2013 Year in Review for Telecom Sector - 2014 in Focus

Year 2013 remained almost flat with no major development in the telecom sector, not to mention a few milestones in the second half, it set stage for the next year though.

Experts see 2014 with a lot of optimism, anticipating that it will be better than the previous five years. Spectrum auction and a possible review of the ICH policy and cancellation of ICH is anticipated. 

PTA, telecom industry and economy will get a big boost from the spectrum auction and push for a better mechanism to regulate the industry as changes in the regulatory policy are expected, says a government official. The spectrum auction would be completed in the first quarter of 2014 and almost every operator is ready to launch the services as permission for the test launch has been given already, he added.

Major developments in 2013 include the initiative towards addressing the issue of unverified SIMs by rolling out biometric devices at franchises and customer support centers through joint efforts of both Cellular Mobile Operators (CMO) and PTA. Further spectrum auction for next-generation mobile services through hiring of international consultants and first practical step by PTA to curb grey voice traffic in Pakistan.

Although the new government is continuing some policies of the previous leadership yet new leadership and the telecom regulators have done a great job by injecting positive sentiments into the industry. However they should further look to create a positive environment as well.

Some think that five mobile operators are just too many for a market like Pakistan. The consolidation of Warid Telecom is seen as another significant development in 2014. Mobilink Inifinity handed over its network to Qubee already and left the WiMAX market. While, Wateen and Qubee decided to consolidate operations forming the second largest broadband service provider in Pakistan, with over 200,000 subscribers.

For security reasons the practice of suspending cellular services, continued and Video sharing website Youtube remains ban but still brings in considerable traffic and data usage.

Selling almost 130 million cellular connections by the industry is another milestone achieved by Telecom operators.

No major developments took place in the first half of the year making it no different from the previous year. Things, however, changed in the second half when the telecom regulator appointed new leadership after the new government took charge following May 11 general elections. With a new chairman, member technical and member finance, PTA showed significant progress on all pending issues. Further it will take up all outstanding issues, such as recoveries and pending cases in new year.

As per source, direct and indirect jobs are expected from app development to the launch of new services considering an increase in infrastructure investment and a lot of activity in the telecom sector.

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Local Hosted Content Shines in Internet Connectivity Crisis

This past week and the next two weeks was and will be a challenging time for users and providers alike who use the internet. Three international sea cables (SEMEWE4, IMEWE and EIG) that provide the majority of digital communication between Asia to Europe were cut. 

The two Pakistan international communication gateway companies that provide internet backhauling services to all the ISPs of Pakistan, PTCL and TWA, both depend on these cables for international communication and therefore internet bandwidth coming into Pakistan dropped to 40%. It is expected to take up to 3 weeks or more before the ships dispatched to fix the problems are able to get the cables operational again.

This event coupled with the recent global DDOS attack attributed to a company in Amsterdam which almost crippled the global internet puts a spotlight on the risks involved with internet companies that cater to Pakistan’s 30 million strong internet community but host all their content internationally.

Until recently, hosting internationally made sense – Pakistan’s internet community was not big enough to justify focus on the market, the datacenters and support facilities were not at international standards and costs were 3-5 times that available internationally. Therefore most content providers hosted their content abroad and many did not even bother to setup caching or backup-sites domestically.

However recently, as the broadband market developed in Pakistan to where according to PTA, over 2.2 million homes are connected to the internet by licensed operators, there has been major investment in improving data center facilities by most major licensed broadband operators In Pakistan. These new data centers can compete with any international facility and the costs are also comparable. For instance, managed datacenter services cost only 20-30% more than equivalent services acquired in California’s silicon valley, the global hub of all datacenters. Compare this slight cost to the advantages of hosting locally and it is hard not to see why it makes sense to host content locally if your business wholly or partially caters to the Pakistan internet community

“When you look at the high quality of datacenter facilities now available locally, and the recent decline in prices, factor in average internet connection latency reduced from above 300ms to sub 20ms, and add in the advantages of local access and support, the case for international and domestic content providers to host in Pakistan becomes too strong to ignore”, says Salman Ansari, President SAATC, one of Pakistan’s foremost IT and telecommunication consultants.

