Screenshot of flag rendered in safari

Flag from Wikipedia

View the results: http://i.com.pk/pakistan-flag-in-xhtml-css3/

It should work in Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Inspiration: http://www.codesquid.co.uk/workshops/flags-of-the-world-css3/

In the event of non-payment of domain maintenance fee by due date PKNIC in its sole discretion shall de-activate such un-paid domain and offer this expired domain to third party for re-registration on pre-payment on a first come first served basis, after a hold period of two weeks after domain de-activation. The defaulting domain owner can pay and re-activate the expired domain within the hold period. Ref: http://pk5.pknic.net.pk/pk5/pgPolicy.PK

I noted down the expected expiry date plus hold period. Luckily, domain was not renewed by then. I went to register this domain but I was told that you cannot register this domain until PKNIC releases it.

This domain was registered after a month of expiry + hold period by someone else

Recently, I found another cool domain name. This time the domain was expired in June but again not available for registration. I was told by one of the PKNIC partners that they release the domain whenever they want to :S

I decided to calculate the average time of release for each domain. I collected the list of more than 5000 PREMIUM .PK DOMAIN NAMES and wrote down a script to check their status. The results were totally random :S. PKNIC decides fate of each domain individually.

There is a domain which was expired in September 2008 but it is still not available. Please check the status of lit.com.pk

Solution:

PKNIC is not going to respond to our emails and phone calls.

I have written down a script which keeps on checking the status of my favorite domains and emails me when they are available

Feel free to use the script: http://pknicnotifier.appspot.com/

1. Get the example mailer script from:
   http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/tools/hook-scripts/mailer/
   and save to some place like: /usr/share/subversion/hook-scripts/mailer/
2. Rename the “mailer.conf.example” to “mailer.conf”
3. Edit the mailer.conf
   • Uncomment the line smtp_hostname = localhost
     and change it to smtp_hostname = smtp.gmail.com
   • Uncomment smtp_username = example and change example with YOURNAME@YOURDOMAIN.com
   • Uncomment smtp_password = example and change example with your real password.
   • Add following two lines:
     smtp_port = 587
     smtp_use_tls = 1
   • Set the from_addr, to_addr and reply_to variables.
   • Add the map settings if you want (optional)
4. Edit the file mailer.py
   Modify the finish method of SMTPOutput class and replace it with following code:

       server = smtplib.SMTP(self.cfg.general.smtp_hostname,
                      self.cfg.general.smtp_port)
       if self.cfg.is_set('general.smtp_username'):
         server.ehlo()
         if self.cfg.general.smtp_use_tls:
         	server.starttls()
         	server.ehlo()
         server.login(self.cfg.general.smtp_username,
                      self.cfg.general.smtp_password)
       server.sendmail(self.from_addr, self.to_addrs, self.buffer.getvalue())
       server.rset()
       server.quit()

5. Now goto “hooks” directory in your repository and make a new file as “post-commit”
6. Chmod “post-commit” to 755
7. Edit the “post-commit” and enter following contents:

   #!/bin/sh
   REPOS="$1"
   REV="$2"
   /usr/share/subversion/hook-scripts/mailer/mailer.py commit "$REPOS" \
   "$REV" /usr/share/subversion/hook-scripts/mailer/mailer.conf

Today I got an email from Shaadi.com with subject “Welcome to Shaadi.com”, congratulating me on registering at Shaadi.com (which I never did). Mail addressed me with (My email local part)_2009 (common practice of many spammers) and contains a password (normally registration emails do not contain password). I ignored this email like all other spam emails. After this I got a few more emails with subjects like “Your Shaadi.com profile is under Screening”, “Your Shaadi.com profile has been Activated” and more interestingly “Congratulations! ********* has expressed interest in you” . This made me investigate the issue.

I immediately opened Shaadi.com and looked for something like support/help. Luckily, I found the link 24/7 help and Mr. Mohit was there to help me. Here is brief conversation between me (with a fake name) and Mohit:

me: I just got an email that I have been registered at Shaadi.com and my profile has been activated
me: but I never registered for this site

Mohit: Hello (My fake name)

Mohit: I am Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you.

me: dont you people verify the email?

Mohit: May I have your email address

me: Sorry, I cant share it, because I dont want more spam, just tell me dont you verify email after registration?

Mohit: I am Sorry, we do not have that.

Mohit: Please let me know the Email I remove the profile.

me: so I can register a Shaadi.com account for barack obama? (lolz :d)

me: just give me the link to remove my profile I will do it my self (I couldn’t find it anywhere on their site)

Mohit: you may delete the profile yourself by clicking on the link given below:

Mohit: http://www.shaadi.com/my_shaadi/delete-profile.php

me: ok,thanks

Mohit: Thank you for using Shaadi.com Chat Service. Please feel free to contact us on our Tel no 1860 500 3456  or  Tel: (022) 44883456. Standard Charges Apply

I made an dummy account on shaadi.com and opened the delete profile link to test it. I got this error:

The following error/s were found. Please go back and correct the same. 

