Aqeel Zafar’s Randomness

I have been planning to  get the 30% discount offered to the students enrolled in any university / college, which is affiliated with HEC (Higher Education Commission of Pakistan). To make sure that person applying for the discount is eligible for the discount, they would first contact university registrar and upon approval, follow up the application.

This process shouldn’t be much of a problem, except that you can not apply for discount if you are already using PTCL Broadband connection, you would first have to disconnect their service and apply again, which would take almost a week (according to call center representative, whereas I have heard many people complaining that it takes much longer).

Anyways, I am going to return the equipment and give application for disconnection tomorrow, and as I don’t have modem or any other form of internet connection available, I might not be able to come online for a week or two. Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long.

Couple of days ago I got a text message on my cell, from a friend. It was a small quiz type thingy, in which you ask recipient few questions about yourself. I forwarded it to a few of my friends and asked couple of online friends, only a few responded to it, interestingly, results were quite accurate so, I am posting that here:

Question 1) What is best in me?
i) Umm…
ii) Caring person.
iii) You’re always here when i need to talk.
iv) You are really good and nice to your friends.

Question 2) What is bad in me?
i) Lazy.
ii) Boring, sometimes.
iii) Don’t know you well enough to know your bad sides
iv) Irresponsible

Question 3) I am just like a?
i) Computer Worm
ii) Teddy Bear
iii) Fortune cookie - You always tell me what to do.
iv) (No answer)

i, ii, iii & iv are all real people. I agree with their answers, except that I don’t think myself irresponsible, at least not most of the time.

Let me know what do you think of me?

Happy New Year to muslims all around the world (and anyone else who uses hijri calendar)

Happy New Year everyone, I hope this year will bring you (more) happiness and joy.

P.S: I updated the wordpress to latest version (fixes some critical security issues), everything  seems to be working fine, but if you find anything broken, let me know. Thanks

I just got a rubber keyboard as gift, from my brother. In case you have not heard about them, they are flexible keyboards, made of rubber, virtually indestructible, impervious to water and look like door mat Which means when they get dirty, you can just put them under water and wash them.

The one I am using is of some turkish brand, which I have never heard about, typing on this keyboard takes little getting used too, specially for the “big” keys, like enter, shift and space, but after a while, when you figure out how to press those keys, it becomes much easier to type on it. From what I have figured out from different reviews, there is more than quality of these keyboards, apparently the expensive ones (which are available for upto $250, mine is less than $15) have better key sensitivity, though I don’t know anyone who have used both expensive and cheap one, so, can’t guarantee any difference.

Here are few photos of the keyboard, it’s original colour is black, which appears to be brown in couple of pictures, due to flash.

Overall, it’s a nice keyboard, great for mobility and very durable in moist environments. Even though it’s not for everyone, if you have any interests in this kinds of things, it’s worth giving it a try.

I’ve been procrastinating to redesign my website for quite some time now. To get myself started I planned to do this in small phases (in somewhat long period of time), instead of completely redesigning my website in one go.

In first phase, I have modified current wordpress theme a bit more, removing all annoying orange, there are still a few things that I would like to change in this layout, but for most parts it’s much better.

I don’t have much experience with wordpress themes, so, let me know if you find some glitches or some annoying colour combination that I might have overlooked while changing, or any other comments you may like to share.

In case you are reading this in feed reader, visit aqeeliz.com to checkout the new look.

With all these news of what’s happening in country these days (people killing, people dieing, protests, emergency etc.), it’s nice to read something good about Pakistan. BBC correspondent Hugh Sykes has written (actually he broadcast it on radio), a nice article about his (ongoing?) holidays in Pakistan. Check it out on BBC website.

Thanks to Pakistan Uncut for the link.

I once heard there is Lahore in USA too (I live in Lahore, Pakistan), but never found more about it, until today; While reading blogs, I found a post about Lahore in Virginia, USA.

From Metroblog Lahore (which took it from Lahore for Lovers):

Columbus discovered America: I discovered Lahore in America. Both discoveries were accidental.

What everyone found mystifying was that there was a Lahore in the state of Virginia, yet none of the Pakistanis living in Washington had ever heard of it. The map was pulled out again and, lo and behold, there it was: Lahore. We did not have far to drive, in fact, no more than a mile and a half before we were in Lahore. But where was Lahore, we wondered, because all we could see was a cabin, a filling station and a few scattered houses. There were five or six girls playing on a patch of grass. We got out of the car and I asked one of them to come closer. The others followed their friend. “What is your name?” I asked. “Doris.” “Where do you live?” “Right here.” “Where is the city of Lahore?” “Lahore is not a city; it is a village.” “Are all your friends from Lahore?” “Yes, we go to the same church.” “You see, we all come from a city called Lahore.” “Where is your Lahore?” “Lahore is in Pakistan.” “How big a city is it?” “As big as Washington.” “We have never seen Washington.” “What is the population of your Lahore?” “Population? We have twenty-five family homes.” “Our city has millions of people living in it.” “Oh my God!” “Stand next to that sign. Can I take a picture?” “Sure.”

Until the middle of the 19th century, this area had no name, which was inhabited by about a dozen families. Their mail would often get misdelivered or even remain undelivered. A resident by the name of Phillip Marshal Jackson realised that their tiny settlement must have a name. One day while going through a book about India, he came upon the name Lahore and liked it so much that he proposed that their helmet be called Lahore.He wrote to the federal government which offered no objection to the name Lahore and, thus, the Lahore Post Office was established here in 1885.

For more information about Lahore, VA, check Lahore for Lovers.

P.S: Forgot to mention before, website’s name is inspired by Virginia’s official slogan, “Virgina is for Lovers”

May this Eid bring you and your family blessings of God, health, happiness and prosperity.

Happy Eid!

Wordpress has been updated to version 2.3, this release has added many new features, including tags support. I have updated wordpress on server including the theme. Let me know if you find any problem.

Check wordpress blog to read update announcement.