It was really great to attend DTAC Qatar yesterday on May 11, 2012 at Qatar Convention Center.

When i register for the DTAC almost month ago, i was thinking that what we gonna do with this whole day program starting from 6:30 in morning and to be conclude by 9 at night.

As i am new to toastmaster and this is my first experience to attend such conference. I was really wondering.

And then the good thing, that i was accompany by Mr. Arshad Siddiqui who worked as an Architect in Nespak Qatar. So he picked me and then we go together and arrived there at 6:45 at convention center.

Qatar Convention center is huge building.  After parking it took around 15 minutes to reach the SPIDER where registration was going on. We already had register but didn’t pay so did the payment. The young gaveliers were quite helpful.

Then we had breakfast, and then we had the banner parade. I also participated in the banner parade, and join the PTM president in holding the PTM banner. The first contest was then of humorous speech. It was an excellent experience. It was full of fun and laughter.

Then the 2nd session was of Table topic, and the topic was “What event from your past, present or future, you would like to attend in person” That was also very well taken by the contestant.

Falcon Award was then chaired by Mr. Nisar Rana. It was a good session overall.

After then there was a comedy show being played a Qatari comedian artist Mohammad. It was a wonderful show.

And then after the launch break there was evaluation contest, in which Mr. Arshad Zaidi delivered a good speech on “Who move my cheese”. He got some wonderful feedback by the contestant.

And finally the contest of International speech. All the participants were great. They delivered thought provoking speeches. It was excellent learning.

After that there were speeches from honorable guest, among them the notable speech was delivered by Indian Ambassador to Qatar.  Her speech was full of thoughts, and she briefed that how communication has played a vital role in bringing change to masses. She highlight a program of All India radio “Tan Tan sukh” little little efforts for betterment that bring changes to life of common man, and how it change a village life, and then she also highlighted Aamir Khan recent tv show “Satyamev Jayate”.

And then the round comes for which everyone was waiting i.e. lucky draw, there were 5 mobiles but we were again unfortunate by not receiving anyone

And then the emotional movement, that was the results announcements.

Nisha Shivram topped the contestants winning two of the four categories namely Evaluation Speech contest and the coveted International Speech competition. The other winners of the speech competition were Tesu Thomas (Humorous) and Abishek Chattopadhyay (Table Topics).

And with this we finally rush back to our home.

Overall it was wonderful day, i may missed lot of names and sessions to mention, but it was a worthwhile experience, and i congrats Division E Governor Krishna Kumar and his team for arranging such great event at large scale.

But as a toastmaster we learn to improve ourselves. And so as we have evaluation session. So there is just one suggestion which i want to give to the team, and that is about the venue. Although there is no doubt that convention center is among the best place to arrange big conference but i personally feel that if it has been arrange in some hotel and we had some roundtable kind of arrange like it was in IBQ at Ramada. It must be more comfortable for participant to sit easily, because it was a full day session. So it was little bit uncomfortable for participant to sit on such place for long session, and hard to socialize as well.

Besides, it was an wonderful event and heartiest congratulations to the organizing team and all toastmasters of Qatar.

While restoring one SharePoint intranet site, i realized that there were some WSP required for the intranet restore. So i want the WSP files to deploy the portal, but i cant able to find the WSP file.

I browse the system, and saw that the WSP was uploaded & deployed at other SharePoint Server (From where i am backing up). It was deployed on the portal, and can be viewed at Central Administration (SharePoint 2010), but the file was not available on the file system.

So i want to download the files from the central administration. While searching internet, i found 2 solutions for this, one is that you can extract the WSP using code, or there is a small piece of powershell commands, which will get you the WSP files, and its quite pretty much simple.

Let say your WSP was “SharePointGulf.wsp”

So you need to open the Powershell and run the following command in order to get the WSP file.

its

$myFarm = Get-SPFarm
$myWSP = $myFarm.Solutions.Item(“SharePointGulf.wsp”).SolutionFile
$myWSP.SaveAs(“C:\Wajahat\SharePointGulf.wsp”)

This simple piece of command will get you the WSP File.

