Microsoft Disowns Shafay Thobani, Yet Another Self Proclaimed Youngest Microsoft Professional: ProPakistani

Microsoft Disowns Shafay Thobani, Yet Another Self Proclaimed Youngest Microsoft Professional
Warid Announces Rs. 10 Million Grand Prize Winner
Wateen to Offer 20% Discounts to Students Having ISIC Cards
Who is This, Getting Free Promotion on PTCL Website?
Mobilink Brings Back (Paid) SMS Delivery Reports

Microsoft Disowns Shafay Thobani, Yet Another Self Proclaimed Youngest Microsoft Professional

Posted: 11 Jul 2012 01:55 AM PDT

The above pictured kid is Shafay Thobani, who is yet another Pakistani boy to claim as being the World's Youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, even when Microsoft has said this officially that they don't keep track of age for its certified professionals.

It appears that this has become a trend in Pakistan to get noticed by claiming oneself as being the world's youngest professional in one thing or another. Probably because it can bring them fame, attention and money, that too without much efforts.

This is happening even after Shayan Anique's episode, a self proclaimed youngest Microsoft professional, when we saw him producing communication that was forged and faked.

Unlike Shayan Anique, Shafay Thobani's certification is legitimate, we have checked with Microsoft, but his claim of being youngest certified professional in the world could not be verified for the fact that Microsoft doesn't count age of its professionals.

In case of Shafay Thobani, he (I mean his father or guardian) went a step ahead. They hired a PR agency, organized a press conference in a five star hotel in Karachi yesterday to announce his heroism in front of media. So instead of pulling the media, they rather contented with pushing their son to media to get him the coverage.

Jus t to mention, Shafay has a page on his website that reads: “Hire me as a Brand Ambassador”, while ProPakistani has learned that Shafay Thobani is going to become brand ambassador for a brand or two in addition to getting sponsorships from government and private sectors. Which is fine, in fact not. Let me explain.

Frankly speaking I am impressed by the skills of Shafay Thobani. Since he is legitimate certified professional at this age, which is something to be praised and lauded about. But the problem occurs when he calls himself "World's Youngest Certified Professional", which is a fake claim. Since Microsoft can't verify this we are in no position to assume that he is indeed world's youngest certified professional.

This problem will get only worse when we will see more such claims in coming days and also to mention that such claims are either cooked, not true, unverifiable and hence are falsified.

Microsoft is somewhat worried of these self proclaimed child prodigies, who keep on surfacing every other month now. Microsoft as a technology company doesn't want to get named with these kids, who mostly fake their looks and skills (Ammar Afzal for example).

When asked if Microsoft will disown such youngest certified professionals an official told ProPakistani that they already did so by announcing that Microsoft doesn't keep track of age for its certified professionals.

We hope that Microsoft will not ban kids from Pakistan below 18 to appear in certifications because of these self proclaimers.

Warid Announces Rs. 10 Million Grand Prize Winner

Posted: 11 Jul 2012 01:45 AM PDT

Warid has announced the grand prize winner of its "SMS Crore Ka" promotion and gave away hefty Rs. 10 million to the winner.

Pictured above, Mr. Nauman Fakhar, VP Customer Services, Warid Telecom (right) giving cheque of Rs. 10,000,000 to Mr. Arshad Ali of Hyderabad who won the grand prize in Warid 'SMS Crore Ka' promotion.

Mr. Arshad Ali, the grand prize winner of Rs. 10,000,000 while receiving the prize said "Warid has changed my life completely, my dream has come true and I cannot express the level of excitement I have."

Warid's 'SMS Crore Ka' has been an exciting promotion in which 394 lucky winners have won prizes worth a total of Rs. 25 million in daily and weekly lucky draws. Warid subscribers acknowledged 'SMS Crore Ka' as a transparent and interesting promotion and requested the company to keep coming up with similar offerings for their benefit.

Wateen to Offer 20% Discounts to Students Having ISIC Cards

Posted: 11 Jul 2012 12:44 AM PDT

Wateen Telecom recently announced its partnership with the International Student Identity Card (ISIC) Association, to work together to support international students in Pakistan.

