A.Sajjad Zaidi's Blog

Obama wins US presidency

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 22:16:00 +0500

The first message I received this morning was a Ufone breaking news alert stating that Barack Hussein Obama had won the US presidential elections. What happens in the United States has quite a significant impact in Pakistan so Pakistanis have been following the elections closely.

During the election campaigns, a..... Read more

Winters, darkness and peanuts

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 20:17:00 +0500

Winter has been late in the making this year. November has started, yet it's hot enough to go out in a t-shirt during the day. The nights are still slightly warm and it is only cold for a few hours sometime in the morning. As I wrote in my last post, mosquitoes are still rejoicing at the warmer turn of events.

There were two signs today that signified how late in the year it is. One was the arrival of a bag of fresh roasted peanuts that are usually enjoyed in the midst of the November cold. That's one messy snack that I'd prefer to eat shelled and out of the bag.

Second, we gained an hour last night after switching back from daylight savings time. It was already dark at 6pm PKT and we can forget ..... Read more

Juicy mosquitoes in October

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:25:00 +0500

October is on its last breaths. Halloween is near. And things are peaceful and quiet for once. Yet the mosquito is still happily feasting on its helpless victims. In fact, these parasites are fatter and meaner than ever.

How utterly disgusting it is to squish one and be smeared with drops of your own precious ..... Read more

Back to the stone age

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:47:00 +0500

Pakistan has been suffering from a severe power shortage for almost a whole year. The electricity outages subsided in September during the holy month of Ramadan, but now they are back. This time with a vengeance.

Islamabad, the capital, is probably the least troubled by the shortage, but "least" is a relative ..... Read more

Taming the Microblogging clutter

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 16:28:00 +0500

In the movie Back to the Future, the future Marty McFly loses his job and printouts of "YOU'RE FIRED" start popping up in all sorts of places around the house. One of these is seen by his wife from the past and acts as a prop later on in the movie. Maybe it was the movie's way of foretelling the microblogging scene..... Read more

Eid Mubarak without the network

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Sat, 4 Oct 2008 10:29:00 +0500

It's been one of those controversial Eid celebrations with new announcements at the eleventh hour (literally). With so many Muslim countries relying on scientific data and avoiding the pitfalls of human error, it's frustrating to have to go through this so often. On the positive side, at least the whole country ..... Read more

Huge bomb blast in Islamabad

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:16:00 +0500

Was shaken by a huge explosion a few minutes back. Felt like the building was about to come down, but initial reports indicate the bomb blast was at least a couple kilometers from where I am, around the Marriot Hotel area.

Must be a really big one to be felt so badly at such a distance and I hope the damage wasn't..... Read more

Recovering data from a shredded hard disk

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Mon, 8 Sep 2008 11:22:00 +0500

Ever since I got into system administration, hardware security to narrow it down, I have been led to believe that virtually any data written on a hard disk drive can be easily recovered, even if the bits have been overwritten. This is the reason many organizations destroy their old, perfectly good hard drives ..... Read more

Start of Ramadan fasting

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Wed, 3 Sep 2008 14:35:00 +0500

As of yesterday, the Islamic month of Ramadan has started in Pakistan (there is a difference of a couple of days for the sighting of the new moon in different regions) which marks the start of a month of prayers and fasting. Best wishes to all in this blessed month.

Things tend to slow down a lot in this month so..... Read more

Pakistan Daylight Savings Time extended

sajjad@sajjadzaidi.com (Sajjad) — Mon, 1 Sep 2008 19:15:00 +0500

Daylight savings time in Pakistan, which was initially planned to be in effect till the 31st of August, has been extended for another two months. This means that the clocks will now be reverted back an hour on the 1st of November instead of the 1st of September.

DST hasn't resulted in any noticeable lowering of ..... Read more