Passed JNCIA-ER with 96% Marks
January 24, 2008
Finally, I passed JNCIA-ER with 96% marks. It feels good to be a Juniper Networks Certified Internet Associate 
g729 – A success story
December 25, 2007
Its almost a month now that I am using this new desi cable net service. So far it is good. After an initial tests I was really happy to see that there was no port blocking like City Cable Network in this service.
I was able to connect to FWD instantly. However, my cheers were broken down when I found that the remote party couldn’t hear my voice. First I thought that this cable internet provider is blocking RTP ports or something like that.
However a little investigation revealed the problem is with the internet bandwidth. When I ran a series of speed tests, I got shocking results. My downlink was fluctuating between 512 to 256 kbps while the uplink was just 20-30 kbps which makes VoIP impossible. Did I say impossible? 
Make it possible. After hunting for the best compression codec I found g729. It just requires 13kbps which was what I needed. The other codec required more than 60kbps which caused 70% packet loss for outbound VoIP traffic. I am posting testmyvoip.net results for you to have a better picture. Thanks for g729. It simply rules and thanks for FWD for supporting G729. Now I can make and receive SIP calls.
I have asked my service provider to solve the problem because less than 3KB upload speed doesn’t make sense. It is even less than 56kbps dialup which offers 33kbps upload. I have told my cable internet service provider that the problem is either because they have purchased Aysmetric bandwidth or they have purchased uplink and downlink bandwidth separately. Lastly, bandwidth cap/rate limit on SQUID could be the reason. Whatever the case be, I am a subscriber paying for the service and I want the problem fixed . Sorry if it sounds harsh.
Bye Bye City Cables
December 25, 2007
Finally I have switched to a new desi cable internet service. At least it stays connected and in the morning I get around 50-60kB download speed. Comapred to City Cable it surely is not good enough. I could get around 300-500kB in the morning but at rush hour it was around 20kB and sometimes as slow as dialup.
Yet this problem wasn’t the reason behind switching my Cable Service Provider. Since Last month City Cable is having this weird problem of Ping Replies breaking down from Server which was 172.16.0.1. They were running ISA server and even after one month they couldn’t resolve the issue.
Another problem which City Cable has is Port Blocking. I just hate Port Blocking. City Cable blocked many ports including BitTorrent ports from 3PM till 9AM. Dancom Pakistan was providing them the Internet Bandwidth.
During the last days they even brought down their Movies Server (entertainment2 and entertainment3) but even then they couldn’t resolve the PING problem. This shows how inexperienced ICT staff they got.
I have even heard from a few sources that the people sitting on their servers are basically linemen. Continual Disconnections became a norm and slowly they are losing their Subscribers. I have seen this here in Pakistan that instead of paying well and hiring good staff, the company owners do the opposite which eventually leads them to disaster.
Troubleshooting is a secondary thing. They couldn’t even pin down the problem in more than 1.5 months. Here, it is all because of the greed which company owners have to make all the money themselves.
Ice Skating – finally in Karachi…
December 2, 2007
Yesterday, I went out with some friends. Actually, a friend of mine is here from lahore. We went to ‘Arena’. It has ice skating, pool and bowling at the moment. But they plan to expand. The skating area is not that big though. At least its better than nothing.
We ate rolls and went to Gelto Affair. There we ate this Haffle thing with whip cream and almond. It was good. Also tried somekind of chocolate cake. It was good too. Service was bad. It felt like they were rushing to kick us out and get more customers.
Ufone & Mobilink GPRS Service Test
September 20, 2007
As soon as I received my T-Mobile SDA Smart Phone, I wanted to test different GPRS services. After getting to know that Ufone and Mobilink offer unlimited GPRS service, I thought it would be a better alternate for Telephone Line Internet Dialup Service.
First of all, I want to clearly say that Ufone Customer Service Sucks. Not just because they don’t have the correct information. I asked them to give me the dialup number for GPRS and they said “We don’t know. Whatever is written in PowerPoint Slide must be correct. So use it.” This is not the first time I have received such reply from Ufone Customer Care. Do they really care about customers? Because last time when I called them, I was having a problem receiving spam email to SMS on my 0333xxxxxxx@ufone.com account, they told me there was no way they could stop it. They can’t even launch complain for their customers. Can you believe it because I can’t?
Anyhow, I ended up finding the correct GPRS connection number myself. It is actually *99#. While they have made a bulky 22 slide PowerPoint presentation showing you how to configure GPRS modem on computer, they gave a wrong dial-up number *99***1#. It is actually wrong because I was never able to establish a connection on that number.