Zulfiqar Qazilbash, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Transworld Associates, one of Pakistan’s two tier 1 internet providers talks about why a company that provides internet backhauling services to most ISPs in Pakistan built a datacenter in their landing station. “The TWA Landing station is the defacto internet hub of Pakistan. It is the automatic peering point of all operators that use TWA bandwidth directly or indirectly and is peered with the other internet provider. The Tier 3 datacenter located inside the premises, provides unmatched value proposition to Pakistani operators who has collocation needs. For one thing, by collocating at the Landing Station, you have dramatically controlled your last mile vulnerability, since you are connected to the internet gateway note in the same building. Secondly, there is no better peering location both for international and domestic traffic. Thirdly, you get to leverage the infrastructure and engineering support that powers Pakistan’s internet. Who else can offer that?”

A case in point is the popular job portal, ROZEE.PK.  It is visited by over 60% of the country’s Internet users annually. To service its 16 Million annual unique visitors, it requires 45 fault tolerant load balanced servers. Previously, it used to collocate its entire server farm between Silicon Valley and Germany since datacenters in Pakistan were expensive and did not offer the required worry free support. “Transworld’s decision to provide datacenter services at their internet gateway node was a game changer for us”, says Monis Rahman, Chairman and CEO of ROZEE.PK. “The world class facility allowed us to lower latency by a factor of 10 and we have the ability to service our Pakistan clients even if there is a major internet crisis such as the one that occurred last week.  Our servers have stayed humming while providing a better usability experience to our customers”.

With local and international content providers that focus on Pakistan’s internet community now able to leverage advanced hosting platforms like the TWA Datacenter, it is hoped that more internet based applications and services will henceforth be available to the population. Internet can be a powerful and cost effective medium for solving the education, health, e-commerce, e-government and other problems of Pakistan.

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Glow by Warid partners with Pakwheels.com for Lahore Auto Show 2013

Glow by Warid, Pakistan’s premier youth brand, partnered with Pakwheels.com in orchestrating the 2013 Lahore Auto Show, which was held in Lahore at Liberty Market on 17th March 2013.

The event featured over 500 cars and was attended by automobile enthusiasts from across the country. The Auto Show aimed to promote the Pakistani car industry, while also providing young fans with an opportunity to see some amazing vehicles while also highlighted the dangers of street racing and reckless driving.

Representatives from Glow by Warid were present on hand to provide visitors with exciting opportunities to learn about and download the latest Warid applications at the APPs Lounge setup at the venue. Glow by Warid also provided the attendees with an opportunity to participate in activities and contests to win prizes such as mobile handsets.

The auto show was followed by an award ceremony and a captivating musical performance by Club Caramel. PakWheels.com along with TDCP organized the event under the auspices of the Government of Punjab and PHA, to enrich the Rang-e-Lahore celebrations.

Warid has a long-standing relationship with Pakwheels, having partnered with the digital brand on previous car shows. The telecom giant has also collaborated with Pakwheels on the creation of a unique mobile app to bring car buying and selling to all Android mobile phones using version 2.1 and above. Customers can buy and sell cars and view price information of popular car models in Pakistan. The PakWheels Android application allows users to quickly and easily search and locate used cars in their city and enable them to put their cars up for sale.

Warid’s involvement with auto enthusiast is also evident in the new Hari Bati app, which shows users street traffic information on a map-based interface. The app allows users to mark frequently visited routes and receive constant updates regarding the traffic situation directly on their handsets.

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Flick.pk an Islamic Video Sharing Website Launched

Flick.pk is recent launched and ready for use. It is authentic and reliable source of family education and entertainment in Pakistan and the world. 

You can take it as an alternate controlled media site to ensure the content, particularly videos posted are in compliance with the principles, values and teachings of our sacred religion Islam as well as the ideology, creation, culture, founders and people of our beloved country Pakistan.

One of the powerful feature introduced is that you are able to import videos already uploaded on the internet. There is no need to upload them again on Flick.pk although you may as you like. Currently supported sites for import include Youtube, Vimeo, Blip, DailyMotion and Metacafe.

Flick.pk has a mission to provide education and entertainment that is in compliant with all of our cultural and religious values. You can comfortably let your kids watch videos at Flick.pk without worrying about the content. They have humans in place for approving all the videos submitted on Flick.pk.

