Interviewed By Sara Waqar Khan

After quite number of delays we finally got hold of Farhan Masood on this 23^rd March. Though it was difficult to get hold of him due to his busy schedule but CodeWeek today has managed to make everything possible for its readers. This is an interview which will make you evergreen. We present to you CEO, SOLO SMART Farhan Masood.

You’re brief Introduction:

A restless soul, determined to make some difference. Professionally, a futurologist with keen interest in technology and psychology. CEO of Solo Smart Inc, a hi-tech research firm working in the field of Megatronics, a right mix of Software, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. Solo Smart manufactures Facial Recognition and Artificial Intelligence based Robotic Security gates in Italy while all the technology development takes place in the this amazing country of Pakistan. A full time patriot, founder of Go Green Pakistan initiative and actively participating in nation building activities with Pakistan Youth Revolution.

My friends know me as…

I have lots of friends…. Some say I have a buddy factory. Those who know me find me witty, philosopher, geek, yet reliable and trust worthy. Always ready to go any mile to help within my capacity. Close ones call me Pagal, Deewana and a Cookie Monster…. Yeah I can go on moon for cookies. I trouble fails to find me I search for it from every nook and corner… The rest call me a patriot.

My employees know me as…

Lenient, kind hearted, flexible and easy going…. All qualities not recommended for any boss.

1. Can you sum up year 2009 in a few paragraphs?

a)     Expectations

Hazaron khwahishain aisee keh her khwahish peh dam niklay… There were a lot of expectations from 2009, yet it was a  slow year due to global recession. We achieved a lot from the development side. Plus their were failures and successes from the business side as well. Overall 2009 was restless and a the same time energetic year.

b)    Success

• Technologically, it was an year of achievements. We completed many of our products including Facial Recognition Security Gate with comprehensive HRMS software suite for industrial sector, FaceXS Facial Recognition Attendance and Access Control unit for corporate sector and a Visitors Management System.
• For our Face Recognition Security Gate solution, we were able to complete our development of 3D Face Recognition algorithm, its turnstile formation into a high security gate.
• Hammer proof Touch screen interface add on for illiterate friendliness.
• SMS based event watch dog which predicts if an employee will not arrive today etc.
• Much enhanced artificial intelligence and decision support system. Highly secure Dual technology RFID and Contactless development and integration and a lot more.
• We were able to start our production in Italy and also outsourced manufacturing of a low cost smaller unit in China. Interestingly we co-developed with our Italian Partners a Blast Proof Suicide Bomber Prevention Trap Portal which may secure high risk buildings.
• Business wise we were able to strike the deals with richest group in Pakistan called Nishat and got all the appreciation of the visionary Mansha Sahib, followed by the global legend Pepsi Cola for starting eventually from their biggest bottling plant situated in Gujranwala. We compiled our installation at PEL, where our system has been approved for the largest possible shift in Pakistan under one roof at one time. With over 8000 employees, the PEL setup is busier  then the busiest airport in the world.

c)     Failures

In order to achieve all these we faced many failures as well. We succeeded because we failed. Out of Lab successes turned out to be worst failures in industrial environment. We had to fight chip-bursting heat, had to improve our algorithms a lot to cope up with evil minded labor and what not. We had to close down our manufacturing unit in Pakistan, as we were not able to achieve the quality, and due to a few import sanctions and unavailability of various chips in the local market.

d)    Friends

It was the year of social media. Made a lot of friends over Facebook and Twitter and met a lots of them. Mostly are nice people. Found lost ones from school and college. Learnt that social media takes you near to those who are far away from you while takes you far away from those who are sitting right next to you waiting to be heard. With this thought I have minimized my use of social media for a while.

e)     New Business Ventures

We formed manufacturing alliances in Italy, Turkey and China with renowned factories to manufacture our designed hardware under an OEM license.

f)     Plans

If you want to make GOD laugh, tell him your plans. A lot of pending things include a Face Recognition based ATM, a VIP customer detection center, a finger portable biometric location device and a lots more.

g)     Travels

I Traveled to Australia and China, while my partner was in Italy and Turkey to represent me. 2. Lessons Learnt from 2009? Everything happens at its own time. Always build your dreams over smaller achievable goals and set targets to achieve them. Always add staple sellable items to your business plans as big projects are not that easy to sell. Demand Supply rule taught to us in Economics has no application without a factor called bribe. Alhamdolilah we have not so far been into bribe business yet it had been a tough path we chose. Never ever attempt for Government and Army Projects. They always give business to the ones they want to, and just waste your time to collect information from you and handing over to those who will actually do the projects.