(My dummy account)’s profile does not exists

If the error message persists please note the error details and write to Customer Support 

I opened the the 24/7 chat again and Mr. Mohit was there again for help.

Please wait for a site operator to respond.

You are now chatting with ‘Mohit’

Mohit: Welcome to Shaadi.com Live Help service.

Mohit: How may I help you?

me: I just checked the link you provided with a dummy account, and it is not working http://www.shaadi.com/my_shaadi/delete-profile.php

Mohit: You have to login to account than only it will work

Mohit: As you have not created the account you will not be able to Login

me: I am logged in with a dummy account

Mohit: Can I know the Profile id?

me: (My dummy profile id)

me: i created this just for testing this link

Mohit: Thank you for waiting. I’ll be with you in just a moment.

Mohit: Profile is under screening and it is not online

Mohit: for the same you received the error.

me: so, I cant delete it untill the screening is done. right?

Mohit: I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll be right with you.

Mohit: Yes

me: so the screening process does not include verification of the email id?

Mohit: If the Email is bounced back to us than we verify the Email.

me: by verification i mean originality, that this email id belongs to the person who is registering

Mohit: Yes, I understood.

Mohit: But we do not have the feature currently.

me: ok, thanks, now please answer my other question

me: if I provide you with my userid or email, can you tell me the time and ip address of registration?

Mohit: I am Sorry, I will not be able to provide you with the insights.

Then I logged into the site with the username and password in welcome email and I was amazed to know facts about me like I have only 1 brother and 1 sister, my birthdate, I am a UK based Indian, My native language is Kashmiri and my phone number is +91-9906765046.

Conclusion:

How they are spammers?

1. Usernames which include local part of your email address are normally used by spammers (My real name was not written anywhere in email or on my so called profile), so most probably they got my email address from somewhere and used the local part (before @) of my email address to welcome me.
2. No proper service will ever email you with your password in registration email. They provided me with a password because I didn’t know it.
3. All information in my so called profile was fake.
4. They do not have a link like “If you did not register for this site please click here” or “If you did not register, please ignore this email”.
5. My so called account got activated without verification of my email address.
6. They do not have a delete profile link anywhere in email or on help pages of their site.
7. Customer support is unable to disclose my time and IP address of registration (This might be their policy).

Other privacy issues with this site?

1. I can register an account for Barack Obama and set his profile.
2. If he has deleted the “Welcome to Shaadi.com” email, he won’t be able to modify/remove his Shaadi.com profile ever. Because the forgot password page will ask for his birthdate (which is fake in this case).
3. Until the profile is approved, you cannot delete it.
4. If Shaadi.com is not a spammer, then sending password in welcome email is a serious security issue.

I was planning to make an application for Pakistani users to use twitter via local number and get updated via local SMS. Today, Yaser invited me to the iSMS twitter service for Pakistan. This simple application allows you to change your status using a local number making it cheaper. 

You can see this message in your iSMS settings page. Click on the Integrate your account link

Enter your twitter username and password

Updated status on twitter

Enjoy tweeting in Pakistan

Source: The Internet

ZoNG is the only overseas operation of China Mobile. Previously, Warid Telecom was expected to launch iPhone in Pakistan; as SingTel owns 30% of Warid Telecom shares and it secured an agreement with Apple to distribute iPhones in Singapore, India, Australia and Philippines. Unlike Warid Telecom, CMPak(ZoNG) is 100% subsidiary of China Mobile. So, it makes sense that it will launch iPhone in Pakistan as well. Let’s hope that instead of showing iPhone in its TVC, CMPak will do something practically.

Currently, mcb.com.pk is accessible and this notice is displayed on their homepage. All other pages are still inaccessible.

www.mcb.com.pk is still inaccessible within Pakistan; however I was able to open it using some proxies. Traceroute using different servers shows random behavior. In major cases the destination is unreachable. Seems like an attack on the website.

Today I was looking at Mohtashim’s presentation on Human Centric Design presented at P@SHA Career Expo. I liked the presentation so I decided to download it for offline reading. But there was a download restriction :S The slides were not available for download. There are many nice presentations available on slideshare which you cannot download

I wrote a small script for Greasemonkey which helps you in downloading the slides. You can find the script here:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/30646

It will replace “Download not available” text with a download link The download link will display links to individual slides, now you can download them all.

Update [Nov 05, 2008]: A small change in class name of “Download not available” link caused problems in the script. It is working fine now.

Update [Nov 22, 2008]: A minor change in a class name again. Script is updated. Enjoy downloading slides

Update [Jan 11, 2009]: Script is working again

Update [Jan 26, 2009]: Class names were changed again :S and the script is working again