You can upload your own videos and you can also import a video from other websites on Flick.pk. For importing a video, click on the "Suggest video" link under your name on top-right corner, enter the URL of the video you want to import and click the "Submit" button. Your video will be available automatically immediately after approval by an admin. Currently you can upload video files upto 500 MB in size. Flick.pk works on all smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

For uploading a video, click on the "Upload" link under your name on top-right corner, browse the video you want to upload and click the "Upload" button. Your uploading will start, and it will take some time to complete. Your video will be available automatically immediately after approval by an admin.

Go to the site, make your account and start uploading or import videos. This is our own Pakistani community. Lets use it.

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Wateen’s Free Wi-Fi Hotspots at Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) a Hit with those in attendance

Wateen Telecom, Pakistan’s leading converged communications enabled internet connectivity by deploying high speed Wi-Fi Hotspots at Lahore Literary Festival (LLF).

The inaugural LLF, was held on the 23rd and 24th of February at the Alhamra Arts Complex, with aims to revive the spirit of art and creativity in Lahore. The festival is a first step in re-establishing Lahore as the cultural heartbeat of Pakistan and enriching the cultural experience of the city’s residents by creating an institutional platform for fostering and furthering Lahore’s literary traditions.  According to certain estimates around 30,000 people attended the two day festival.

As part of its support for the Festival and Lahore’s revival as Pakistan’s cultural capital, Wateen Telecom provided guests and visitors at the event with continuous high-speed wireless broadband. About 2,000 people per day took advantage of free Wi-Fi Hotspots that was being provided by Wateen Telecom at the Alhamra Arts Complex for the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF). At this two-day highly successful event more than 4,000 people registered for the service, which they used to download and upload content utilizing Wateen’s continuous high-speed wireless broadband.

In addition, Wateen placed experiential kiosks specially designed for the Literary Festival at the venue. The kiosks, known as ‘Freedom Booths’, had laptops fitted with web cameras through which visitors recorded their video messages about their experiences at the Festival.

Commenting on Wateen’s involvement with the Festival, Mr. Naeem Zamindar, CEO Wateen Telecom, said, “The Lahore Literary Festival was great event not only for those involved but for the citizens of Lahore. All of us got a chance to attend some amazing sessions on literature, culture, history and art. We at Wateen are proud of the fact that we facilitated those who attended the Festival by enabling them to blog, tweet, post pictures and share videos from the festival with not only their friends and loved ones but everyone across the globe.”

As a further commitment to supporting the arts, Wateen permanently donate the necessary WiFi equipment to the Alhamra Arts Complex for continued future use.

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Plan9 Holds Its First Ever Bloggers Meet-Up

Plan9, Pakistan’s first technology incubator formed under the wing of the Punjab Information Technology Board, held its first ever Bloggers Meet-up at the Arfa Karim Software Technology Park, Lahore, in collaboration with Abacus Consulting and Oracle Pakistan.

The event was attended by professional, amateur and aspiring bloggers where they discussed and shared their views on Pakistan’s growing online market and the challenges it faced. Noted speakers at the event included Chairman PITB Dr Umar Saif, Mr Mohammad Khan, Ms Zarin Shoaib, Mr Zia Imran and Ms. Ulrike Reinhard.

Commenting on the event, Mr. Nabeel Qadeer Project Head of Plan9 said, “Pakistan has one of the fastest growing IT industries in the world and at Plan9 we aim to play a fundamental role in promoting the country’s IT sector. This bloggers Meet-up is one of many events aimed at bringing together amateur and professional IT personal under one roof where they can share ideas with lots of people who share the same interests without the need for digital avatars.”

Plan9 is Pakistan’s first technology incubator formed under the wing of the Punjab Information Technology Board and is housed in a state of the art infrastructure located on the 9th floor at the purpose built Arfa Software Technology Park. The aim of the project is to promote and be the catalyst for a new wave of technological entrepreneurship in Pakistan.

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Wateen CEO Participates in SAP Conference on Digital Marketing

Wateen Telecom, Pakistan’s leading converged communications provider, recently participated in the prestigious Digital Marketing Conference 2012, held in Karachi on 18th December 2012.

The Digit conference was held under the auspices of the Pakistan Advertisers Society as a platform to bring together Pakistan’s marketing and advertising communities on the subject of reinventing and reshaping marketing media. The conference, which is EC-Pakistan’s 2nd Digital Marketing Conference, was held under the theme of “Digital Marketing: Today, Tomorrow & Beyond” and was specially designed to keep an eye on present and future digital marketing/social media trends, tools, techniques and approaches.