Today on April 13, 2012 we had area 69 contest. It was well organized and well managed. Their were four club, and the contest was on Humorous speech, evaluation, table topic & international speech. The contestant were competent and it must be hard for the judges to select the winner.

Though everyone spoke well, but i am really touched by the speech delivered by TM Justin Diraviam. His speech was on the neglectfulness of Teaching as a career in our society. His speech was thought provoking, and it left a question for all of the audience. He himself is a teacher, and a teacher by choice from last 22 years.

I played the role of the Chief Sergeant of Arm in today contest. It was my first experience of playing this role and is such large gathering. It was an excellent experience, everyone was supportive.

I will congratulate Area Governor 69 Mr. Mohammad Azimuddin for managing such a nice event.

Yesterday March 31, 2012, i enjoyed PTM toastmaster meeting as a Table Topic Master. I hope the particpants enjoyed the session.

The topic i prepared for the sessions were. They can be good ideas for others who are searching for topics,

1) Evil is when few good people decide to do nothing.
2) Why Teaching as a career is the least priority?
3) Difference between leader & boss
4) As an individual what role i can play to improve our club
5) Co-education — Merits & De-Merits

It was exciting to judge the Al Khor toastmaster club contest on Friday March 30, 2012.

I was accompany by TM Azimuddin. He was the chief judge. I must say that Al Khor toastmaster seems to be an excellent club with lot of energy, and in fact they had their 214 meeting, so you can see that how rich the club is.

There were contest on Table Topic, and humorous speeches. All the participants spoke well. I am not able to recall the winners name. The humor speech that won the contest was if i am not wrong ” One more time”. It was an excellent speech.

So it was really good to attend the club content as a judge.

Wish you all the best to the Al Khor toastmaster winners for Area event.

Happy toastmastering

All of a sudden you realized that you cant able to use the open with explorer option with SharePoint document library.

That is you found out that “open with explorer sharepoint 2010 greyed out”

Open with explorer means opening the document library in a windows explorer format.

This what happens with me today while running a demo at one client at Qatar. This was working before, but today i was not able to open the explorer thing, and even office client integration was not working.

There could be couple of reason for it, like some setting required on central administration or some settings as 14 hive folder (control/ templates), but for me it was nothing just the browser 32 bit and 64 bit issue.

I opened the 64 bit IE, and tried to open it from there, which doesn’t allow us to open the windows explorer view from the 64 bit browser.

As it was a demo machine, so we havent applied Updated CU on that. As i heard that this issue has been resolved by CU

I am excited to share that I won the International Speech category competition of PTM toastmaster club yesterday i.e. March 10, 2012.

I am new to the club, joined it 6 months back, able to won this important competition while competing with senior toastmasters.

So with this, I will be competing now Area 51 Contest on coming Friday at Pak Shama Auditorium. There will be 5 contestants.

At this moment, I want to thanks Mr. Nisar Rana, Mr. Abid Hussani, Mr. Bashir, Mr. Asghar Ali Khan for their continuous support.

And would like to special thanks to Mr. Azimuddin who is my mentor at Toastmaster. His continuous support, motivation always help me. He has guided me on the Area contest.

With GOD will, if I succeed on the Area Contest level, then will qualify for the Division level which will be of Qatar Division.

There were 4 contestants yesterday. Ms. Muniza Qureshi was the runner up, while others 2 were Mr. Arif Qureshi & Mr. Asghar Ali Khan.

Wish me good luck for the coming Area Contest.
Happy Toastmastering

I have been working on SharePoint from 2004, but i came across very few SharePoint Public Internet site like Food Connection Pakistan especially UI Design.

The site is too cool, extremely professional design, with extremely good sense of user behavior. And why it shouldn’t be as its developed by Maventor i.e. Rai Umair — The SharePoint Master.

Thumbs up to FC Pakistan & Rai Umair on such cool piece of art.

Few days back, on of my friend contact me for a solution.
He has implemented MOSS 2007 with SQL Express.

He use his SharePoint site as a repository for uploading/ maintaining all the files, even very large files like of 1 GB.

While uploading more than 20 MB he started getting error, so wee increase the file quota from the Central Administration and make it to 2 GB. But the error remain same which was “Request timed out”.

