Monthly I need to detach now and then. For this purpose, I read Spider Magazine, because it’s hilarious in a morbid way. Call me a justified sadist when it comes to Spider. Every Information Technology discipline, from networks to cyber-security to blogging, turns out to be shrouded in the kind of arbitrary nonsense that is completely recognizable to anybody who has ever been called upon to present a three-year strategic plan for an organization.
My worst favorite issue in a long time is the July issue of 2007. I highly recommend it to any person who has secretly held the belief that the IT and its affiliates are non-rational. It can also be called as reader’s dilemma, and it’s all about reeking literary garbage starting from the cover. I’m not going to go through it in detail, as its not worth it. Lets skim through it by holding the magazine on hand and the handkerchief in another which is tightly wrapped around the nose.
Stinking cover was emitting mephitis. Just after watching at the cumbersome cover, you only depart from your hard earned Rs. 50, if you have to write a review of it in Chowrangi. Now what in the hell the tag line “Communication Nation” exactly means? Hidden in myriad numbers of ads is the ED’s note, which is going nowhere.
The designation hierarchy is the most interesting thing in this issue. Reba Shahid is still the boss atleast for this month. A new designation of “Assistant Editor” has been included occupied by Farhana Mir, then comes the shock, no Hafsa Adil and Madeeha Syed in the editorial assistants. Was it something I said?
Newsbytes were as bad this time as they were good last time. That means not very bad, but the thing which is common between the two is their utter uselessness. Business starts with the strangely poor tips and tricks by the new assistant Khayam Siddqui, then it is followed by a lame Netropolis. Then the assistant follows the Spidery tradition of throwing limelight on anything PASHA.
@Beat contained nothing concrete and tangible, just some keynotes and presentations, But atleast it was nice to know more about OPEN. Though the cover story wasn’t a masterpiece, but at the end Reba Shahid gave a very original suggestion (now only God knows where it came from), but heck, lets give her the credit. She stressed the need of a standard for all the social networks as its hard to create profiles at every social networks, which are springing up every day. There is nothing worth telling before and after this suggestion in the cover story.
Mr. Diamond has touched a topic, which he has touched many times, but he needs to put some freshness and interesting style in his writing to make it readable. Website Review section is a good addition, but they need to work on it more. Yuck, I think the article “Plagiarism’s upshot” was a leftover from the last month issue, which was thrust in this issue. Ali Khurshid puts forward an average article about photography. If one article stands out of the rest, its Omair Khushnood’s Needle in Haystack. Its good, practical and very nicely written. It reminds me of Hamza Mudassir, who rocks again in this magazine that much, his sectins seems to be a different magazine. Spider needs to realize that we dont have Macs in Pakistan, so please assign some other duty to Khurram Baig Mirza, who tried in vain to tell us how to run a windows on Mac.
Hafsa Ahsan talks about that moment when the blogger’s mind doesnt switch on. Hafsa, in that case, I pickup Spider and try to read Hafsa Adil’s article, and then believe me, my mind comes to its senses and gets ready for blogging like a good boy. Try it out. Its a sure fire technique. If that doesn’t help, try out reading Netmag, it works like Ispaghol for mind.
Vickram’s report was a revealing post about philanthropy, but we also need to know how Bangalore became the IT hub, and how we can replicate that in Karachi or Lahore or Islamabad and why not Quetta and Peshawar. We also need to know what and how Bangalore is doing right now. That would be more useful and pertinent.
Then I dropped in a quandary. Still I cant decide which was more out-of-place, Farhana Mir’s Health Update or Humair Anwar’s Entertainment? But then I felt great as Graffiti was there, and it was delicious too. It was so good I wanted to digg it. Another pleasent thing was the mention of Wi-Fi hotspots in Pakistan. We used to love Spider, exactly for these reasons, which have fast become rare. Ah. Then I dont know what Frederick Noronha was talking about.
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