2. Awards and recognitions

In my career so far I have won 21 awards.

In year 2009 I received P@SHA ICT Award and APICTA from Melbourne Australia as well.

3. What comes to your mind when I say:

a)     Pakistan

Pakistan is rising… Pakistan is not a piece of land. I am Pakistan you are Pakistan, We are Pakistan…. We will change, so will Pakistan

b)    2010

2010 was a tough year to make or break… stay determined and you should get there.

c)     Gadgets

As a futurologist I play with toys of the future which I cannot own yet. This way it has killed my urge to own anything that’s in the market. Otherwise you will find me loaded with old but useful gadgets.

d)    Go Green

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step… and Go Green Pakistan has played its role among the society with your help. The concept of Go Green is to bring patriotism back in the people, to unite them and keep the hope alive ~ which is the driving force for every successful nation. The idea was to bring all Pakistanis close through Social Media & show unity towards #Pakistan and humanity by changing their display pictures and Avatars with Green Flag of Pakistan on Twitter and Facebook. This experiment was quite successful and was promoted by many new followers every day.

On Twitter and Facebook I was often disappointed by a large number of Pakistanis indulged in negative discussions, which left the youth in despair and hopelessness. The slogans like “Pakistan se zinda bhag” (Run from Pakistan Alive) were circulating everywhere and it was really painful for a patriot like me to digest.

Negative criticism leads towards complete chaos. In order to cease it, I used the power of Social Media to reach out to a larger number of Pakistani Intellectuals with minimum effort.

So far 38,600 plus have turned GREEN… Without you it was not possible and you may think it was just a small JOB you were involved in ?

What GO GREEN has achieved so far?

by turning GREEN…

a) You have literally touched hearts, lit hope, triggered emotions and awakened the sleeping LOVE among Pakistanis of the cyber world !

Ali Ahmed, 21 via email says
All my life I never felt any love for Pakistan. Your Go Green campaign has made me feel for the first time that deep down I love my country and that feeling is now just making me crazy, Thank you for waking me up. Pakistan Zindabad!

b) You have created a distinctive identity of Pakistanis across the CyberSpace. Nobody will now ask us ARE U INDIAN ?

@shubhankar – An Indian tweets
How to identify a #Pakistani on Twitter – they have ALL turned green…. with envy Go Green with #Pakistan

c) You have created a notion of pride among other Nations

Kuroi Noshiyorul – An Indonesian on Independence day of Indonesia via Facebook Status
Although there is no Indonesian Flag * profile pic * I still love Indonesia !

d) You have noticeably eliminated negative discussions on Pakistan on Twitter and Facebook – Alhamdolilah

Saima – Psychologist via Facebook Message
Very clever Farhan, why would anyone with a Pakistani Flag Pic share negative stuff about Pakistan… so more u will turn GREEN, less negative stuff about Pakistan will come on the Internet from Pakistanis. May Allah bless you and do more good for Pakistan.

I have over 10,500 comments in your praise I just picked a few like

Yussarah Nasir
let the world know what Pakistan is….

Sabahat Ashraf
this could go global! we should offer this to everyone–maybe with a small “offered as a service by the people of Pakistan”?

Muhammad Waqar Zafar
Excellent Work Indeed, Green Team, Your Work Have Certainly Fueled Up The High Spirit Of Patriotism. Just Keep Up The Good Work …

Go Green Pakistan is now the piece of a bigger cake now called Pakistan Youth Revolution, a social welfare platform for youth to work for Pakistan.

e) FaceXS

Imagine someday walking up to the front door of your home or office, and instead of whipping out your keys or RFID keycard, you stare into a facial recognition device that decides whether or not you’re really you. While this sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, this technology is real, and available today.

