It is unfortunate to report that Shayan Akhtar, the self proclaimed world record holder for Youngest Microsoft professional, is a fraud told me officials from Microsoft.

Shayan Akhtar, a student from Okara, recently claimed that he has set a new world record by scoring 998 marks out of total 1,000 in a Microsoft Professional Certificate programme.

Furthermore Shayan had claimed that Bill Gates has invited him for one to one meeting in July 2012.

Microsoft officials from Pakistan as well as United States, who wanted to remain unnamed, confirmed ProPakistani that Shayan is fabricating facts and communication records to gain popularity for reasons not known to them.

Shayan Akhtar was never invited by Bill Gates, commented company officials.

Microsoft officials also maintained that Microsoft doesn’t keep track of age for its certified professionals anymore. Hence there’s no point of claiming being youngest or oldest certified professional.

When we asked from Shayan about the same, he said that Microsoft could be lying to ProPakistani, and that he was indeed invited by Bill Gates for which he is visiting US in December 2012. He said he could show us the email invitation as well. (We will update this post, when and if we get the scan of invitation)

He also claimed that his name will appear in next publication of Guinness Book of World Record, for his extraordinary achievement. He was of the view that his certification (in November 2011) was a recent record that is why his name isn’t appearing in online search for world records on Guinness website.

Shayan’s father didn’t take our call.

Microsoft didn’t comment when we asked if company is considering any legal action against Shayan for the propaganda.

It merits mentioning here that Punjab government was considering to honor Shayan by throwing a ceremony which of course isn’t happening now.

It maybe recalled that Ammar Afzal, a student from Okara too, was involved in such kind of fraud as well. He had claimed similar kind of records in various certifications, which were later found out to be fake.

Update:

Shayan has tried to fabricate emails, exactly like what Microsoft officials claimed earlier. Just five minutes ago, I received an email from “Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation”. Here is what the email reads:

We’ve just contacted Shayan Anique to confirm his Bill Gates Invitation. He is invited by Mr Gates to visit Microsoft Corporation in November because of the work he had done in the field of Microsoft Technologies like ASP.NET, MVC, .NET FRAMEWORK and WINDOWS PHONE.

He is also a youngest MCPD in Windows Phone and Web Development 4. Although we have sent his world Records Documents for Verification to Guinness. We have also verified his MCP Transcript from Microsoft. It is totally valid.

We will inform you as soon as we receive reply from Guinness.

Your’s Sincerely,

-
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Main Office
PO Box 23350
Seattle, WA 98102

Check below screen shot of email header:

via ProPakistani.PK

The couple in this video is Timothy Tiah Ewe Tiam, the co-founder of the ever popular ad-blogging site Nuffnang, and his Malaysian girlfriend who is a blogger, now his fiancee, Audrey Ooi Feng Ling.

click here to watch video

Tim’s blog – timothytiah.com/2011/12/21/video-of-our-meme-proposal
Audrey’s blog – fourfeetnine.com/2011/12/11/the-proposal

You can also follow Tim and Audrey on Twitter – @timothytiah @fourfeetnineaud

After piles of delays and then affirmations, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has finally received the directive from Ministry of Information Technology (MOIT) to make preparation for auction of third generation cellular licenses, said a statement issued by PTA itself.

Statement said that PTA is now planning to Auction Frequency Spectrum for Cellular Mobile Broadband Services and license will be technology neutral and the licensees be able to deploy any technology including 3G / 4G / LTE / any other upcoming technologies.

The information Memorandum (IM) for auctioning process is being prepared by PTA. The auction will be held tentatively in March 2012 for which exact schedule will be issued later.

The auction process will be overseen by a joint professional group (Auction Supervisory Committee) comprising of public sector stakeholders, including representatives of Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Information Technology, PTA and FAB etc.

PTA has constituted a special committee for making preparations to conduct the auction in the most possible transparent manner.

For the awareness and information of potential investors, PTA is also planning to hold Investors Conferences in Karachi and Islamabad. International Road Shows will also be organized. The exact schedule for this auction would be made available soon, said PTA.