As the country’s leading converged communications provider, Wateen Telecom acted as one of the headline sponsors for the event. Mr Naeem Zamindar, CEO Wateen Telecom, also addressed the conference as a keynote speaker. Mr Zamindar spoke of the increasing importance and role of convergence in Pakistan’s telecommunications technologies during his address on Mobile Marketing.

Specifically, Mr Zamindar talked about mobile content and measurement, and how brands can work together with telecommunication companies such as Wateen to deliver content. He also commented on the impending advent of 3G technology in Pakistan, adding that the availability of high speed broadband on mobile devices would prove to be a tipping point for both the mobile and internet industries.

Commenting on event Mr Zamindar said, “Wateen is really pleased to be a part of this visionary conference. Pakistan’s IT and communications industry has grown immensely in the past few years and we feel privileged to have been a facilitator in Pakistan’s communication sector.”   

He added: “We at Wateen are strong evangelists of the digital revolution in Pakistan – and we believe that telecommunications technologies, such as high speed broadband and WiMAX, have the ability to enable and transform the lives of the average Pakistani. The DigIt conference is one step in demonstrating how digital and telecoms technologies can add value for both brands and individuals.”

The conference was attended by CEOs, VPs, Directors, Senior Managers and professionals from varied backgrounds, ranging from Brand Management & Marketing, Advertising & Promotions, Communication & PR, Digital Strategy & Planning, Ad Agency & Media Buying, Web Design & Online Content Development, Research & Measurement Specialists, Publishers and Technology Providers.

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Google to Drop Exchange ActiveSync Support for Gmail

For iOS and other non-Android devices, Gmail account syncing is about to get a lot tougher. The Mountain View company has just announced that it will be ditching support for the Exchange ActiveSync protocol next month as part of its ‘Winter Cleaning’ initiative, reported idownloadblog.

What’s Exchange ActiveSync?

It is an XML-based protocol, developed by Microsoft, that allows the synchronization of email, calendar, contacts, and other data between servers and mobile devices. And it’s by far the easiest way to sync your Gmail account with your iPhone…

But unfortunately, come January 30th next year, you’re not going to be able to use it. Here’s the announcement from Google’s blog post:

“Google Sync was designed to allow access to Google Mail, Calendar and Contacts via the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® protocol. With the recent launch of CardDAV, Google now offers similar access via IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV, making it possible to build a seamless sync experience using open protocols. Starting January 30, 2013, consumers won’t be able to set up new devices using Google Sync; however, existing Google Sync connections will continue to function. Google Sync will continue to be fully supported for Google Apps for Business, Government and Education. Users of those products are unaffected by this announcement.”

Google Sync will continue to work for users who already have it setup, for the foreseeable future at least, as well as those who have paid for a Google Apps account for business, government, or education. But starting in January, new users will have to use IMAP and xDAV.

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Wateen Collaborates with Pakistan Advertisers Society to sponsor Digital Marketing Conference 2012

Wateen is looking to support worthwhile initiatives especially if they focus on technology. In this regard they have teamed up with Pakistan Advertisers Society as the official Wi-Fi partner at the Digital Marketing Conference, 2012. The conference will be held at the Sheraton Hotel, Karachi on 18th December 2012.

Pakistan Advertisers Society initiated this conference as a platform that aims to bring the Pakistani marketing and advertising community together on the subject of reinventing and reshaping. The conference will be attended by CEO’s, VP’s, Directors, Senior Managers and professionals from different backgrounds related to Brand Management & Marketing, Advertising & Promotions, Communication & PR, Digital Strategy & Planning, Ad Agency & Media Buying, Web Design & Online Content Development, Research & Measurement Specialists, Publishers and Technology Providers etc.

With the help of its engineering team, Wateen is deploying a WiFi mesh at the venue to enable the expected guests attending the event, especially bloggers, in using social media at the conference.

As the official Wi-Fi partner, Wateen shall be gaining the mileage through logo placement on all promotion in print and online mediums which has begun from this week. In addition to this, Wateen is using its own social media space, especially Facebook and Twitter to improve its fan following in this space.