Upon taking an advice from my mentor Monis Rehman, the CEO of Naseeb Networks, I indulged into the development of a cheaper staple product in our Facial Recognition family for the less focused corporate sector.

FaceXS is a Dual Sensor 3D Face Recognition device that is fool and fail proof. It uses advanced linescan technology to achieve ultra-high resolution Facial Recognition; capable of identification and verification of Faces in less then a second. FaceXS can’t be fooled with Pictures and Posters as it uses near infrared 3D sensors to identify real human Faces, and any facial changes like beard, moustache, clean shave, and anti-glare glasses. FaceXS can convert almost any type of wooden, glass or aluminium doors into digital access bays open for those who are permitted and closed for those who are not authorized.

FaceXS can also be used to collect Time and Attendance data in the corporate offices as the machine stores 500 users and easily integrates with our Attendance Magic Software.

f)     Fatherhood

The world’s most amazing feeling is being a father, having showers of hugs and kisses that sweep all your worries away. I have a 5 year old Beautiful daughter and her name is Nashmia, and my world revolves around her. It was difficult as a single parent yet thanks to my mother who made it easy for me.

g)     Farhan Masood

Bullya kee janaa main kon !

• How would you advise youngsters who wish to join Software Industry as a career?

You cannot be successful overnight. Stay determined in whatever you do and you will touch the skies. Explore the mobile phone programming industry. Andriod and Iphone apps would soon be as big as the software industry itself. Professional video games would be the next best market. Social Media Apps are growing fast too and must not be ignored, specially the Facebook programming.

• What is your broad perception about this community in Pakistan as it stands today?

I think Pakistan is full of talent, and all they need is direction and guidance. Hard work beats talent if talent does not work hard…. And these days it is needed to work extra smart too. One thing we need to change is that we Pakistanis work on the principle of Rockets, We aim high but don’t move towards it unless we are in dire need.

• What are your personal professional plans for the immediate future for the next 10 years?

Building a global distribution network for our products and maturing illiterate friendly hardware and software tools.

• Any message you would want to give to the world?

Lets make this world a better place with love, peace, and harmony and by eliminating all the hatred.

The battle between the two rivals Microsoft and Google heated up as Twitter announced its deal with the two giants yesterday. Now tweets can be searched through these search engines very easily. Twitter has given access to Bing, so that it can detect and determine tweets coming from all over the globe.
So if you want to search for a tweet just type into the search bar and you will have your results. “Twitter currently presents tweets based simply on timeliness, Bing is experimenting with new solutions such as ‘best match’.”

Thus it will be showcasing the most popular Tweets of the moment. At the same time, it will also be allowing Web surfers to view Twitter messages that contain links to other Web content. Microsoft will filter Spam and other extraneous data. Three year old Twitter has become a part of every users life, and it is accessed by many and there is no restriction of time or place.

“Twitter is producing millions of tweets every minute on every subject you can imagine. The power of those tweets as a form of data that can be surfaced in search is enormous…Were you as fascinated by the 6-year-old boy floating away in a balloon as we were? Was it a hoax? We know that people are going to twitter more and more for information surrounding all the latest chatter … You can now search for what people are saying all over the web about breaking news topics, your favourite celebrity, hometown sports team, and anything else you use Twitter to stay on top of today.”said Paul Yiu, its head of search, on a Microsoft blog.

He had earlier announced the deal on stage at the Web 2.0 Summit. Microsoft stands face to face with its dominant rival Google which actually has more then 70% users across the globe. Although Microsoft has ruled the market since years. Today it has made an attempt to bing its users again and has offered them to search for desired tweets, produced by twitter users daily in real time.

