Wasif Malik > Blog

Telenor Launches Unified Communications (UC)

// October 9th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Technology

Telenor is the first telecoms operator to launch a Unified Communications (UC) solution on the Norwegian market. A total of 30,000 Telenor employees currently use Unified Communications services. This important internal experience forms the basis for the product being launched commercially today.

What is Unified Communications?

“Unified Communications is a mix of a number of forms of communication. It is a customer-tailored service where speech, data, text, video and conferencing solutions are linked up both from a functional and a technical point of view. The new element in this connection is that it is integrated, and that gives users much more flexibility to perform their duties irrespective of time and location,” explains Abraham Foss, Head of Business Markets at Telenor and responsible for the company’s efforts in the field of Unified Communications in the Norwegian market.

The Unified Communications (UC) solution from Telenor

Unified Communications (UC) from Telenor enables a company’s employees to:

• have a single phone number for their PC client, landline and mobile phone. The same number is displayed, irrespective of whether the user calls from the PC client, the landline or the mobile.
• choose whether they want to answer incoming calls on their PC or mobile phone – both devices can be set up to ring simultaneously.
• with Unified Mobile Status, staff members can see from their own PC client whether colleagues are free or busy on their mobiles. This service obtains information from the Telenor mobile network about whether the colleague in question is busy or free, and this status information is then sent to the employee’s PC (Unified Communications client). Mobile Status is delivered together with Blueposition.
• be offered, provisionally, Unified Mobile Status from the mobile network integrated with Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator.

Multi-phase launch

Unified Communications from Telenor will be delivered in three phases running up to 2011. Phase one covers a selected number of large companies. Telenor aims to be able to offer a customer-specific UC solution in the first quarter of 2010. A standardised UC solution will also be on the market for small and medium-sized companies in 2011.

Courtesy: Telenor Press Releases Newsletter

Google Adsense frustrates web publishers

// September 25th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Featured Articles, Technology

I am a big fan of Google’s products but I experienced something recently that has forced me to change the way I think about Google. I thought Google has good customer service and they are very good with resolving issues faced by their users but I was wrong.

Recently I decided to put Ads on my blog and found out that Google AdSense offers the best solution for making money through online Ads (although I have never clicked on a Google Ad). So I registered for AdSense only to find out 1 day later that my application was rejected because my domain name (wasifmalik.com)  was pointing to an “Under Construction” page (although my blog was up and running on http://wasifmalik.com/blog at that time). Fair enough. So I updated my domain name settings so that it points towards my blog and then tried to resubmit my application by going to the URL provided by Google AdSense (see excerpt below).

But whenever I try to login I am redirected to the same login page. I tried clearing up my cache, cookies etc. but I am still facing the same issue. I “googled” the issue and found out that I was not alone and there were other users who were facing the same problem. Infact it is the most popular discussion on Google AdSense forums at the moment. Other bloggers have also reported this issue.

The “login loop issue” or the “endless login cycle” as some users are calling it, has frustrated  so many web publishers who want to put Ads on their sites/blogs. Some users have been facing this issue for months and Google has been unable to provide a workaround or a permanent fix to this issue. See posts by annoyed users here.

Google, I know you want to “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful“, but I would really appreciate it if you fix my AdSense login issue first.

Another blog that has reported the same issue.

Evolution of Social Networks

// September 9th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Featured Articles, Technology

The need to network and interact with each other has been growing at a fast pace lately. So what is it that persuades people to “network”? The simple answer is that it is human nature to interact and share.

What is a social network anyway? It is an entity that makes it easy to share and interact with people you know or you want to know. Try asking from your friends what social networks are and I am sure most of them would reply Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc are social networks. Perfect. Now go back ten years and ask the same question and you would not get any answer. Because there wasn’t any social network at that time you would say, right? Think again.

The landline telephone network, the postal service, the telegraph, mobile networks, television and radio have been here for ages and are all examples of social networks. All of these are entities that encourage people to share and communicate. The social networks of today are much efficient and have increased the frequency of interaction between known and unknown people by making it simple and easy to share and communicate. The question is how much sharing is good? Well, it totally depends on you. But there has to be a fine line between your public and personal life. There have to be some rules for online sharing. Sadly, there aren’t any at the moment. Even if there are, they keep changing at a rapid pace. Stuff that was considered to be private some years back is now considered to be “public”. Sharing and interacting with each other has been made so easy and seamless that sometimes it is hard to control the flow of information. What to share and what not to share is the million dollar question that needs to be answered by the users, the social media gurus and the creators of social networks.

The social networks have evolved and changed into something completely new and modern but they still rely on the most basic nature of humans, to communicate and to share. These networks have enabled us to share everything, but how do we absorb so much information? It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with this monstrous flow of information. What to absorb and what not to absorb is the second million dollar question. And the social network that will enable us to seamlessly absorb useful information and discard useless information will be the leader in the social networking space in the years to come.

iPhone 2.1

// October 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // Technology

At last, I have upgraded my iPhone to firmware v2.1(thanks to someone at my workplace) and what a great feeling it is. This gadget is too good to be true. The facebook and WordPress apps alongwith a plethora of other apps available on the App Store are simply amazing. It’s been only 2 months approximately since Apple released the iPhone SDK and the store is full of some really good apps. I wrote this post using the WordPress application which has all the features I need (except for easy formatting of text).

Ten million iPhones have been sold till now and the number will definitely keep increasing. This phone will rule the cell phone market in the coming years (just like iPod which has been dominating the music player market for years now). This is a revolutionary phone and is more than just a threat for companies like Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson etc. It’s a wakeup call for handset manufacturers and OS developers like Symbian and Google. It will be interesting to see if Google’s Android platform (which already has support of large cell phone manufacturers) can be a threat to the iPhone. Steve Jobs is an innovator; it is not the first time that he has developed a killer product that is way ahead of it’s time. Although he lost the desktop OS war to Microsoft but the way he is playing the handheld devices game, I don’t think he is going down.

The iPhone is here to stay; mark my words.

Pastime

// October 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // Technology

I have got to say reading stories on TechCrunch and GigaOM is my favorite pastime these days. I read them when I am at work, while I am pooping and I read them before going to bed. My need to know more and more about global technology/business and new web startups has become an addiction. And all of this is made possible by two tremendous products, the iPhone and the Google Reader. Hats off to Apple and Google.

Other activities that keep me busy these days are searching for jobs in the Middle East and obtaining information about MBA Admissions in USA universities. And how can I not mention the football league that is about to start. No, I am not talking about the English Premier League. I will write about that in a separate post.