Zahid Lilani – Social Media Discourse

GITMO Reunion, One Guard and Two Prisoners

Posted on 16. Jan, 2010 by Zahid Lilani.

Interesting things happen everyday in the world but there are some stories that make people think. These stories move you in the most unusual way. One common theme in all the moving and unusual stories is human emotion.

Few months ago I saw a story on 60 Minutes about a rape case where a man was wrongly convicted. The rape victim was the key witness during the trial and she was 100% sure that the accused was the alleged rapist. Well, after few years, it turned out that the accused wasn’t the real rapist. Once the real rapist was caught and sentenced, wrongly accused and the victim had a one on one meeting.

Wrongly accused forgave the accuser…. that is powerful and incredible.

GITMO reunion is a similar story.

In 2008, Brandon Neely, was searching for friends on Facebook when he entered the name of few detainees that he guarded during his time at Guantanamo Bay. Neely, an army veteran, spent six months at GITMO in 2002.

Shafiq Rasul was one of Neely’s prisoners and showed up in the search results. Neely decided to message Rasul and was “astonished” when he responded. A BBC reporter found out about this amazing exchange and decided to fly Neely to London so that he can meet Rasul and another prisoner in person.

Neely apologized, Rasul forgave. Rest is history.

Brandon Neely, center, was a Guantánamo Bay guard, and Ruhal Ahmed, left, and Shafiq Rasul were prisoners.

Original story: New York Times | BBC

BBC link has the video of the original meeting which is not “embed” friendly. Go over and watch it!

iPhone’s Touchscreen Most Responsive

Posted on 13. Jan, 2010 by Zahid Lilani.

Geeks out there are doing so many cool experiments. One of them did this experiment where the responsiveness of touchscreen was tested for four major smartphones in the market, iPhone, Droid, HTC and Nexus One.

It was concluded that iPhone’s Touchscreen was the most responsive.

Here is how the experiment was done:

Although MOTO usually uses sophisticated tools to test touch screen accuracy, we have also developed a simple technique anyone can use to evaluate the resolution and accuracy of a touchscreen device. All you need is a basic drawing program (download one if necessary), a steady hand, and a few straight lines drawn very slowly on the screen.

To read more, visit
http://labs.moto.com/diy-touchscreen-analysis/

Please note that in the video, Nexus isn’t shown but the same technique was used to test it.

Back To 9 – 5 Routine and VITA

Posted on 10. Jan, 2010 by Zahid Lilani.

Maybe you have read my “About Me” page and know that I am a Tax Accountant. Every year during the tax season, I work for a tax preparation company. Last year it was Liberty Tax Service and this year it is a tax firm in San Jose. I was suppose to start work from 19th January but things got little expedited after one of the tax professionals at the firm came down with swine flu.

This year I am excited to work at a professional tax firm which is a big upgrade from Liberty. I have lost faith in the national tax preparation companies because of their business model and predatory lending practices. I am talking about RALs (Refund Anticipation Loans).

Apart from the 9-5 routine, I like to help low and middle income people during the tax season and the IRS makes it extremely easy for me to do that. There is a little known program called VITA or Volunteer Income Tax Assistance that provides free tax preparation and filing services to people who can’t afford to pay for tax preparation. 2010 will be my third year with VITA but this time instead of simply volunteering, I am going to be the site coordinator.

If that wasn’t enough, I have accumulated few of my own private clients. That means after my 9-5, I might have to put in another 2-3 hours so that I can serve my own clients.

That said, it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t offer you my services. If you have any tax related issue or would like any sort of advice, do let me know. The best way to reach me is email, followed by Twitter.

During the tax season you can expect fewer blog posts than usual because I will also be blogging about taxes over at eZeeTAX.

Mapiz – Location Based iPhone App With Real-Time Transit Information

Posted on 04. Jan, 2010 by Zahid Lilani.

Mapiz is a location based iPhone app similar to Foursquare and Gowalla but different in its unique approach. Instead of letting people check-in to places of interest, it makes itself useful by providing real time public transit information and lets you communicate with people around you.

Not only can you see where your friends are, you can see everyone around you on Mapiz if they have selected to publicly broadcast their location. Apart from that, once you select one of the few available transit systems, you can see departure and arrival information in real-time.

Mapiz was founded by engineering students at U.C. Davis. I sent an email to Mapiz’s co-founder Max Guan and asked if he could answer couple questions about Mapiz. He was kind enough to send me a reply.

Zahid: When there is Foursquare and Gowalla, why Mapiz?
Max: Instead of approaching social networking or gaming directly, we want to offer something people need everyday – a real time transportation tool. Then build up the network around it. We believe in order to make majority accept the idea of location based social networking, it has to be something useful as an entry point.

Zahid: Would it be fair to say you are taking the Facebook approach? (One university then 10 then 30)
Max: We admire Facebook’s strategy. But mobile application can not run the exactly same approach. Every student can access internet but not everyone owns an iPhone. Mapiz is going to open registration to public but we added the “network” option to protect the privacy and keep our users in the same group.

Mapiz started out with very limited number of Universities but now supports 30 Universities and 16 regions. Max has assured me that with every new update, more universities and regions are being added.

I am a big fan of location based services and Mapiz is one of my favorites. In future I see transit systems providing free Wifi access to commuters and thus making it easier for them to be in constant communication with others.
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iPhone Users Love Their Email

Posted on 29. Dec, 2009 by Zahid Lilani.

comScore and Compete recently concluded that iPhone users read more emails than Android users. They also concluded bunch of other things but the email disparity between iPhone and Android users is the most eye catching.

I don’t have an android phone but I am sure Gmail is available. Is it Apple’s mobileMe service that is attracting more users?

Whatever the case, apart from the email usage, both iPhone and Android users are data hogs. In other words, they use apps and browse the Internet… a lot!
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