2011: Lost year of Internet bandwidth upgrades in Pakistan?

A few years ago PTCL decided that they wanted to get into the broadband Internet Service Provider (ISP) game. PTCL being PTCL they went about it in the only manner they could. They had this huge phone network with questionable infrastructure. And they didn’t really have the right personnel. But they had financial muscle and an almost monopoly on international bandwidth. So they advertised heavily offering lower rates and higher speeds than their competitors. It worked for them. They got lots and lots of customers. Some of them even happy ones.

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International payment methods for Pakistan: SWIFT wire transfer

Sending money abroad and receiving payments from foreign companies or individuals is surprisingly difficult in Pakistan. There are many factors that come into play including the cost of the payment method, time it takes to transfer the amount and acceptability of the payment method to the foreign party. In this post I look at SWIFT wire transfer and discuss its advantages and disadvantages. Continue reading

UBL wiz card review

debit cardOne of the biggest problems facing webmasters from Pakistan is the lack of an easy payment method for purchasing services online. Specifically, an easy payment method for buying webhosting and domain names. Credit cards are difficult to come by. Debit cards are easier to get, but most of them don’t work online. Not even a VISA logo guarantees that a debit card will work online in Pakistan! So I was very happy when I heard that a Pakistani bank was issuing an Internet capable prepaid debit card. That was over 2 years ago, and in this post I share my experience with using the UBL wiz Visa card online

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Worldcall upgrades Internet connections

Ethernet cableWorldcall provides broadband Internet services via a hybrid fibre optics and coaxial cable infrastructure. In recent years worldcall has lost a lot of customers to DSL providers like PTCL which offer cheaper rates and higher speeds. This increased competition has finally forced worldcall to upgrade its customers’ connections.

The new packages have not yet been officially announced but worldcall customers have already noticed the faster speeds. The new packages have twice the download speeds as the old ones for around the same price. Continue reading

ImgBurn free CD and DVD burning software.

ImgBurn free CD and DVD burning software

A DVD burner is a utility program in the truest sense of the word. You want it do one task and do it well. So its important that it startup quickly and be simple and reliable to use.

I was unimpressed with the stripped-down version of Nero that came with my new DVD writer. It was bloated, slow and complicated to use. There were too many unnecessary steps involved in burning a DVD with Nero essentials 9.0. So I went looking for an alternative and found a freeware application called ImgBurn that does a better job.

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