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Nepal Blog Discovery portrays an image of Nepal as perceived by a common Nepali citizen.
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Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Interview with Nepali sathi
- First a brief introduction about yourself and your site....
Well, my name is Sachin Sagar Rai. I'm a web developer and have been doing freelancing jobs under the name The Friends Media. The site Nepalisathi.com is a social networking website. As the name suggests, it's a venue where people of all range, religion and geography can visit, join and form their own community of the friendship. They can post their profiles, photos, journals, and interests and send messages amongst. And I think that the tagline 'weaving the web of friendship' has achieved its worthiness.
- How did you get an idea about starting a social network site?
Ahh... 4-5 years back, when I had just come to Kathmandu, I was confused and didn't have any knowledge about the Empire of Internet, though I was very interested in computer education. At that time I used to go to Thamel to surf the net. It was Rs. 50 per hour in dial-up connection that is shared among 10-12 computers. You might have known the speed. Ha Ha... Damn slow. At time I got through the site friendfinder.com . It just strike my head and I thought why not to launch the website dedicated to Nepalese community. But I had not published any website before that. So, I got joined some web design and development classes and launched. It was a debut website and did well and doing till now.
- I have heard a lot about your site? What are the distinct features of nepaisathi.com?
The current one is the 3rd version of the site. Initially, there were features like profile posting, photo upload, e-cards, teenz-problems, wishes and message board and search. Currently, some services has been temporarily disabled and some new added like Journals, Groups.
- How many people have subscribed to Nepalisathi?
At this mean time, the site holds the user database of 16,000+ . And the Google Analytics report depicts the chart of 3,000+ visits per week and it is increasing.
- That's an impressive number! Which countries do the people mainly join from?
Ya, infact it is. Well, geographically, the countries are increasing. But to mention the big numbers are from Nepal, US, UK, HongKong, UAE.
- When did you start the site?
The first version was launched in 2001.
- What are your future plans with Nepalisath? Do you have any other site?
I've already planned and all are in development process. Features that I'ld like to mention are Teenz-Problems, Blog, Private friends network and user editable profile page. A new feature labeled as Nepali Models Online is already live.
Ya, I do have other sites like Explore Web 2.0 and The Friends Media.
Lastly what I'ld like to say is regarding the context of Nepali web designers and developers. The web technology has a great momentum and its changing rapidly. We too have to adapt these technologies as it switches between various phases. Some terms that I'ld like to mention are XHTML 1.0, CSS, SEO, AJAX, Unobtrusive Javascript.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Lots going on
Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) wins the award for being the most opportunist party third time in a row. Kamal Thapa is leading the "Support Government" half ... lets better make it "Support only yourself" half. Minister Thapa declared his sect as the true RPP and elected himself the president of new RPP. The two factions are having a judicial battle for the rights over "Halo" - the electoral sign of RPP.
Everyone is astounded with ever stretching daily curfew dose. Government issued a curfew order few days after the attack made by Maoists at Thankot. The Defense Ministry has later clarified that it is for the safety of general people. The initial curfew order was for the duration from 12 pm in the evening to 4am in the morning. But day after day, and I mean literally, the curfew hours is escalating and now it starts from 9pm. Well, the days are pretty much normal, except for the political parties and Human Right workers.
The most serious...
The present government is planning to carry out metropolitan level elections in the upcoming months while the Saat Dal (Seven Party Alliance against current government) decided not to participate in the elections and has been working hard to make it a complete failure. So, in past few months, Saat Dal was bragging about their meetings with Maoist leaders and were publicizing about their coordination with the Maoists. This time the government took advantage of it. They arrested more than 100 party workers and shutdown mobile and UTL services and internet connections are expected to be cut off in few days. Minister Thapa justified the action as precautions. According to him, Maoist rebels were entering the capital valley with the help of party leaders.
The 7 party alliance had planned to organize a grand program for 20 January 2006. They were planning to enter the restricted zone. But the government is likely to declare a curfew on the exact day. So, the day may get big enough to get into the pages of history.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
King Kong at Kumari
Don't try this at home!!Got to theaters.
One of the best movies I have ever watched. May be its because of the kind of movies that I have viewed lately, but still I think the make-over movie achieved its goal. The whole 3 hours and 7 minutes was filled with surprises, hi-tech visualizations and retro-ambiance but still amongst all that, King Kong managed to preserve the emotional message of the original script.
Well... it could have been a little better but the sound quality of this particular movie was not well presented at Kumari Hall. And as one of my friends said, it was "Bramhaloot" (complete plundering). First of all, the ticket for balcony takes Rs.175. Well... looking at the standard of the theater, relatively to other halls, we can put up with it. But the astronomical rates of foods and beverages, it's a different story. Kumari and JayaNepal are certainly the best theaters around the country but there is no doubt that they are asking for more than what they deserve.
Monday, January 09, 2006
IT industry in Nepal - A late start
Few years back, Information Technology industry was on a roll all over the world. There was an insatiable demand for IT guys from many developed nations so it started a trend among Nepali students to pursue their career in the field of Information Technology.And, so as to meet their requirements, numerous colleges, providing various degrees in IT related courses, mushroomed out. BIM, BCA, BCIS, BCIT and many more were all the outcomes. But soon the global IT market saturated and the graduate IT students did not get as welcoming atmosphere as they had dreamt of. At present there are mainly two classes of IT jobs in Nepal - Software application development and web development.
Besides few self-employed programmers, there are very few established software developing houses in Nepal. The market is extremely diminutive as well. IT has been best implemented only in the banking sector (specially in major ones like Standard Chartered, Nabil, Nepal Investment, Himalayan and Laxmi). There only few are few other production houses like Golchha that have good Information system. Government itself is lagging behind in the use of information technology. Departmental stores and travel agencies also contribute a small fraction to the demand of IT services. There not much of outsourced jobs available in this sector of IT in Nepal.
As there are more web related jobs (both internal and outsourced), this sector appears to have the larger share. There are highly qualified programmers and designers in Nepal who are ready to grab projects at minimal pay rates. This is one of the main reasons that large volume of web related projects are dumped in Nepal from USA, UK, India and many other European countries. Usually, the developers do not directly get the outsourced jobs. There normally are two or more persons or parties in between that forward the jobs. That is why the final earning of the developer is squeezed to a small amount. World Link and Mercantile are the big fishes (since they are the chief ISPs as well) but the way they treat their programmers (particularly, on financial grounds) is really shameful. Mercantile has somehow got the authority to provide .np domain names (which is for free) but they have made their own biased rules for giving away domain names. There could have been a bigger market in Nepal but the lack of proper cyber law, e-transaction acts and e-commerce rules have ruled out its chances.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
New year 2006
New year 2006 started with same enthusiasm in Kathmandu. Thamel, Baneshwor, Lazimpat and most of the other popular spots around Kathmandu were jam packed with customers. No matter what goes on in other parts of the country but the people of Kathmandu never deprive themselves of any occasion to celebrate. Today, we went around Lazimpat area looking for a restaurant with good ambience and vacant space for five. But it was not as easy as it sounds. We went to 3 or 4 restaurants before finally finding space to party in Jolley's. We didn't even dear to explore Thamel or other spots. A new trend has arrived in Kathmandu - making reservations. We would find empty tables but with "Reserved" cards on them. Spice Mobile Company also organized a concert at Tundikel to promote their worthless product. Don't know what happened over there. The company was giving away free SIM cards with each entrance tickets. Anyway, wish you all the happiness for the years ahead.
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