Then we increased the request time out from IIS. But still error was there. We were able to upload 300 MB files though, but not able to upload 1 GB file.

Then finally we got help from the KB article. Error message when you try to upload a large file to a document library on a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site: “Request timed out”

There we modify the web config under the layout folder location i.e. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

Here we search the upload.aspx, and modify it to

We just add executionTimeout=”999999″ and then it allow us to upload the 1 GB file even.

The problem was with the upload.aspx page execution, which processing timeout expires, so with this it easily allow us to upload files with greater size.

Microsoft Gulf has announced a competition on online Microsoft Virtual Academy. They announced this before the Qatar Microsoft Open Door 2012.

I also joined the website and passed some exam. Few days after i received email from Natasha Zaza that i was among the top 5 students in Qatar. At that time i was at 5th position, but after some exam i popped up to 4th position.

Microsoft was due to give some gifts for the top position holder but at the spot, we came to know that due to some Government policies they cannot give gift. Anyway it was a nice experience overall.

Though its slight old news, but happy to share it, as Microsoft Feed publish it.

Read it here.Top Community Honor Goes To Qatar Datamation Systems Employee

Thanks Shijaz Abdulla Microsoft Qatar for the tip.

A must to attend event for developers, IT professionals, in Doha Qatar.

Click here to visit the website

Open Door Qatar 2012

This is something which we are missing at Doha, Qatar.

When i come here, i come with a vision to establish the community development system in Doha. I must say that Microsoft Qatar is quite supportive, and we are working on this agenda.

We had an initial meeting in this regard with Ahmed Khairy, Allay Ahmed Hussain, Islam last week at Costa Coffe.

We are planning to have the user group activity followed by Microsoft Qatar Open Door 2012 in Feb.

So lets roll the ball.

This post was due from last 3 months, and due to my laziness, i didn’t write it yet.

Anyway, when i joined KalSoft Qatar (QDS), this was one of the project which was going on from several months.

Al Sadd Club is one of the most famous club of Qatar, in fact middle east, and with the launch the club is quite renown all around the world, they just won the Asian Cup for Football club, and also secure position in Club WorldCup in Japan, probably this is one of the blessing of the launch of the website

I was lucky to have a wonderful teamwork on this. Initially Adnan Khan worked on this, and then Samim Khan and Haseeb Ali put their best effort. Sibtain did excellent graphics.

The client Ahmed Al Ansari was an excellent person, and we really enjoyed working with him. And Mahmoud Al Batarni was the consultant, he also provide his experienced advise.

At the end , the developed site was an excellent SharePoint 2010 internet implementation, and it was highly appreciated in Qatar. There was a press release to launch the website.

Click here to view the website.

Al Sadd Website

Today i delivered my project 6 speech at Professional Toastmaster Club, meeting at The Next Generation School.

I selected the topic “Prisoner of Thoughts”. I have the idea about the story so developed it by my own. The topic was appreciated by the audience.

The meeting was unique, as it was not arranged in the hotel, like regularly PTM arranged it hotel in Shatir Abbas, however today meeting was arranged at The Next Generations kindergarten school, Doha, Qatar.

The Toastmaster of the day role was played by Warda Ali Khan. She did a wonderful job in managing time, and kept the audience intact with the meeting.

Then there was project speech one delivered by Miss Nazia. And then i was called to deliver the prepared speech.

I started my speech with a note, that its a coinsedence that today my son also went to a head-start kindergarten for school admission, and i also visited a kindergarten school, not for admission, but for the meeting though

Well my speech was more on the philosophical thought, and i shared an article in which he compared the slavery of 150 years back with the modern slavery. The writer compares it with that the old slavery was to control our body, and get the work done from us. However the current slavery is of controlling mind and thoughts.

The story was quite appreciated by the participants, and then my evaluator Mr. Noman Ali Khan, a seasoned, and senior toastmaster provide his evaluation. Overall he was satisfied with my speech, and provide some improvement areas as well, which i will definitely work on.

I must say thanks to the school administration for providing such a nice venue, and would like to thanks the Teachers as well, as they listened us very carefully, and act a very supportive role.

I hope that I’ll be delivering my next speech project 7 on Feb 11, 2012.

