Aqeel Zafar’s Randomness

On 25th August (last Saturday), Pakistani Photographer’s held their first (official) Lahore meetup. It was a great meetup, started at 5pm and lasted around 6.5 hours.

Standing (Left to Right): Malcolm Hutcheson, lal khan, Syed A Rizvi, Naeem Rashid, Shuaib Hazrat, Zaheer Shah, Omer K Lodhi, Aqeel (me), Junaid Rashid (EJ) and Shahid Siddiqui.
Sitting (Left to Right): Yasir Nisar, Khalil Shah, Kamran Safdar (Kami Syed), Reza Gilani, Waheed Khalid, Nauman Khawaja, baba dody and Asad

It started with informal chit chat, then on everyone’s arrival a formal introduction, and then slide show of member’s photography, but as soon as the slideshow begun, the power failed (once again :() so, it was delayed. In the mean time, few ideas were also discussed about Pakistani Photographer’s group and future meetups.

When everyone was about to leave, power was restored, and the slide show begun. Zaheer Shah, Nauman Khawaja, Junaid Rashid, Amir Mukhtar, Khaleel Shah, Kami Syed, Waheed Khalid and Yasir Nisar showed their photographs, which were simply awesome. I would recommend everyone (who have interest in photography) to visit their profile and check out their photos (and of everyone else’s too).

For more detailed information, you can visit flickr to read more about Lahore Meetup.

Disclaimer / More info:

* Pakistan Photographer’s have 2 groups at Flickr, Pakistani Photographer’s & Pakistani Photographers Club.
* Amir Mukhtar came late with few friends, I have forgotten their names, would update the post if I could find them.
* Group photo is courtesy of Kami Syed

What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.

If you have wondered the same question, then soon, you can find the answer. Leo Babauta of Zenhabits is joining hand with with Collis and Cyan Ta’eed of FreelanceSwitch and FlashDen to launch a new initiative, Blog Action Day. The aim is to choose a topic for year, and then have all bloggers write about that issue on a specific date.

This year on October 15, thousands of bloggers around the world will write about Environment. At the time of writing, 1020 blogs have already signed up for Blog Action Day, including some of my favorite blogs like, LifeHacker, WebWorkerDaily, LifeHack.org, ProBlogger, Freelance Switch, and many more.If you think it won’t make any change, read Leo Babauta’s Why bloggers will change the world, and how you can help.

In the end, register your blog; after all, all you have to do, is write one post on October 15, and which might just change the world.

Yesterday, on Pakistan’s Independance Day, Buzzvines held it’s first Informal Blogger’s Gathering. Assuming that it was first gathering of buzzvines, which is still pretty young, and the heavy rain, people there were more than I expected.

I went there with Shaharyar Siddique of Kirayadaar.com, others included Amer Sarfraz of bramerz.pk, who arranged this event, then there was Badar Khushnood Google Pakistan Country Consultant, Mr. Shirazi who writes around 20 blogs including Lahore School of Economics (LSE)’s official blog, a blogger from Lahore Metro Blog, one guy from Rozee.pk and few others (sorry for all the names I have forgotten, I would try to find and list them).

In brief, Amer Sarfarz started it with a bit of introduction, then Mr. Shirazi introduced himself and talked about monetizing blogs, as it was completely informal meetup and there was no agenda, things got bit random after that, though the main topic was still “monetizing your blog” and that we need to collaborate more with each other and not drag each other down.

In the end, there was small lucky draw, which included ASUS Pocket Wireless Access Point WL-330g and Google Notebooks.

Overall, it was pretty good meetup, met some great people, had free drinks and won a Google Notebook (I will upload it’s pic later), what can beat that? I would be looking forward to more meetups.

UPDATE #1 : Added group photo, courtesy of Amer Sarfraz / Buzzvines

UPDATE # 2: Event pictures are present at Buzzvines.com

Wishing all Pakistanis around the globe, a Very Happy Independance Day

If you are a blogger living in Lahore (Pakistan), and want to meet your fellow bloggers then there is a good news for you, the team behind buzzvines is arranging a small informal gathering for Lahori bloggers on the eve of 14th August, our Independance Day.

From upcoming event’s page:

The http://www.buzzvines.com/ team is arranging a small informal gathering of the tech savvy blogging community of Pakistan.

Purpose
The purpose of this informal meeting is to provide the blogger community with an opportunity to meet face to face with each other and discuss things of common interest verbally for a change

For complete information check http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/238000/

If you can, take out your time and try to make it to the party!

I just started a group for Inkscape related links on ma.gnolia. If you use ma.gnolia then join the Inkscape group and start sharing all the links you can find.

Inkscape Group Link : http://ma.gnolia.com/groups/inkscape