Nokia C5: Quick Hands-On Review: ProPakistani

Nokia C5: Quick Hands-On Review
Govt’s Official Stance on PTCL/Etisalat Payment Issue
Internet Governance Forum Annual Meeting Held
PTCL Provides Free Vfones in Flood Hit Areas
Natural Disasters and How Technology Helps?

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 08:02 AM PDT

Nokia C5: Quick Hands-On Review is a post from: ProPakistani

It's been quite a while since I got any chance to play around with a Nokia Smartphone mainly because they were getting really repetitive in terms of software, but recently I got a chance to get my hands on the Nokia C5 and I have to say Nokia has done a good job in making a sleek looking Symbian Smartphone with all the necessary features for the road and at a very reasonable price tag.

Hands-On

The moment you hold the Nokia C5 in your hand, you'll get a really good solid and sturdy feeling, even for it's price, it's really well made like any other Nokia handset out there.

The body is made of metal and doesn't feel in any way that it might break easily even after crashing on the floor several times. It has a really acceptable 320 by 240 pixels resolution display with a size of 2.2 inches (diagonal), the screen behaves well under the sun and doesn't fade away that much.

The screen is a TFT LCD display but I've noticed that it has really bad viewing angles, even viewing the screen dead on straight gave me some white gradients on the screen but that's something which we can all live with.

The best part about the C5 is it's huge keypad, it feels comfortable to type on and the keys are well placed. It has a rear 3.2MP fixed focus camera with an LED flash which is surprisingly good in snapping photos and shooting video, it also has a forward facing VGA camera for video calls and taking pictures.

The phone has all sorts of necessary wireless capabilities you'll need on the go like EDGE but it lacks WiFi, it even has GPS receiver but lacks a compass. The C5 runs on top of Symbian OS V9 R3, if you're familiar with using a Symbian handset before then you'll feel like home while using the C5. Except for a few cosmetic changes in the UI, all is almost the same.

The best thing I loved about this phone is how fast it is, I've used many Nokia Symbian smartphones but in the candy bar form factor, this handset is fast and snappy, considering in which price range it falls into. Here are a few pictures showing off the Nokia C5 along with a size comparison with the Nexus One, HTC Wildfire and the Samsung Genoa.

For a full list of features head over to Nokia Pakistan's website by clicking this link.

Conclusion

If you want a smartphone and you're on a really tight budget, then the Nokia C5 is the way to go!

With the price tag of just RS. 14,200, it's a giveaway! The Nokia C5 is available in every mobile store across Pakistan and with different warranties.

I would highly recommend this phone if you want a no non-sense and straight forward to-the-point handset for daily use.

Govt’s Official Stance on PTCL/Etisalat Payment Issue

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 04:58 AM PDT

Govt’s Official Stance on PTCL/Etisalat Payment Issue is a post from: ProPakistani

Last week, on the floor of National Assembly, Minister for Privatization, Mr. Waqar Ahmed Khan was asked to present fact and figures on Etisalat's pending payment, and the steps being taken by the Ministry to recover the said amount from the purchaser.

In response to which, Mr. Waqar Ahmed Khan told the house on September 23rd, 2010 that Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) was privatized through sale of 26 percent shares for US$ 2,598,960,000 along with transfer of management control.

So far Privatization Commission has received US$ 1,799,653,313.31 and US$ 799,306,686.62 are outstanding as per detail below:

Minister stated that the Privatization Commission (PC) has followed up the case of transfer of properties with earnestness and dynamism. Secretary PC held various meetings with the Provincial Chief Secretaries/Senior Members, Boards of Revenue for resolving the issue.

The Minister for Privatization also wrote D.O. letters to the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Sindh to help facilitate the transfers. Owing to the efforts, both Sindh and Punjab agreed to charge fees at amenity rates (50% of the commercial rate).

On 18th December, 2009 Mr. Mohammad Omran, Chairman and Managing Director, Etisalat and his team called on the Prime Minister. After discussion with Chairman Etisalat, PM had decided:

A Three Member Minister's Committee consisting of Minister for Privatisation, Minister for Information & Broadcasting and Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources will immediately take necessary steps to resolve the issues regarding land.
This Committee will, if necessary, resolve the issue regarding valuation of the properties with the Provincial Chief Ministers and other Federal Government Agencies.

Subsequently, a meeting between the Privatization Commission and Etisalat was held in Dubai on 26th January, 2010 on the sidelines of FODP. The GoP reiterated its resolve for amicable resolution of issues.

Privatization Commission by using its best endeavors had arranged 64 properties in Punjab, 21 properties in Sindh to be mutated immediately in the name of PTCL upon settlement of modalities of payment to the provinces.

Regrettably Etisalat digressed from the understanding developed during the meeting.