We recently faced a issue with our SharePoint Internet Portal. The Site was published on Internet, but when browsed on Mobile phones, especially Iphone. Whenever you browsed the portal through a mobile device, its throws the authentication window, where you need to provide user id and password.

By default, making a site in SharePoint anonymous not works for mobile users.

So to making anonymous for mobile, the easiest way to open the compat browser config file, and make the “IsMobileDevice” entry false.

Making this false, will provide the anonymous access to the mobile users, and open the standard site (same internet site).

You can find the config file at “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\App_Browsers\compat.browse”

You will see lot of entries for each mobile & other browsers

Well, yesterday was an exciting day for me i.e. Oct 8, 2011. I delivered my first project speech i.e. “Introducing Yourself”.

It was the 134 session of PTM Toastmaster Qatar Chapter. My session was the 1st one. As per the feedback received by seniors toastmaster, i did good. After my speech, Mr. Bashir delivered his project 8 speech on crises management. He also delivered it very confidently.

Then Mr. Koka Prasad delivered an education module on “Importance of Words”. He delivered a very good, informative session. He represent Qatar in International Toastmaster event, probably last 3 years. I must say, that he is an excellent speaker, i ever witnessed. I must say that i was lucky to have him in my 1st project, and to received his feedback as well.

We had some interesting table topic session as well. Mr. Azimuddin was the TM of the day.

I want to thank you all of the PTM fellows, who encourage me a lot, and with their support, i passed the Project 1.

So i am fully ready to deliver my P2 in upcoming session.

Microsoft Qatar organized a good event in Doha at The West Bay Hotel on Public Cloud. Corporate Vice President Microsoft Office Division Product Management Group Kirk Königsbauer was the keynote speaker of the session.

He shared the some really cool features of Cloud. He update the audience that the trial version will be launched very soon, and then by next year, it will be available commercially.

It seems like that Office 365 release will especially support SME organizations, by providing Microsoft best class services at very nominal cost.

He then invite Yasir Khokar, the Business Team Lead of Microsoft Gulf to demonstrate it. It was good to meet Yasir after almost 5-6 years. We worked together in Nawras Oman project.

Well there is no doubt that cloud will not only reshape the services, technology but careers too. Yes, it will give a new turn to developers, network professionals careers. Let see and hope for the best.

Do you wanna check What is cloud, check this,, small video..

Well, i am excited to share that i become an official toastmaster today. This is the 2nd time, i attended Toastmaster session today.

It was really good to meet Nisar Rana Sb, Abid Hussaini Sb, Azeem Sb, Asghar Sb, Basheer Sb, and learning from their experiences.

PTM Qatar is a good toastmaster club, and i always get a warm welcome and appretiation from the club.

Today the club has an official meeting # 132. In this session, there were 2 sessions, one was on dengue fever conducted by Dr. Jawed Sb, and other body language which was conducted by Ms. Shewta (Sorry if i misspell the name). She conducted an extra ordinary session on body language. She also run a dance society here named as “We dance” in Qatar.

On body language, she shared that 5 things are most important 1 is attire or posture, 2nd is hands movement, 3rd is whole body, 4th is facial expression and final is eye contact. So if we want to be good in expression, body language is the key, and in body language, these 5 things are the basis.

At the end, i was awarded the membership. The PTM Club president Mr. Asghar told that i am the first member of this club, who get this new re-branded pin (Badge).

I hope that in next session, i will be delivering my P1 i.e. “Self introduction”. Would like to thanks Azeem Sb who really guided me well on this, so wish me best luck for first session coming weeks.

Glad to share that I received “Community Recognition Award” by Microsoft Pakistan in the biggest technology event in Pakistan i.e. Microsoft Open Door 2011 Pakistan on 22 Sep 2011.

As i am not in Pakistan these days, the award was received by my friend Hadi Raza.

I always love to participate in Pakistan Development community, and there is no doubt that the Microsoft Innovation TEAM in Pakistan and Microsoft Pakistan are also trying their best to promote awareness, and playing an healthy role for development community.

Thanks Shijaz Abdullah for a cool post on this and as well in MS Partners Qatar FB.