Both Microsoft and Google have embarked on a journey where in the near future they are expected to offer all that real-time information to the masses from its most innovative sources. In the same way Google with a goal of creating the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search in the world has followed the same deal and said,

“We are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results,” said Marissa Mayer, the vice-president of search and user experience. “We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months… Next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

In the midst of all this competition it is twitter which takes the lead. Twitter social networking and micro-blogging website came into being in 2006, and by 2009 it has proved itself to be the most desirable and the most wanted property on the World Wide Web. Giants such as Microsoft and Google have now chosen it for their own business purposes and in order to facilitate their users with something new.

In Ramadan, People have been cataloguing their entire life on Facebook and Twitter, as they did before. We have witnessed many times that these open announcements, most of the times have lead to fights, embarrassments, and most of the time deactivation of personal accounts. But in Ramadan we wish to decrease your tension. Here are some of the social networking ethics which should be strictly followed, in Ramadan, by every Software Engineer, in fact, by every individual out there.

• Update your status five times a day

You know that we Muslims offer prayer five times a day and we know that you update your status every day, oh sorry, every passing minute that is. So we advise you to log in to twitter and facebook account only 5 minutes before you go for namaz. Which is five times a day? This might help a 24/7 facebook user to be inspired by you and then get up and offer his prayers at the right time, every time you update your status.

• DO NOT make long, sincere and deep Duas on “WHATS ON YOUR MIND?”

Whatever you need from Allah, write it on a piece of paper and keep it under your pillow when you sleep. No there will be no magic wand working over here, it all depends on the Almighty instead of announcing it in front of the world. TRUST US; the world will only make fun of you, some things need to be kept very close to you and your heart.

• Do not over share:

Yes we obviously know that you had a wonderful Aftari at someone’s place, or at a restaurant, or at some Cafe, but please do not update your status by declaring what followed after that. We honestly do not want to know about your acidities and constipations. And we honestly do not know want to know what and where you ate. So, it will be greatly appreciated to keep it to yourself whatever you did or did not.

• Do not hurt anyone and control  anger in all situations.

We know that ROZA LAG RAHA HAI. But that does not mean that you should start fighting with everyone or anyone who comes across. Nobody cares about your frame of mind. Everyone is fasting so mind you, control your temper and yourself. On the other hand, if someone has completely failed to offer you an extravagant meal at aftari, do not curse that person on your status updates. Because he might also be cursing you, for eating all his food at the other end.

• Donate an Ayat
  

Donate one Ayat every day, or more appropriately donate your status update completely to Ramazan. If you can Go Green then you can definitely Go Ayat every day. So let’s see how far this campaign goes. So, Go Ayat every day.

• Spend more time with your family

Instead of Zouking or Tweeting try spending more time your family. You can go for outing every day, but you will not be able to have a superb Aftari with your family.

• Read a book on our Prophet PBUH
  

Instead of reading a blog try reading a book, yes I am referring to the Holy Quran. O, come on, all we are asking you is for devotion of one complete month out of twelve. Because we know that you can definitely do it.

• Plan for the next year

If you completely failed to follow the first few rules set by us, then just think and create a resolution for years to come. And start planning ways of devoting yourself to it. Because from then onwards there will be no excuses.

• Neither shall you steal

Okay this time you can steal but only if the status update is Go Ayat Update, otherwise you really don’t have a chance.

• Evaluate your (self) status updates

Last but not the least evaluate yourself. Don’t ask how. if you have not followed any of the above tasks then don’t ask questions, just check your status updates and consider them as someone else’s, you will know exactly what we are referring to.

Pick things from this list and define the sequence you would want to pursue. This will help you avoid wasting your time in unproductive chats which is common in the festive on Facebook and even at the Masjids during Ramadan.

Contributed by Asim Zeeshan

Twitter is the popular micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read short 140 character messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are also known as followers. Twitter is not just the popular micro-blogging service among its users but their competitors envy it too. In the recent past, we have seen Facebook copying some of the privacy settings from Twitter and enabling the SMS-access to its services, just like twitter.

Now Yahoo has introduced a beta service called Meme! Although in a limited invitation-only launch. the service seems promising.