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Wateen Shuts Down Coverage Map and Other Portals

Wateen broadband footprint just got disappeared from internet as Wateen stopped providing coverage information on its map at coverage.wateen.com. Currently Wateen coverage map website is accessible and live, however apparently as per the message “sorry the service is not available now” they no longer wish to provide coverage info to customers momentarily.

As reported earlier that Wateen Telecom is no longer offering services in six cities Hyderabad, Sukkur and Quetta, Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan and Faisalabad. Possible reason behind shutting down coverage map would be to redesign map with the latest coverage that Wateen itself owns for customers. 

Following is the look of Wateen coverage website:

It merits mentioning here is that this is not the first time Wateen is taking some service away from you, there is a lot more you really need to know about what is Wateen management of Websites/Portals is upto:

Wateen had a portal wateen.net that covered lifestyle, entertainment, fashion, events, technology and most importantly it had a forum for customers to complaint about Wateen which was a great way to bring the real picture of what Wateen is capable of in terms services. It was helpful for the existing and new customers as they were easily being familiar with the latest issues that occurs while using services and how to get them fixed. 

Hope you remember Wateen gaming portal games.wateen.com it attracted a lot of customers but strangely enough it has been closed down also.

Wateen Gaming Portal offered following services:

Having thousands of registered users the Gaming portal was home to the Online Gaming Community in Pakistan
The service offered competitive, online gaming supported through a proprietary software which stream lines the process of playing online

Wateen offered following online games to its customers for free

Counter-Strike 1.6
Counter-Strike: Source
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty 5
Medal of Honor: Spearhead
Team Fortress 2
Battlefield 2
Left 4 Dead
Quake III Arena
The Witcher
Fall out 3
Metal Gear Solid 4

Gaming Cafes on Board

Neomatrix Gaming Network
Fariya Xtreme Gaming
Each network had multiple cafes in their respective cities (Lahore and Karachi) and were connected on the Wateen Gaming Network.

I hope you are familiar with the recent shut down of Wateen Entertainment Portal www.wateen.com/portal that brings movies to download, entertainment, music and more.

Wateen Presented "Yellow Pages Of Pakistan" City Xplorer www.wateen.net/home/yellow-pages.html that has also been shut down since long, it had following features:

It was Pakistan's First Mobile Phone Yellow Pages. City Xplorer CX  was Pakistan's prime and most searchable portal. City Xplorer helped users to surf & search any source in Pakistan specially in Karachi, Lahore, & Islamabad. It assured global visitors by delivering updated Business Data and Place of Interests (POI) of Pakistan, using State-of-the-Art Technology. It helped you find business in Pakistan, Buyers & Sellers were never as accessible to browse and find but with City Xplorer - Pakistan Yellow Pages.

Following images are being pasted just for a reference: 

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Breaking: Pakistan Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Get Released From Hackers After 15 Hours

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo just got their Pakistani domains released by hackers, most of hacked websites are restored and are back to normal working as before, however some of them remain blocked and as it is for example apple.com

Homepages of these big domains that were hacked in the early morning yesterday, have now been restored and traffic is now normal as earlier.

Hackers were just willing to tell the authorities of these .PK domains that they can hack and deface the sites and they have done it well. Following was the sort of their statement while addressing targeted visitors 

Hacking For The Sake Of It: ‘Eboz’ Downed Google, Apple, Yahoo, Cisco, Visa, HSBC, Coca Cola, Blogspot, Sony, HP, eBay, PayPal and 300 Other Pakistani Sites, And Many More Just To Show It Can.

Earlier Google was quite about the issue as why its Pakistan edition was  hacked and it was predicted that restoration of . PK domains is possible on Monday because offices remain closed on weekends, however Google and other major companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and Yahoo administrations stepped forward and got it restored even on weekend.

Find below the updated list of released and hacked . PK domains in Pakistan:

The list of Restored/Released Major .PK Domains in Pakistan

www.google.com.pk
www.microsoft.pk
www.yahoo.pk
www.biofreeze.com.pk
www.cisco.com

The list of Still Hacked Major .PK Domains in Pakistan

www.blogspot.pk
www.itunes.pk
www.ebay.pk
www.paypal.pk

www.visa.com.pk

www.bx.com.pk

www.ciscosystems.pk

www.blogspot.com.pk

www.hp.web.pk
www.blog.microsoft.pk
www.adsense.google.com.pk
www.code.google.pk

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Anonymous Delete Foreign Ministry Database, Hack Hundreds of Israeli Websites in Support of Gaza

Israeli media confirmed the Hacker group Anonymous’s move that protesting against Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza, it has launched a huge attack (named #OpIsrael) reportedly taking down almost 700 Israeli websites ranging from high-profile governmental structures such as the Foreign Ministry to local tourism companies’ pages.