It is pertinent to mention that the introduction of Cellular Mobile Broadband services in the country will initiate a new economic cycle in the country and accrue great benefits for the national economy. It will also usher in new era for proliferation of a number of new applications for data intensive value added services. This will greatly fulfill the requirement and demands of Cellular Mobile Phone subscribers and professionals who are eagerly waiting for this service.

via ProPakistani.PK

Never Ever Give Away Your Pictures / Videos [Especially if You are a Girl]

Most of us already know the seriousness of a situation when our private pictures or videos land in fraudulent hands. Still, we make mistakes – and are often embarked with this condition when suicide becomes the last option to save ourselves.

Night packages (the root cause of above mentioned problem) have bought our nation on the verge of social destruction. Every other mobile phone subscriber has a list of friends (of opposite gender) with whom they spend nights, every night in fact. Soon it becomes a habit and then a mental dis-order, depression, irritation, increases annoyance and what not.

Let’s forget the mental and physical health for time being and talk about even greater problem.

Lately, thanks to significant increase of Camera Phones, and almost zero MMS charges (with SMS/MMS Packages), the number of such incidents have increased where pictures and videos (at times with objectionable orientation) are shared with partners over internet and MMS.

Based on few incidents I recently came across, here are few recommendations:

Now Remember Following:

• Never send your pictures to ANYONE, WHO EVER he/she is – no matter what relation he/she has got with you, or whatever level of trust you guys have between each other. (This doesn’t apply to your family members).
• Never keep your private pictures in your phone – save them in your PC/laptop and delete from mobile phones. Your phone can easily get stolen/lost.
• Make sure that privacy settings of your Facebook aren’t revealing the information you would not like to reveal otherwise. (Go to Facebook –> My account –> Privacy Settings –> customize setting)
• Make sure you don’t have casual acquaintances mixed up with your family members or close friends on Facebook. Make proper lists with different level of privacy settings for each list.

NEVER EVER shot objectionable pictures/videos – because they will remain in your phone even after deleting them.
Never Trust Phone Friends: This is for those who make friends over phone and talk to them indefinitely. Never trust them. There are organized groups targeting both girls and boys to attain intimate information/pictures/videos to later blackmail them.

Deleted Pictures/Videos are Recoverable: If you think you have deleted a photo/video and you safe, then unfortunately its not the case. A deleted video/photo or any data is recoverable. So never shot videos / pictures at first place which you may not want to keep without self for ever. View this unfortunate video example for more details on this.

Fear Voice Recorders too: So if you are good with not giving photos, videos, you are still prone to voice recorders. Please make sure that you are using your mobile phone without any risk and with utmost care.

What to Do if pictures/videos are exposed? God forbid, if your pictures/videos are somehow in someone’s hands who is blackmailing you (for money or at times with some other demands) then do following:

• Tell everything to your parents, they are going to be your best buddies in this bad time.
• Lodge FIR at your nearest police station
• Though Police station, lodge a complaint with FIA

Disclaimer: I highly recommend you to talk to your parents, however, approaching Police and FIA should be considered based on your circumstances. (Considering our police’s performance) I fear,that approaching police (if you don’t have high-level contacts) may ruin your life.

We need to be extra careful, especially, when there is no cyber law in our country.

At the end, I would say: Bad deeds meet bad consequences, so be sincere to your self, your parents and to your life.

via ProPakistan.PK

KARACHI: After rumours of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) imposing a ban on porn sites in the country, a new PTA letter floating online orders the imposition of a “system” to ban select words in mobile SMS messages.

A set of two extensive lists in English and Urdu have allegedly been compiled by the PTA. The list of English words crosses the 1,000 figure, while the Urdu list contains over 550 words.

A scan of the letter (dated November 14, 2011) sent from Muhammad Talib Doger, Director General (Services) PTA, states that the filtering of content through SMS must be considered under the scope of “Protection from Spam, Unsolicited, Fraudulent and Obnoxious Communication Regulations, 2009″ and the SOPs laid down to control spamming. The letter is written with reference to a meeting held with mobile phone operators on October 18, 2011 in Islamabad.

PTA has ordered the implementation of the system within seven days of the issuance of the said letter. All operators have been asked to submit a monthly report to PTA regarding the number of blocked text messages.

“Spamming” has been defined as:

The transmission of harmful, fraudulent, misleading, illegal or unsolicited messages in bulk to any person without express permission of the recipient, or causing any electronic system to show any such message or is being involved in falsified online user account registration or falsified domain name registration for commercial purpose.

Download Complete Words List:

English: Click to Download PTA Banned English Words List
Urdu: Click to Download PTA Banned Urdu Words List

PTA SMS Spam Words List