Subsequently, a three Member Ministerial Committee constituted by the Prime Minister, consisting of Minister for Privatization, Minister for Information & Broadcasting and Minister for Petroleum & Natural Resources in its meeting held on 17th March, 2010, after deliberating on the various categories of land, directed that all relevant authorities of the Provinces and Federal Government should be engaged at the appropriate levels to get as many of the remaining properties as possible mutated in the name of PTCL at the earliest.

The Committee also directed that Etisalat be approached for delisting of 118 private properties from SPA and prepare plan of action for the remaining. The Committee further resolved to provide full support to the Privatization Commission in its efforts to settle the outstanding land issues. Therefore the matter was placed before the PC Board on 18th March, 2010 which endorsed the Committee's recommendations.

Accordingly, the Privatization Commission wrote a letter on 30th March, 2010 to the President & CEO PTCL regarding using its best endeavors in facilitating PTCL and to work closely with PTCL for expeditious mutation of properties and also requested that PTCL / Etisalat may delete the 118 private properties from the list of outstanding properties to facilitate the resolution of the land issues and outstanding installments, however no favourable response was received.

PTCL responded on 1st April, 2010 that "PTCL does not have any authority or jurisdiction to amend / waive any of the obligations of the parties under the SPA. Therefore, the Commission may correspond directly with the Etisalat International in this regard."

Government of Pakistan is using its best endeavors to get the outstanding properties mutated in the name of PTCL, in this regard 99 Punjab properties have been mutated as of 20th April, 2010 list of which was forwarded to Etisalat vide Privatisation Commission's letter dated 23rd April, 2010 and was also requested to release the outstanding installments.

In response to PC's letter, Etisalat on 26th April, 2010 appreciated the development and efforts made by GoP and reiterated their position in context of SPA.

Recently PC has again approached Etisalat for payment of outstanding instalments.

Internet Governance Forum Annual Meeting Held

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 03:35 AM PDT

Internet Governance Forum Annual Meeting Held is a post from: ProPakistani

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in collaboration with NUST School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS) and Internet Society (ISOC) Pakistan Chapter hosted an exclusive remote participation hub for fifth annual IGF Meeting at SEECS, Islamabad.

The event was organized keeping in view the dire need of Internet Governance issues understanding and capacity building among the youth and Internet professionals.

IGF holds its annual meeting to invite participants across the globe; reflecting governments, International organizations, telecommunication companies, Internet content providers, software developers, the private sector, civil society and the media. The fifth annual IGF Meeting was held in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 14-17 September 2010.

The meeting brought through discussion on multifaceted public policy issues related to Internet governance.

The hub remotely offered a number of workshops which took place at IGF in during four days. These workshops covered topics like 'Internet for Youth Activism', 'IPv6', 'Cloud Computing', 'Freedom of Speech on Internet', 'Developing Civil Society and Youth Participation in Internet Governance in Asia', 'Open Knowledge Environment in Bridging Digital Divide' and Deploying DNSSEC.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen and Director General SEECS, Dr. Arshad Ali endorsed this joint effort. They said that these kind of arrangements assist our industry participants to discuss the themes covered by the IGF from a local perspective, a stimulus or a starting point for the debate of local issues and implications, and for the development of a network of interested people.

Mr. Muhammad Amir Malik, Director (ICT), PTA and Mr. Naveed Ul Haq, ISOC Pakistan Chapter acting as primary organizers participated in the forum. Remote hub was a great success, acting as a local meeting point where the participants were able not only to watch the web and audio cast proceedings of the IGF but also to interact with the International experts on IG issues. There were a number of questions asked by the participants to the workshops panelist.

PTCL Provides Free Vfones in Flood Hit Areas

Posted: 28 Sep 2010 12:16 AM PDT

PTCL Provides Free Vfones in Flood Hit Areas is a post from: ProPakistani

The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has said that under its corporate social responsibility, it has provided 500 Free Vfone telephone service sets at flood relief camps in Sindh and Balochistan in support for the flood affected people.

A PTCL statement said the IDPs living in relief camps could now make free unlimited local and national calls and stay in touch with rest of the community and their relatives.

Meanwhile, the PTCL General-Manager Consumer Services, Rizwan Ahmed Bhutto and Mushir Khan, the phone utility's GM Coordination, during their visit of the IDPs camp at Lyari Poly Technical College; Mir Muhammad Baloch Road sympathized with the flood affected people there and conveyed best wishes from the management of PTCL.

They also said on the occasion that PTCL share the ordeal of the displaced people and committed to provide all assistance throughout the country.

Natural Disasters and How Technology Helps?