Mashav, the biggest attack as of now has been the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s international development program. Anonymous announced on Twitter they’ve hacked into the program’s database, with the website remaining inaccessible at the moment.

“There is [sic] so many defaced Israeli websites right now, that we just made a list of them,” Anonymous tweeted.

The Jerusalem Post has confirmed the group’s assault, including the attack on the Foreign Ministry’s website, as well as those of Kadima party, Bank of Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv Municipality. The latter is online as of now. Among other functions, it provides residents with directions to bomb shelters. Meanwhile, the majority of the web pages that were taken down were blank, but some showed pro-Palestinian images and messages, Jerusalem Post reported.

What was the reason for Anonymous’s assault

Amid the conflict, which has already claimed at least 33 lives, 30 of them Palestinians, Anonymous also pledged to help those who are at the heart of the conflict: many Palestinians were left without electricity, and consequently, without internet access. The hackers gave instructions on their Twitter account for residents to get reconnected: “If you have friends in Gaza who still have phone, but need internet, give them these dial-up numbers and instructions: http://pastebin.com/6dYQruHu.”

Anonymous put together a “Gaza Care Package,” which contains instructions in Arabic and English to assist Palestinians in the event that the Israeli government cuts their internet connection. Plus, the package includes information on evading IDF surveillance, along with first aid information. The collective encouraged Palestinians to download and share the package with others.
Anonymous members also contacted Israeli forces directly. A tweet from an Anonymous account to an IDF spokesperson warned, “It would be wise of you to expect us”, while a statement on their webpage said, “Stop bombing Gaza. Millions of Israelis and Palestinians are lying awake, exposed and terrified.”

Anonymous’s assault Update via RT 

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Update: Mubasher Lucman Looks for New Website After Getting Hacked

As reported previously about Hacking of famous TV Anchor Mubasher Lucman's Official website, we corresponded with Mubasher to know what action he will take to get his website released from hackers.

He revealed that he even knows who are after him to hack his website and if he file charges against them, someone in government might think that he is just blaming them. Upon asking what action he will take if they hack his website again, he said he will go hard on them.

You will get surprised to know that he has given up hopes on getting his website released as he looks forward to get a new one. 

It feels strange as mentioned on ProPakistani that his website has been hacked and defaced again today, we think he might have tried to get it restored even after telling us that he is not looking to get it released from hackers.

Anyways enjoy the correspondence of PTETECH with Mubasher Lucman on twitter attached below.

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How to Apply/Remove Disqus 2012 and Avoid Comments Count Override

As discussed previously about adding comments counter below post title on blogger and other platforms. I recently decided to use Disqus but faced an issue related to overriding of comments count. By default Disqus adds comments count below post body but since I was using comments counter below post title already, immediately after implementing Disqus on blogger it started showing me two comments counter one below post title and the other below post body. I tried to remove the code of comments count but it disappeared both of them.

I think I am the first who has learned this to do it on blogger blog because I searched the whole web but could not find any tweak to resolve the override issue of Disqus comments counts. But I was not disappointed what I did that I tried to understand the code and implemented it as I thought. Luckily for me it worked like a charm. One thing I would like to request here that DO NOT COPY IT please as it would really hurt me.

There are two parts and we have to do it one by one. So here is the simply tweak that will help you to remove the comment count of Disqus and keep the one that you need already on your blog.

As always Sign in to your Blogger Account, Go to Dashboard, Layout, Edit HTML, Expand Widget Templates. Make sure you backup your template and save a copy of it.

How to Fix the Override Issue of Disqus 2012 Comment Counter on Blogger

Find <div class='post-header'> and put following code immediately after it.

