Review of Spider Januray 2007

ON the technical literary horizon of Pakistan, the number of publications is quite dismal and disappointing. There are very few magazines published related to information technology. From these magazines, notables are Spider, Netmag and ComputerWorld. Spider stands out from these publications for myriad number of reasons which include rich and useful content, price and availability throughout the country.

But there are many flies in the ointment. Flies which sting and sting hard. I have been reading Spider for 5+ years. Sometimes its supreme and sometimes just sucks. The balance of supremacy and sickness have been remained same for these past years, but now its predilection getting swayed towards sickness more. Can’t say I hate Spider, rather its a silver lining out there. It should be there always, as its served this nation a lot.

By utilizing this un-precedented media of blogging. I, as a common reader, will be reviewing Spider every month right here at Chowrangi. Below is the review of Spider of January 2007.
There general look and feel is rather bland and less eye-catching.

Title:
Really not smart, neither smart nor eye-catching. Not making one to yearn to rush inside the mag, a poor thematic correlation.

Ed’s Note:
It starts with the Ed’s note. Nice summing up as usual with quality language. very good flow of words with sure rate of absorption.

Email Box:
Perhaps they need to sift through incoming email more rigorously to make this section worth reading.

Spider Poll:
Should be on dedicated page with results in graphical display. The reason of publishing a particular poll should also be described in a paragraph or two.

News Bytes:
Good info at a glance especially news at footer of page in the black background.

Science Watch:
Always seems to be out of place and pretty much esoteric.

Netropolis:
In this section having a nifty name, Internet book store is an excellent corner having pertinent books all the time.

Cover Story:
Back to back articles by Hafsa Adil, more or less same old things with some new words sprinkled here and there. Would be much better, if cover story contains disparate articles from different people. Nothing extra-ordinary, but whatever was put there was put lucidly.

Faras Ghani’s piece was very nice, lively and informative ideas with lots of deja vu.

Connected:
Ok, now let me pest one of the holy cows in Pakistan’s software market, the Spider’s venerable PASHA sahib. As if we’ve had’nt enough of Jehan Ara, now we have got Ashraf Kapadia adorning the pages of Spider and rest assured we will surely be watching him popped out of Spider every month till the termination of his tenure as President of PASHA.

@Beat:
Was something useful in there or I missed some occultly wisdome gem? or was it yet another pathetic try to match this space with this month’s “unique” theme?

Digital Life:
The point got conveyed and thats it. Goal achieved.

Tech talk:
Omer Khusnood has got a gem of an article here. Sip this with a coffee.

GeekSpeak:
Hilarious, original thing there.

Tips Tricks:
Very trickling.

Gadgets & Gizmos:
Not-so-cool items this time. More like a ‘Khana puri’ this time.

Entertainment:
I am still frantically searching for entertainment there, very bland and spice-less.

Freebies:
All in all a superb collection of goodies.

Trends:
Hafsa Adil again. But this time manages somehow to pickup some good forums but should also mention veteran and emerging forums.

Analysis:
Hamza Mudassir gets it right with a technologically correct style. Very factual and unbaised. No smell of anti-microsoft sentiments.

Graffiti:
Repetition of quote by Aldous Huxley. Albolisiki’s quote rocks.

Kidzone:
Are hiccups only for kids? Ridiculous to read this piece in an internet magazine.

E-music:
Great collection of sites.

Expert Opinion:
I still wonder why he wrote this rant at all?

Hard Talk:
No doubt, a chic review. highly recommended. This section never disappoints.

E-security:
Oh Nizar Diamond Ali, from lessons on VB to security. The idea of article was good, but the format of technical writing is awfully cumbersome.

E-pinion:
Yet another harangue on MS products, reading it made me dizzy.
So this was our Spider of Jan 07 with lots and lots of ads and ill-designed pictures. But despite of all these pricks, things seem to move in the right direction. Lets wait for Feb 2007’s Spider.


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