Posted: 27 Sep 2010 09:50 PM PDT

Natural Disasters and How Technology Helps? is a post from: ProPakistani

A devastating disaster larger than recent three natural disasters (Indian Ocean Tsunami, Pakistan Earthquake & Haiti Earthquake) have left an impact over 20 million people in Pakistan.

A huge area almost equal to the size of UK, still in disturbance with settlements, livestock & crops washed away leaving a threatening situation for the country that highly relies on its agriculture industry.

A huge area of land on both sides of one of the major river Indus is not usable for long time for any cultivation. While flood water in most areas has started to recede by now, forthcoming situation demands for more and more input in means of cremation, medical, food, infrastructure restoration & resettlement of all displaced population; we can see the people of Pakistan taking stand themselves to help their own people alongside a bit responsive international organizations & countries as compared to obligatory prominent involvement of local authorities. However, it is to note that the responses were anemic unlike at the time of 2005 earthquakes & other recent disasters.

A group of contributors from US donated $900million to Haiti in 5 weeks of incident while same group has only contributed $25 million to Pakistan in same time. Mismanagement, misuse of funds & corruption in previous incident has upshot a complete failure over trust at the local authorities ending in making people suffer more from situations like this.

Despite all, we also see a fascinating change, major companies holding the internet market such as Yahoo!, Google & Microsoft has contributed a lot, in not only by generous donations but also helping as fund raiser, grounds assistance and providing tools to tackle such situation by all possible means. While they take a lead somehow, we cannot forget the smaller & local organizations and individuals who have contributed in so many other ways to facilitate the relief efforts.

It is worth mentioning again that how floods data has been wasted because of an unfortunate IT infrastructure in the country. We (at local.com.pk) had also a complete forecast failure in case of Hunza landslide disaster where no data could be sourced dynamically from NDMA or Met Department.

After looking at such circumstances, Andrej Verity at UN OCHA & Badar Khushnood from Google Pakistan called for a public help on building an application that would use the dam flow information from Pakistan Met website & display it on a simple Google map. The application was built with joint efforts of individuals, crisis mapping community & Google Earth Outreach but unfortunately the contribution by Met Department has not been adequate at all in this regard to maintain the updated situation.

National Disaster Management Authority has revamped and created a whole new dynamic website for floods relief management & updates which is surely a very good step. NADRA have made useful inputs making their facilities online and more accessible to everyone e.g. issuing & tracking of Watan Card for flood affected citizens.

Humanity Road has made very efficient use of twitter hash-tags by capturing the specials tags and building up a list of desired relief. We already have mentioned a big contribution in such efforts from Ushahidi crowd source mapping used by PakReport to help people report the incidents. It has helped a lot of organizations working on ground tackling situations like fulfilling food & medical shortage at certain areas.

Local.com.pk is also relief support with accessible flood GIS data which was initiated after virtuous response for Hunza Landslide relief support. Working alongside Google, NASA, PDC, UNOSAT & many more organizations it also serves as one of the resource tools at Google crisis page for Pakistan floods. Students at Lahore University of Management Sciences have also initiated a joint venture alongside SUPARCO Pakistan.

One of the largest email service providers in the world, Yahoo! had placed a blurb with its logo for weeks to encourage their billions of visitors to donate to Pakistan floods. Yahoo! had also written a short article on how to help in this devastating situation to guide visitors of interest.

Giant of PC industry & its employees around the world have committed & contributed a generous amount of $600,000 to Pakistan floods. Like Yahoo!, Microsoft also had mentioned Pakistan floods on its major search engine Bing so to encourage their visitors to donate. Apart from that Microsoft also states:

"Microsoft matches its US-based employees’ charitable contributions up to $12,000 per employee per year, and in the wake of the flooding in Pakistan, Microsoft offices in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and our Middle East and Africa Region are matching employees’ donations as well." [Microsoft Corporate Citizenship]

Google has not only contributed a generous amount of $250,000 to Pakistan floods but it also mentioned the Pakistan floods on its Pakistan's local search domain. It's worth mentioning the tools, Google has released towards facilitation of relief & rescue efforts. A crisis landing page in both English & Urdu languages which displays information on how to donate through various organisations, links to further useful information & tools to tackle the situation in different method. Person finder tool in English & Urdu languages helps locate displaced people & submit information about displaced individuals who may need relocation with their lost kin. Resource finder is another very useful tool that helps map out the medical facilities around the country.

Google has acknowledged that they have exclusively released this tool earlier than planned after looking at incident impact and usability this tool can bring in relief efforts. Local user contributions at Google Map Maker are another remarkable way the technology helps in such situations. Google shared the map data with organisations like United Nation (UNOSAT) to facilitate the reporting on daily basis that helped the organisations on ground more effectively. Google now provides extended support with free tools for Non-profit organisations engaged in relief efforts.