Abdussamad.com

A brand new service from Pakistan Telecommunications Limited (PTCL), the only fixed line operator in Pakistan, allows you to view a PTCL subscriber's telephone bill simply by entering the phone number! This means that you can view anyone's telephone bill online!

The US government is planning to spend $50 million on propaganda for Pakistani audiences. They are calling it a new "communications strategy" and will involve the following:

1. Supporting media organisations that are favourable to the americans
2. The setting up of a "media monitoring group" that will put its own spin on any negative news about the US.

With inflation slowly eating away at the value of the Pakistan Rupee, there has been a change in which currency notes people choose to carry with them. For a variety of reasons the Rs. 500 note is now replacing the Rs. 100 note as the most convenient note to carry with you when going shopping for daily essentials.

The level of western hypocrisy is mind boggling. Western countries like to lecture the world about a lot of things that they themselves are guilty of.

Consider the hypocrisy over freedom of speech. America and other western countries love to lecture the rest of the world about freedom of speech yet their own media is extremely fond of toeing the government line. We saw how the US media helped delude its citizens about Iraq before the invasion and now we see how it continues down the same path as it helps demonize Iran just like the US government wants it to. The western media clearly endulges in self censorship and has an obvious bias especially against Muslims. The BBC, for example, openly talks about racial profiling of Muslims as if institutionalised racism against Muslims is perfectly okay.

Recent news stories suggest that things are much worse in the new colonies of Iraq and Afghanistan. The raid on the offices of an Iraqi journalist's union and the destruction of a freelance cameraman's footage in Afghanistan are just the the most recent examples.

Then there is the rampant intolerance. The west loves to lecture the rest of the world about the need for "moderation" and tolerance while it launches ever increasing attacks on Muslim countries around the world. People in the west can't even tolerate Muslims living on the same planet as them much less those living in their own countries. So much for "freedom" and tolerance!

Microsoft's new operating system and the successor to Windows XP, Windows Vista is being released to bulk buyers soon but it will take until early 07 before it is available for retail consumers. Vista has some steep hardware requirements. Its much touted aero user interface will require a high end graphics card and loads of RAM. For starters you need a 1 Ghz cpu which shouldn't be a problem for most users. You also need a 1GB of RAM! A whole Gig! I mean talk about being a pig. But the really surprising part is the 15GB hard disk space requirement. How many DVDs does it come on :o ? Of course everybody is complaining now but people will eventually upgrade. We have to there is no other option if you want the latest and greatest software to work with. Windows Vista is certainly a boon to Microsoft's OEM "partners" .

The most important question though is whether you still have to restart your computer after installing every little thing? Its been 21 years since Windows was first released and you would think that by now MS would have learned to make a stable and reliable OS .