you want to develop a Twitter app. You need to register your application with Twitter. That means you should have your production URL ready before you think to start your development. When you finished with registration, you will receive consumer key and consumer secret. These unique credentials will help your app to interact with Twitter. No big deal. You can visit your all registered applications on http://twitter.com/oauth. And to register for new app you need to visit http://twitter.com/apps/new

Some things need to consider are the call back URL and the access type. Basically call back URL will be the production level URL of your application not your local host. If you want to use Twitter for authentication, then on successful authentication your call back URL will be invoked. Access type is the operations that your app is going to do. Read-only mode is that you only want the read access. And in Read-Write mode you can send tweets and can do other operations.

And I assume that you people know how Twitter authenticates. I am telling here in steps.

You app will generate a URL with unique access token
Your visitor will click on that URL, which will take your the Twitter web. Where he could allow your app to access or deny
On if he allows your app, he will be asked to enter his Twitter user name and password
And on successful authentication, Twitter will take user to your web. By calling your mentioned call back URL

Concidel.com, my start-up company

Tahir Akram — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:20:35 +0000

Today I designed the home page of my company, Concidel. Behind the scene I am working on a Twitter application. Which will be the first product of Concidel. InshAllah after accomplishing that Twitter app I have an idea to develop an app for Posterous. And I also have a Facebook app idea too. Before some one grab these ideas. I hope my start-up experience will great.

Concidel.com - Concieve Ideas & Deliver

iPhone software update 3.1

Tahir Akram — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:24:25 +0000

Apple has released iPhone firmware update 3.1 with some new features. iPhone 3.1 offers recommendations for ring tones and apps. You can expect to get support for iTunes 9 for both Mac and Windows downloads. Moreover, there are options to sync music, movies, TV shows, podcasts.

Now you will have options to sync music, TV shows, podcasts and movies. Also it contains the fix which iPhone user faced to save trimmed videos as new clips. This update contains locking for phone too.

It also contain following features:

App update-ability through iTunes
Increase battery power
Fixes about iPhone SMS vulnerability problems from iPhone OS 3.0.1
Downloading ring-tones wirelessly from iTune store

You can download the firmware from Apple’s website.

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“.