Tricastmedia In-Office Counter Strike Competition – March 2008

I and Usman Qutab were given the responsibility to organize an In-Office Counter Strike Competition. We worked very hard to arrange this event. MIS department, administration and especially our core team cooperated fully with us to make this event a success.

We selected aim_headshot, de_dust2 and de_inferno as the maps for the competition, made rules and emailed everyone about the event. I designed the following poster, which was then displayed on the notice board. We received about 20 participants, so instead of making 5 teams of 4 players, we made 4 teams of 5 players each. The 4 teams were Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta……..which were directly sent to the semi-finals

The first Semi-Final was between Alpha and Bravo. Alpha lost by a great lead. Khalid Zubair Khan of Bravo led from the front.

The second Semi-Final was between Chalie and Delta. Great effort from Usman Qutab of Delta was not enough to beat Charlie which was led by Rana Hammad Hussain.

The Final match took place between Bravo and Charlie, in which Bravo out played Charlie in all 3 matches.

• Bravo became the best team.
  • Khalid Zubair Khan – 65 Kills (CT) & 56 Kills (T)
  • Muhammad Shahzad Amin – 27 Kills (CT) & 17 Kills (T)
  • Muzzamil Hussain – 9 Kills (CT) & 16 Kills (T)
  • Muhammad Rizwan – 4 Kills (CT) & 7 Kills (T)
  • Syed Ahmed Sohaib – 2 Kills (CT) & 1 Kill (T)
• Khalid Zubair Khan won the best Counter Terrorist Award with 65 kills.
• Rana Hammad Hussain won the best Terrorist Award with 73 kills.

Congratulations and thanks to all participants who played till the end and cooperated a lot with the organizers.

Welcome 2008

A long year(2007) has come to an end. Many memorable moments occured in that year, for which I will remember this year. Just a reminder of what happened in 2007, can be listed as follows:

At Personal level:

I participated in Table Tennis Tournment held in Techlogix. A little effort of mine took my team to the final of the tournment but due to an immense pressure, I lost the decider set of the final match and our team ended up second in the tournment, although it was predicted that our team would not qualify for the quarter finals as well.

I spent a night at Techlogix to complete one of the user story, in which we had to handle the free rotation of tools drawn by user at design time of InteractX. I enjoyed and learned a lot working in this application and mainly on this particular user story. A lot of basic mathematical calculation was used in it. The main problem was that the CDC class of MFC does not support any angle. The bounding rectangle, which can be scaled and translated in the client area, is drawn by 3 general parameters namely, top cornor point, width and height; and there is not support for rotation; so I had to implement a wrapper over it which would provide:

ROTATION: draw a lollypop(also called rotation gripper) above the bounding rectangle to provide free rotation,

SCALING: handle the cornor masks so that it can be easily scaled up or down without altering the shape of the contained object,

TRANSLATION: translate the object and bounding rectangle anywhere in the client area.

I joined Tricastmedia Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd in July 2007 as a Software Engineer and my team mate changed from Haroon Saeed to Usman Qutab. So in other words, no difference occured in the team environment.

Tricastmedia took a sports gala trip to the northern areas of Pakistan and I fully participated in the event, by scoring quick odd runs in couple of matches which helped us to go to the final of the cricket tournment via run rate rule. Though we lost the match but I was the only one to take the only 2 wickets of the tournment champions which they lost in the final. Besides cricket, I scored the last goal in the football match which has made our chances to go to the final of the football tournment as well. The tournment was delayed due to rain and will be continued later this year.

Tricastmedia arranged Most Paindoo Day in office. A paindoo is a person with countryside background and has been living in modern city but is still not influenced by its atmosphere. I participated fully, and got the first prize.

I received a Gold Medal for academic achievement in BSc(HONS) in Computer Science from PUCIT, University of the Punjab. My office celebrated the occasion and congratulated me.

My little most brother underwent a plastic surgery of his ears in Rawalpindi. I went there to stay with him for his care, and it was a great trip.

At Pakistan Level:

The year 2007 began with Eid-ul-Azha and enjoyment for all.

First suicide bomb blast for Pakistan occured in January 2007 and many followed all year in different locations.

Brutal murder of Zille Huma, who was the Punjab Minister of Social Welfare and was killed for “not adopting the muslim dress code”.

The “Samjhoota Express”, a friendship train between Pakistan and India was blown up.

Pakistan participated in cricket World Cup 2007 and got out from it after a shameful defeat from Ireland. Australia won the World Cup third time in a row.

Bob Woolmer, Pakistan Cricket Team coach, died on the day following the defeat from Ireland. The reason of his death is still under question.

Inzimam-ul-Haq retired from oneday cricket and Shoaib Malik became the new Pakistan Cricket Team captain.