<!-- Disqus Comment Count Start-->

<div style='float:right'>
<a class='dsq-comment-count comment-link commentslink' style='background: no-repeat scroll top left;padding-left:25px;font-weight: bold;font-size:12px; bold;font:Veranda'
expr:href='data:post.url + &quot;#disqus_thread&quot;'/></div>
<!--Disqus Comment Count End-->

<font style='background:transparent no-repeat scroll top left;padding-left:0px;font-weight: bold;font-size:12px;'><data:post.dateHeader/></font> 
<span class='post-comment-link' style='Float:right;'>
               </span>

Customization for Disqus 2012 Comment Counter

Notice you can also make it float left or right or even center. You can change the font family, font color, font size, you can make it bold or keep it simple and if you wish you can attach an image with it as well.

How to remove Disqus with 2012 Features Comment Counter on Blogger

Once you are complete done with above part, go ahead and remove the comments counter that came with the disqus template by simply following steps mentioned below.

In default layout: Go to Dashboard - Design - Template Designer - Advanced - Add CSS - paste the following code - Press enter after the last character of the last line } - Apply to Blog.

In new layout: Go to Dashboard ('House' symbol) - Template - Customize - Advanced - Add CSS - paste the following code - Press enter after the last character of the last line } - Apply to Blog.

.post-comment-link {

display: none !important; }
}

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Need a Fix of Security Issues and Bugs Related to ProPakistani.PK

As written previously About ProPakistani.PK SMS Service to get the issue fixed related to late delivery of messages sent by ProPakistani. I am a fan of this site and keep visiting it to observe all the new happenings on this blog. On this post Aamir responded to me and resolved the issue as quickly as one could imagine.

Whether it is related to replacement of gadgets or placement of ads on different places on the site I love it all. I also keep reporting issue to Aamir Attaa personally but sometimes I like to go public to make things social with other users as well so that visitors can also know what I have spent enough time to learn about. These are facts behind how ProPakistani website has become attractive and that’s why we love its appealing look that makes us a regular user of this website. 

Above all what I want is the security of ProPakistani to save it from hackers and other relevant people who might broke into it due to the bugs and issues I have mentioned below. I think if I am not going to reveal it, they might not know about it. This is us users who see these issues and I consider it my duty to inform them. They have done a great job over the recent years and all members of it Pro Pakistanis as they write.

Today I have observed that ProPakistani is hosted on WordPress that makes it easy enough to customize things on the site. However also found some bugs and issues which needs to get fixed. Out of no way the dashboard of WordPress started appearing on my chrome page while I was reading one of ProPakistani article today tilted “Telenor Posts 11% Revenue Growth in Q3 2012”

I have pasted the screenshots below so that you can take a look at and share your views what exactly happened. 

Previously I have also been looking to see the stats of the site on daily basis so that I can have an idea about how and where is all the traffic coming from on ProPakistani. Being a non-technical on this stuff, I look forward to learn this from Aamir and I am wondering how come thousands of comments are pending for moderation. I think they are spam comments.

Focus in the header bar and look for yourself:

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Dlvr.it Announced Premium Account Plans

As per a statement from dlvr.it, They have experienced tremendous growth over the last year -- and it's been an exciting and fabulous ride! 

In order to continue providing you with the world's most powerful content distribution engine, they are introducing two new paid premium dlvr.it account plans. These premium plans are available to new users starting today and will kick in on November 1, 2012 for existing dlvr.it customers. 

dlvr.it's premium plans provide enhanced content distribution tools for brands, businesses and publishers who need more control over distribution and reach for their content. New premium features include scheduled routes - or 'Stacks' - that drip your feed items out on an optimized daily schedule. They are also introducing even faster feed update times for the speed freaks out there. The new plans are priced at $9.99 / month (Pro) + $19.99 / month (Ultimate). See plan and pricing detail

They will continue offering the basic dlvr.it service level free of charge. However, they are making some changes to the features we provide for free. The most notable change is that we will limit all new free accounts to five (5) content feeds and three (3) social profiles.

For all of their existing accounts, they will be grandfathering in all current feeds and social profiles - indefinitely. 

This means their existing customers will continue with the current feeds and social profiles in their accounts free of change and with no interruption in content delivery -- no matter the number of feeds or social profiles in your account. 

Starting November 1, if your total number of feeds or social profiles exceeds the limit and you want to add new feeds or social profiles, you'll need to upgrade to a premium account plan to do so. But again, any legacy feeds or social profiles in your account will continue to operate even if you do not upgrade to a paid plan.

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