It has a smart and simple look with a great user interface. This is the same reason why Twitter is such a bug success; they kept things very simple and accessible. Why Yahoo wanted a clone of twitter? You may ask. The answer is, it’s NOT. Although the Idea has been stolen from twitter but unlike twitter it supports Images, Videos, Audios and Text posts.

Let’s have a look inside Meme!

The dashboard (the first page that you see after you login) is pretty simple and easy to understand. The updates from your subscribers (or the people you FOLLOW, same concept as Twitter) are shown here. The latest ones are on top. With each update you see author’s display picture, date and time when this post was posted (just like twitter) but then there are more options that Twitter does not have. You will notice that there are two buttons on the right hand side, one for REPOST (same as Re-tweet in Twitter) to again post the same image, video, audio or text and share it with your subscribers. These is also a REPOST COUNTER, it informs how many times this post has been REPOSTED. Pretty simple!

The toolbar is self explanatory too. Click on the kind of post you are going to give to your subscribers.

Post a Text Message. It has a 2000 character limit (pretty huge) if you are posting a text update.

Post a photo message

Post a video update

Comparing Meme with Twitter

Meme has successfully translated the success of Twitter and the power of a blog to create a new service that has the ease of sharing content and maintaining a blog at the same time. We are yet to see how it’s welcomed in the online community after its public launch.

Restrictions / Policies

Meme has restrictions unlike Twitter to restrict its usage for Cloned, SEO, Marketing, Pirated and Automatically generated content accounts.

Related Links:

1. Yahoo Meme! Guidelines (http://meme.yahoo.com/help/guidelines/)
2. Yahoo Meme! http://meme.yahoo.com/
3. Twitter http://www.twitter.com/

About the Author:

Asim Zeeshan is currently working as Senior Software Engineer in a renowned software house of Lahore, Pakistan. He has more than nine years of experience working in PHP and other technologies. He is a social media addict and an occasional blogger. A PRO GEEK, collecting every new gadget in the market. If Asim does not know how it works, then it is not worth knowing.

Shedding all its heavy applications, now Facebook is ready to reach in every part of the world as Facebook Lite. Now it looks more like twitter in its appearance and function. It aims to reach the developing nations where internet connections are slow and people are therefore unable to access such social networking websites. The HTML has been optimized, so there is lesser code for browsers to download.

It is available not only in India and America, but is various parts of Asia as well. It is ideal for smart phone users and netbook users. It faster and simpler way of keeping in touch with your friends and family, all the time, wherever you are.  It is also targets those who are still in search of new and easy tools of social networking, in the deep sea of World Wide Web. Have a look at the regular and the lite versions of facebook,

Regular Version

Facebook Lite

What makes the two versions different from each other,

• Facebook Lite loads much faster than the regular Facebook version. It seems empty and incomplete at the first look.
• There are no status updates anymore. “What’s on your mind?” bar removed
• It lacks the chatting window sessions, where people spend hours conversing with their friends.
• You will miss out the applications people are crazy about the games, the quizzes, the personality tests etc.
• No way of creating or visiting groups. Now lack of Fanship might affect the online marketing and business strategies.
• Events and birthday feeds appear in a single line on the home page.
• The size and amount of ads has also decreased.
• Some features are not ready yet.

Users are still trying to figure out how can they share their videos on Facebook Lite.

With so many things removed and deleted, people still prefer the lite version. Well the main reason is that everyone is busy and everyone prefers simple versions of everything available. People also argue that Myspace and the regular Facebook are a strain for the eyes. It is also believed by many that Facebook Lite may bring a revolution and change the way websites are designed. The heavy loaded websites with so many categories might not be seen in the near future OR it counld even be the other way round.

Contributed by Asim Zeeshan

There are infinite YouTube users out there and many spend a considerable amount of time on popular Google owned video sharing service. Regular users of Youtube also mark videos as “favorite”, “rate”, upload and comment on videos. Many users also share videos from Youtube to the popular Social Networking website Facebook and the popular micro-blogging website Twitter.  Most of the time, posting links to the video is more time consuming them watching the full length video itself, and if you are spending a lot of time on Youtube discovering interesting videos, then it becomes even more difficult to share every video among your friends and followers.