A memorandum of understanding was signed between the two entities under the terms of which Wateen will offer 20% discount every month on all WiMAX line rent to any person with a valid ISIC card for a year.

The International Student Identity Card (ISIC) is the globally recognized student identity card, which is exclusively endorsed by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The ISIC is selected and used by over 4.5 million students globally so that they can avail student facilities in other cities and countries, such as libraries.

Students of recognized universities and colleges from all around the world are eligible for the ISIC card and can become the part of global student community by registering with the ISIC. The card is issued throughout 120 countries, giving students access to over 40,000 benefits worldwide at more than 100,000 locations.

Process:

Eligible students can visit www.isic.com.pk and register themselves for the card or they can download the application form and sent it through regular mail.
Eligible students will be required to produce copies of their own or their guardian's along with a letter from their institute confirming their full time student status.
Once the application has been approved, the card will be delivered to their address.
Students, having ISIC cards, can visit Wateen customer care centers for information related to this promotion.

Who is This, Getting Free Promotion on PTCL Website?

Posted: 10 Jul 2012 10:45 PM PDT

After what we learned from official website of Tourism, I am sure it would be the webmaster – though we don't know whether PTCL is having in-house web development department or they outsource this work.

Chances are that webmaster is milking PTCL's official website without letting the officials know about it. If so, then this doesn't mean that PTCL officials are spared from this corruption, rather you can term them ignorant enough that they don't notice their website closely.

If you are wondering what kind of promotion and corruption we are talking about then see this below screenshot to have an idea:

This is home page of PTCL's website – having Page Rank 6. Anyone with very little knowledge of SEO can well imagine the worth of a PR6 page. There is someone who has inserted a live, do-follow link on this PR6 home page.

That's not it. Upon investigate we found more invisible links of same website on internal pages of PTCL's website.

For instance if you check the source code of http://ptcl.com.pk/index_0.php (A PR 5 Page) then here is what you will find:

Officials concerned should be questioned for letting this to happen because (Just to let you know) the guy is using black hat SEO tricks to promote his/her website which can result into a ban of ptcl.com.pk domain on Google services, such as Google Search and others.

Its about time that government and large corporations should increase the scrutiny procedures for their websites and webmasters.

Thanks Naveed Ahmed and Arsalan Jamshed for pointing this out to us.

Update:

PTCL team has apparently removed above mentioned external links.

Mobilink Brings Back (Paid) SMS Delivery Reports

Posted: 10 Jul 2012 09:59 PM PDT

If you remember from those old days, all cellular operators in Pakistan used to offer SMS delivery reports for free.

But then, reportedly, one fine day all operators collectively decided to take down this free value added service and to charge customers for SMS Delivery Reports.

Just in case if you don't know, SMS delivery reports confirm you the recipient of SMS to receiver.

It displays the acknowledgment notice to sender whenever a SMS reaches its recipient – a useful service for those who want to make sure that their SMS communication makes its way to the recipient party.

Mobilink, like other operators, recently re-introduced SMS delivery Reports with charges of course.

How to Subscribe:

Mobilink customer needs to send "SUB" to 2742

How to Unsubscribe:

To unsubscribe SMS "UNSUB" to 2742

Charges:

This service is free for postpaid customers, while prepaid customers will be charged Rs. 0.50 plus tax or Rs. 0.63 including tax per day. This will translate into Rs. 15 plus tax per month.

More details in below table:

	Post paid	Prepaid
Activation & Deactivation Request Fee	Rs. 0.1 + tax	Rs. 0.1 + tax
Daily Subscription Fee	Free of Cost	Rs. 0.5 + tax
Daily Auto Re-subscription	Yes	Yes

Note:

Users will be required to enable delivery report feature of their handset to be able to receive delivery reports.
To use the service customers have to activate delivery receipt/confirmation option in the message settings of their handsets.
subscribers will receive free tips related to the category they have subscribed for on every alternate day.
The service is available for both prepaid and postpaid customers.
All rates are exclusive of GST
19.5% FED on usage and 10% withholding tax at recharge or bill applies.

world on your screen

Wednesday, July 11, 2012