Imthiaz Blog

28th December 2006, Dubai (UAE): Flip Media has announced that HSBC Private Equity Middle East Limited has acquired a significant equity stake in Flip Media Investments Ltd.

Flip Media Investments Ltd. is the holding group of Flip Media FZ-LLC, the region’s leading, independent interactive marketing agency, Neo Digital FZ-LLC one of the region’s leading online media agencies, Flip Media Pvt. Ltd. India, and other subsidiaries.

Martin Diessner, CEO, Flip Media stated, ‘The involvement of HSBC increases our range of opportunities as we now have the support and involvement of one of the world’s leading financial institutions as a major shareholder who has extensive experience in the region and is committed to helping us develop further’.

David Price, Managing Director of HSBC Private Equity Middle East added, ‘We are very pleased to be investing in Flip Media. It is one of the most recognized digital agencies in the region and it has a proven track record across the Middle East and beyond. Our investment is intended to provide a strong institutional platform for the company’s further regional growth. Investing in Flip Media is very much in line with our policy of backing profitable and well managed businesses.’

For further information about Flip Media please visit: www.flipholding.com

About HSBC
HSBC Private Equity Middle East Limited is the private equity arm of the HSBC group in the region and is dedicated to private equity opportunities in the GCC and the Middle East.

About Flip Media
Flip Media was founded in 2002 and has offices in Dubai, Bahrain, India and Germany. A wholly owned subsidiary of Flip Holding Ltd. Flip Media is the largest, independent, interactive media consultancy in the Middle East, providing award winning creative work to regional and international accounts. Flip Media also develops unique interactive media products and technologies, such as streaming broadband services, 3rd party verified and online media tracking services for advertising and media agencies in conjunction with technology partners and affiliates. Flip Media Investments Ltd. is a privately owned company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

Dubai

Today morning Dinesh showed me a project on MAMP pro which helps us to manage different virtualhost on mac. I installed the application and it was pretty cool. The annoying with MAMP was it had its own http and mysql server. It was bit annoying since it was not using the native webserver and it was using old version of php . So I sneaked around and found what are the changes it is doing to make virtualhost work in mac.

Its the same old school trick. I added two virtual host to my machine namely

• imthi.macimthi.local
• wordpress.macimthi.local

To make this work I have basically edit two files

File 1 – /etc/host

To this file add these two lines to end and save it.

127.0.0.1 imthi.macimthi.local
127.0.0.1 wordpress.macimthi.local
File 2 – /etc/httpd.conf

Add the following lines to end and save it.

NameVirtualHost *:80

<virtualhost *:80>
ServerName imthi.macimthi.local
DocumentRoot “/home/imthi/public_html”
<directory “/home/imthi/public_html”>
Options Includes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</directory>
</virtualhost>

<virtualhost *:80>
ServerName wordpress.macimthi.local
DocumentRoot “/home/wordpress/public_html”
<directory “/home/wordpress/public_html”>
Options Includes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</directory>
</virtualhost>

Thats it. Once these changes are made restart your webserver and both the urls are ready to rock and roll.

Personal

EMUG – Emirates Mac User group. A lovely group really cares so much for Apple products. It was a wonderful experience meeting them in Abu Dhabi.

I found about this group through Magnus who is real person behind EMUG. He posted a comment for my macbook post from which I came to know about the site emiratesmac.com.

I meet some cool guys out there and who are real addict to mac and iPods. You wont believe me I meet one guy who goes by the name Appleholic who owns 15 iPods .

I learned something new about my macbook that it has motion sensors. Which is really cool and I installed some amazing softwares and having real fun with it.

Just wandering around next on xcode

Dubai, Personal

While everyone was busy preparing contact lists and designing greeting cards for the season wishes, Flip developed an integrated campaign to raise charity funds for MSF as part of their belief in their social responsibility role as a corporate and as individuals.

Make a wish

Dubai

Wow it has been a year now since I started to blog at imthi.com. Time is running very fast. Lot of activities this year and most of them I have managed to blog and some I really didn’t have time. For example past month I was traveling and having so much fun at work most of them are blogged and some are not.

I have posted 98 post in a year which is not bad. Its like I have posted around 1 post every 4 days . Together I got around 6,000 comments and out of which 400 is not spam .

In a year I earned so many good friends through my blog. I hope I will get more friends in the time to come.

In terms of search engine my blog is pretty good and not bad . I hope I can write much better in the years to come. I am sure that I have improved myself a bit by blogging. I really don’t know how far that is true. Catch you all again…

Personal

10th December 2006, Dubai (UAE): Panasonic Marketing Middle East is the latest addition to Flip Media’s burgeoning roster of international and regional powerhouse brands and clients. Tasked to launch dedicated bilingual Arabic and English websites to support Panasonic’s recently launched Lumix digital cameras and Viera television products, Flip Media will additionally develop a powerful Press Room application to quickly and easily disseminate news and corporate communications to consumers and media alike.

The Lumix site aims to promote Panasonic’s range of Lumix digital cameras and will encourage users to interact with the brand through interactive features, user tips and competitions. A complete guide to the Lumix products and information on the technologies that makes them superior to their competitors will be readily available online.

Detailed product information on the entire range of Panasonic’s Viera high definition flat panel LCD and Plasma televisions will also be presented interactively and users will benefit from unique creative elements that bring the Viera televisions and their technologies to life.

The Press Room aims to become the premiere point of reference for Panasonic Marketing Middle East and will enable both customers and the media to keep abreast of the latest news, product and technology launches, information and events. Key attributes of the site include a user friendly interface and customized password protected areas for media and channel members who will be able to obtain proprietary content as well as download high resolution images and access other resources.

According to Ajit Nair, Panasonic Marketing Middle East “We appreciate that having an online presence plays a critical part in communicating with customers when they are researching and comparing products, and especially new technologies. Often consumers will have carried out their research on the Internet and decided which brand or product to purchase before they step into a retail store. By enhancing our online communication, this allows Panasonic Middle East to connect with consumers directly at a much earlier stage and provide an informative and interactive experience.”

“It’s refreshing to see more brands taking a proactive approach to integrating their marketing communications efforts for the benefit of consumers. We are delighted that Panasonic Marketing Middle East has chosen to come on board with us and we’re looking forward to doing some outstanding work for their brands.” added Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, Account Director, Flip Media.

The websites can be visited at www.panasonic-news.ae and www.panasonic.ae/lumix

Dubai