So here are few things I have concluded after research which might be of your use.
Dialup Number: *99#
Access Point Name for Prepaid User: ufone.pkinternet (Notice ‘k’ after ufone.p is for Karachi. I think it is ufone.piinternet for Islamabad and ufone.plinternet for lahore)
You can just use this connection string in your modem settings.
AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”ufone.pkinternet“
Although Ufone’s Customer Service was pathetic but surprisingly their GPRS service was good and stable. I consistently got 4 KB (Kilobytes per second) download speed which is just a little less than my Telephone Line Dialup ISP.
Ufone offers unlimited GPRS service in their Umail package which costs 650Rs + Tax (Umail Personal). On the other hand Mobilink offers unlimited GPRS service for 500 Rupees + Tax (575 Rs inclusive of taxes I guess)
I also tried Mobilink but their GPRS service was pathetic. I got around 0.9 KB – 3.0 KB which was continuously fluctuating up and down like hell. However, I received very good Customer Support. One thing which I didn’t like was their GPRS Configuration Email. It was not surely a Step-by-Step Guide. They even don’t know how to spell Laptop (Lop Top). It’s funny; a large cellular service provider like Mobilink recruits such people in its Public Relations Department.
T-Mobile SDA Smart Phone
September 20, 2007
Yay! Finally I have got T-Mobile SDA (US) Smart Phone which has Wi-Fi and EDGE support. I am really enjoying this smart phone. The phone is already unlocked, so I don’t have to bother about unlocking it.
It has Windows Mobile 5 in it which is kind of sluggish. I have tried to establish a peer to peer Wi-Fi connection with my Laptop but I guess I did something wrong which couldn’t keep the connection stable.
I have tried GPRS service from Ufone and Mobilink which I am going to discuss about in a segregate post. I wanted to connect my phone with my computer which was pretty easily done by connecting USB cable and using Microsoft Active Sync 4.5.
However, Microsoft Active Sync didn’t support SMS messages. After a lot of search, I found a software which could integrate into Outlook and send/receive SMS messages. But my cheers didn’t last long enough. As I installed Microsoft Outlook SMS Add-in (MOSA) ,I found that it was not working.
I got the following error and found no relevant help or solution while searching the web.
Microsoft Office Outlook Add-in : A required property is missing from the SMS form. Please reinstall Microsoft Office Outlook Add-in.
Even reinstalling doesn’t help. After a lot of disappointment, I searched the web to find any program that could allow me to send/receive SMS from my Computer by using my T-Mobile SDA Smart Phone.
Finally, after a lot of google-ing around I found Jeyo Mobile Communicator and unexpectedly it worked fine. However, Jeyo Mobile Communicator could only send SMS (no way to receive SMS from it).
I was happy with just sending when I suddenly come across an application that could do both and this application also belonged to Jeyo software family. It’s Jeyo Mobile Extender for Outlook 2.5, it worked great and I am loving it.
Even though, I am loving it. There is one bug in the application which has a workaround. The error is
Access violation at address 0331B79E in module ‘ jComm_WM.dll read of address 00000000
Luckily I found a link to solution at google cache because the direct link was not opening. I am pasting from their site, in case anyone is encountering the same problem and their original link is not working.
| rasmuspJoined: 17 Aug 2007Posts: 3Location: Viborg, DK |
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Gosh! More than 6 months have passed away and only a couple of months left now. So far, I have obtained the BER (Bit Error Rate) vs. SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) curve for QPSK & BPSK. I will post more about my project in upcoming posts. So hang on there. I am pretty swamped up these days { as usual }.
Shootings @ S. S. U. E. T.
September 17, 2007
It was yet another regular calm and sunny day at University when suddenly 6 Gun shots were heard. A moment of serene turned into escape scene. We ran quickly to take cover. As I entered the block ‘C’ of our University, I saw large strength of student already present there. I wanted to come back home but I was advised to stay because it was unsafe to go outside.
I questioned myself ’Is it some massacre incident @ our Universitylike Virginia Tech? Is there some Psychopath randomly killing people?’. Waiting desperately for any news, I got to know that it was the result of clash between two student organizations. 60 Years of Pakistan, but we haven’t been able to teach our children to fight with words not guns. Are we really educating our next generation? Why can’t students realize the fact that different parties only use them for their own benefits?
Semester Finals..
May 20, 2007
I am unable to blog these days becasue of my Seventh Semester Final Examination. I hope I will be able to blog once I am free from exams. I had my first paper of Signal Processing on Thursday. I have to blog about alot of stuff specially the things which are going on here in Karachi.