Lal Masjid incident.

Chief Justice of Pakistan incident.

May 12 mayhem in Karachi.

“Khuda ke liye” released last year which faced many protests.

Extremism in North and North-Western areas of Pakistan.

Nawaz Sharif, chairperson of PML(N) and 2 time prime minister of Pakistan, returned after 8 year exile, but was sent back from the air port. He then came back again for general elections.

Pakistan participated in the first Twenty20 International WorldCup. Shoaib Akhtar, Pakistani pace bowler, set another example by using bat against own team mate Muhammad Asif, and was sent home. Pakistan performed well and due to brilliant efforts of Misbah-ul-Haq reached the final of the tournment and ended up as runners up.

Misbah-ul-Haq continued his brilliant performance in all forms of cricket. He was aggressive in T20, moderate in 50 over game and was the most defensive in Test matches from Pakistan.

Police action in Geo TV office in Islamabad.

Government banned some channels and Geo is still banned.

Benazir Bhutto, chairperson of PPP and 2 time prime minister of Pakistan, also came back after a self-exile for the general elections and was welcomed by a couple of bomb attacks.

Emergency was imposed in Pakistan, and all parties’ activists were being held. Imran Khan was arrested after IJT students in Punjab University beat him and gave him to the police.

General Pervez Musharaf retired from the post of Chief of Army Staff and became President, after long delays by Supreme court.

Pakistan Cricket Team lost to India in India after a decade or two.

Assassination of Pakistan’s most famous artist, Gulgee, took place.

Benazir Bhutto was killed during his election campaign and investigation is still under process.

Overall, for Pakistan 2007 can be called a year of anger and angst as explained in All Things Pakistan. Lets hope the new year 2008, bring relief for the people of Pakistan and happiness for all of us. May Allah bless our country and us (Ameen).

Tricastmedia – Most Paindoo Day

On November 22nd 2007, Tricastmedia Pakistan organized a Paindoo day 2007.

Definition of Paindoo:

A paindoo is a person who has been living in the city but the atmosphere couldn’t effect him much.

Result:

I participated in the event and dressed up like a paindoo, and won first position as the Most Paindoo Person of Tricastmedia.

To view picture: click here

Tricastmedia Pakistan – Sports Gala

Tricastmedia H.R. team arranged a sports gala in Khanaspur, near Murree, and whole Tricastmedia was divided into 4 groups: Lions, Tigers, Hawks and Dolphins. The groups were lead by Knowledge Associates who did not have any prior management experience, giving them a chance to improve their managerial skills. The C.E.O, core team, senior team and even H.R. had to take orders from those 4 group leads.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007:

Tricastmedia was divided into 4 groups and 4 group leaders were announced. Rules for the sports gala and rough schedule were shared with everyone.

Thursday, August 30, 2007:

Group leads started taking responsibility. Rules for each game were decided. Group leads shared their knowledge with their groups’ KAs. Strategies were made. Schedule for the complete trip was announced.

Friday, August 31, 2007:

Two coaches were filled with all KAs and then left for Khanaspur in the noon. After a long drive and few breaks on the way, we reached Khanaspur at night. We had dinner in Armor Hut and went to PTDC and were divided into 10 rooms for a small nap J

Saturday, September 01, 2007:

After a small nap, everyone was asked to assemble outside PTDC, where they would be taken to the ground for the commencement of the tournament. Luckily (as every KA was praying), the day started with rain generating a delay in the schedule but unfortunately it wasn’t enough. The first football match between Tigers and Hawks started without waiting for the Core Team. When the Core Team arrived, first cricket match between Lions and Dolphins began. During the first innings of cricket match, result of first football match amazed everyone that Hawks defeated Tigers with a very big margin. Everyone then waited for the cricket match to get over, since there was a plan for breakfast after that match. Lions collected a great total and Dolphins were a little short while chasing. The victorious Lions and Hawks cheerfully gathered in the coaches, while Dolphins and Tigers had their faces down (this is an exaggeration, no one was unhappy because everyone tried their best……..actually everyone was in high spirits). We reached Lasani restaurant for a breakfast….hmmmm…….the schedule was for breakfast but we were there for a brunch and had a lunch.

After breakfast called lunch, we all went to ground for the remaining tournament. Second football match between Lions and Dolphins began. No one knows of any reason why teams were short of their players, therefore Lions and Dolphins played with 6 players a side. Mr. Bilal from Dolphins was the referee of the match and Lions won the match (no further details for this match). Simultaneously, second cricket match between Tigers and Hawks also started. A great team effort from Hawks enabled them to collect the biggest total of the tournament within 8 overs. But they started biting their nails when Tigers began the chase. A very ruthless hitting by Mr. Adnan brought Tigers close to the target but an outstanding catch by Mr. Usman (this catch can be claimed as the catch of the tournament) was able to steal a ball from Tigers and Mr. Adnan was short by 3 runs for his century and 6 runs for the win.

