Ali Zafar Sings A Medley Of Amitabh Bachchan’s Hit Songs on Kaun Banega Crorepati Grand Finale.

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In what is seen as a monumental shift in strategy, Microsoft has announced plans to open source the entire .NET stack. In addition, the company is going to give developers a way to use .NET and Visual Studio to develop software that runs not only on Windows, but also on Mac OSX, Android, Linux and iOS.

Prior to this, you could only build apps with .NET for Windows desktops and servers. If you wanted to run .NET on other platforms like OSX, Linux, iOS and Android, you had to use a third party run time called Mono. While it was a good compromise, native .NET development on these platforms is going to be significantly better.

Microsoft is also releasing a fully featured Community version of Visual Studio 2013 which will be free to use for indie devs, students and small companies. The version will include access to thousands of plugins, Resharper and other tools that were previously behind a paywall. The familiar and quite feature-limited Express versions of Visual Studio will eventually be replaced by the Community edition.

The company has also released previews for Visual Studio 2015 and .NET 2015. New additions in the feature set will make it easy for developers to write apps that run on Android, Windows and iOS.

The changes come after Satya Nadella took over as CEO, and are part of a broader strategy shift that aims to put the focus on cloud and mobile solutions. Traditional money makers like Windows and Office has been undergoing major changes, with Office being offered for free for Android and iOS recently.

Overall, this is a huge deal. Microsoft’s software development platforms and developer tools are absolutely amazing, as anyone who has worked with them will tell you. By allowing them to be used for development for other platforms, Microsoft is making a lot of developers very happy. It also shows that the company is leaving its legacy roots behind and embracing the requirements of the new internet age.

via ProPakistani.PK

Pakistanis’ presence isn’t limited to these two platforms only, in fact they manage to out-shine at all sorts of online markets. We recently reported about a Pakistani who managed to make over a million dollar out of just one theme that he sells on Themeforest, a marketplace for WordPress themes. And that’s one tiny example out of countless other un-told stories about the freelancers in Pakistan.

Then there are bloggers, social media experts, and countless other professionals who choose to conveniently work from their homes.

Freelancers, bloggers and entrepreneurs — who work from home — are denied by Pakistani banks the provision of credit cards because they don’t have offices.

All these freelancers, bloggers and entrepreneurs, that help the national economy by bringing millions of dollars of foreign currency into Pakistan each month, are denied by Pakistani banks the provision of credit cards.

Not to mention, we bloggers, freelancers badly need these credit cards for buying things (hosting/services) online that help us doing our businesses. Or let me put this in other words, freelancers and bloggers can’t do their businesses without these services that they buy online with credit cards.

Banks argue that one must have an office address and a home address to be able to comply with credit card issuance policy. They tell us that State Bank of Pakistan asks them to do so.

If government wants the freelancers to get them the top dollar without payment gateway, without credit cards then its a pity.

Who ever the responsible is or who ever is just overlooking this very serious issue, ultimately its the freelancers and bloggers who suffer. Not to mention, not every freelancer is resourceful (especially in the start) to have payment solutions in place without having the credit cards. I have personally shared my credit card with countless fellow bloggers to get them hosting accounts or domain renewals.

Now if Pakistan — I am talking about the government — wants us to help the economy then we should be provided with the tools that help us achieve our targets. If they want the freelancers to get them the top dollar without payment gateway, without credit cards then its a pity, its a shame for the government, or the banks or our financial system.

I just don’t know who will end this current policy, but it has to end and there should be a revision in policy for issuing credit cards.

Please note: Yes we know that Standard Chartered debit cards work online, but they fail to get the reimbursed funds, in case of refund. Moreover, there are certain services that accept just credit cards and not the debit cards just because of this very problem.

Post via ProPakistan.pk