Well, today is your lucky day, because you can use the sleek new feature AutoShare by Youtube in order to share your YouTube activity among your Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Your Youtube activity includes, but is not limited to uploading a new video, marking a video as “favorite”, “rating” a video etc.

Let me show you how to achieve that;

Just login to your Youtube account and go to Account -> Sharing

AutoShare with Twitter

1. Make sure you are logged in to Twitter in order use this feature (if you have multiple accounts, then login to the desired twitter account)
2. Click on the twitter link and a new popup will appear (you may need to sign-in to your Google account, if asked)
3. Click on ALLOW on the new popup window.

4.    The popup will acknowledge your request and take you back to Youtube Accounts page.

5.   Viola! You are connected to your twitter account. Next time when you mark a video as “Favorite” etc it will be posted to your twitter stream.

AutoShare with Facebook

1. Make sure you are logged in to Facebook while you want to use this feature
2. Click on the Facebook link and a new popup will appear (you may need to sign-in to your Google account, if asked)
3. Click on CONNECT on the new popup window

4.     Select ALLOW PUBLISHING on the next page.

5.    Congratulations! You are connected to your Facebook account. Your Youtube activity would now be posted on your Facebook profile.

We hope this weeks TECHTIP has proved to be of help. From now on, flock your profiles with whichever video you feel like or whichever way you want to. Tell us whether this tip helped you. Comment if it did, comment again if it did not. We are waiting for you.

About the author:

Asim Zeeshan is CodeWeek Technical Content Manager and is also working as a Senior Software Engineer. He is a PRO GEEK, collecting every new gadget in the market. If Asim does not know how it works, then it is not worth knowing.

Lahore Tweetup’09 proved that yes we, Pakistanis, are proud of our country, our existence and the infinite talent which we have. Pakistani bloggers who have been working very hard in order to present Pakistan’s positive image in front of the world met at Hot Fusion in Lahore on 14^th August’09. The Independence Day was celebrated with great enthusiasm and excitement with The Proud discussing and sharing ideas at one platform. The event was covered by Dawn and was sponsored by Google, Wateen, CIO, Intel and bramerz.

We mentioned in our earlier posts that Bloggers have succeeded where print media lacked, so here is one proof right in front of you. Tweetup’09 made sure that Pakistan remains a trending topic on Twitter throughout the Independence Day.

People from all walks of life attended this event. These included students, fashion designers, software engineers and bankers. With proud Pakistanis all across the hall, everyone pledged to tweet in a responsible manner thus keeping in view the current image of our country. They also discussed how the negative image of Pakistan should be transformed into a positive one.

Amongst the discussion, on Social Activism and the role of bloggers in promoting Pakistan’s real/positive image, each participant was requested to actively participate by bringing one fact about Pakistan which they found interesting, the name of one Pakistani somewhere in the world who should be a role model for the youth of this country. The guests were also requested to bring along with them a significant date which remained undocumented till this time. They were also asked to tell everyone about one particular location in Pakistan, again unknown to the population which would be beneficial for everyone.

And thus at the Tweetup’09, Pakistan was termed as the most impressive country in terms of internet usage, with mobile usage growing up to of 140% per year, and being the second largest contributor in the United Nations peace keeping missions.

Pakistan possesses diverse talent which still needs to be discovered. Our country is moving forward at a very fast pace, and we can very proudly declare that we have immeasurable depth of talent inside the country and its people are working very hard to promote it.

Tweetup’09 also presented the idea and suggested that Pakistani websites should be shifted to .pk domain; they should promote Urdu language and place a Pakistani Badge on the website. Well CodeWeek.pk is proud to declare that it started its journey with all the above mentioned ideas.

CodeWeek is proud to present in front of you such participants and organizers who are concerned about the international image of Pakistan, and at the same time encouraging the present talent.