The next football and cricket matches were decided based on the performance of the four teams. Lions had to face Tigers in their football and cricket match. Hawks and Dolphins were against each other in both games. Dolphins with a very calculated approach went on cricket field and restricted Hawks for a very small total, and Mr. Mehdi from Dolphins wrapped up the match with a very genuine innings. This was the smallest cricket game of the whole tournament. But this wasn’t enough the surprise, the football match which started simultaneously between Lions and Tigers became the longest match of not only the tournament but of all time. The match lasted for about more than 2 hours (exclusive of golden goal and penalty kicks). The Tigers defeated Lions with a great margin to cover the lead they lost in the first match.

The next cricket match between Lions and Tigers was the decider that which team will qualify for the final. Lions aggregated a modest total for Tigers, which wasn’t enough for them to defend, since everyone knew about Tigers’ batting attack. Mr. Shah Jee, Mr. Waqas and Mr. Adnan, started off pretty well, and were reaching the target with ease……….but Lions introduced Mr. Tanzeel, who took 2 wickets and gave only 2 runs in his over, which shook the Tigers’ dressing room. But Mr. Tanzeel forgot to take Mr. Adnan’s wicket that completed the target with one ball remaining. By the end of this match, every team had won one match each. The run rate and net run rate war broke out between all four teams. Everyone was very tired and the day was called off. All KAs were taken to PTDC, where everyone tried to refresh. Dinner was served in PTDC, and bonfire was also arranged for the late night. New comers introduced themselves during bonfire. Schedule for next day was announced. Singing and Poetry marked the end of a very hectic day.

Sunday, September 02, 2007:

The day started off pretty well, everyone woke up early and was in the dining hall for lunch on time. A little delay but all teams were in the ground for the finals. The net run rate won the war and Dolphins and Lions made up to the final cricket match. It was also brought into notice that if Tigers had completed their chase against Lions 2 balls earlier, Tigers would have qualified for the final.

The Dolphins lead by Mr. Mehdi and Mr. Waqar and supported by Mr. Bilal collected a modest total. Lions were restricted when they got a double blow in the second over and were lingering in first three overs. Dolphins and audience started cheering, but that was for a very short time, when Mr. Ijaz from Lions stepped in and finished the game with in 4 overs. The Lions won the cricket final match. As the Lions were busy in their photo shoots, protestors gathered in the ground with Umpires dummies and protested against them.

The Dolphins also gathered for photo shoots, but Lions started throwing Pepsi which made a great pause in the tournament’s schedule. Group Leads then made the situation calm and games began to continue. The decider football match between Hawks and Dolphins took place. This match had to decide which teams will play the final. Dolphins started off with the first goal. Hawks got a corner kick and Mr. Sajjad scored a brilliant goal (this goal can be claimed as the goal of the tournament). Hawks then scored another goal getting in the lead. The last couple of minutes got a penalty kick for Dolphins and the second half ended with 2-2. First penalty shoot outs of the tournament were played. Mr. Muneeb from Dolphins was able to save 3 kicks from Hawks, and Hawks were not able to stop Dolphins’ shooters. Hence Dolphins defeated Hawks. Now again all 4 teams had won one match each and goal count, points, goal difference were brought in count. After a discussion of 30 minutes, it was declared that Dolphins and Hawks would play the final. But as the decision was being made, the weather began to show its color of rain. It rained heavily and after long talks referees decided to abandon the match.

Amazingly, the combined result of football and cricket tournament excluding finals was:

• Lions defeated Dolphins in both cricket and football matches
• Tigers defeated Lions in both cricket and football matches
• Hawks defeated Tigers in both cricket and football matches
• Dolphins defeated Hawks in both cricket and football matches

Every KA was then taken to PTDC, where they had to change and pack up their bags. We had lunch and then left for Lahore. After a long journey we finally reached TCM office on time which was announced on Thursday. J

Overall, the trip was healthy and pleasant. KAs got to know of each other very well. Everyone shared ideas and thoughts, and enjoyed every minute of the whole trip. The trip was arranged properly and no problems were faced. All group leads performed their roles brilliantly and displayed more than expected managerial skills. The core team, senior team and the HR team cooperated in every way possible. At the end, the trip was great but matches schedule was not realistic may be because “We Are Different”.

TricastMedia Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd

On 16th July 2007, it was my first official day at TricastMedia Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd.

Another important thing is that I joined Usman Qutab, my BSc HONS final project group member and a very close friend. Shifting from Techlogix to Tricastmedia did not make a big difference for me cauz my professional team member changed from Haroon to Usman……………..and I regard both of them equally.