About Me

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PhD Candidate at Purdue University, Computer Science.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Gapple: A google phone!!!

A HTC insider sent us a tip this weekend about an upcoming gphone coming out of Taiwan that should launch Q1 2008.

Google can make use of web service integration(gmail,google docs, ..etc). Google maps/GPS will play a big role to add to the Gapple features. In this way google can be really tight to anybody's life. online synchronization will be a feasible feature, you won't need any m/c to access ur life as u already have ur blog/gmail/docs/../../../etc on ur phone. this is really awesome.

Actually i don't know how google is going to compete with iphone? It's clear that they will provide a variety of features unavailable for iphone users.
but how about Hardware? is HTC able to compete the Apple slickness? the same issue for OS!!
iphone reached already 700,000 users and still counting. So, Google should be very wise to compete this mountain and to convince all these users to migrate their mobile device to Gapple. They can focus on services, cost (given that iphone remains expensive). so 100$ down cost can be good factor for migration.
Anyway, let's see how this will go.

By the way, iphone is on top of my wish list (it's not available yet here in Egypt) you can buy it for me on my birthday !!

google is not the only company moving to the phone worlds, there are rumors that Microsoft is trying to buy BlackBerry!!!!

Zmail

I didn't read about zimbra long time ago, since i was busy with Ruby.
I found that Zimbra created a gmail like skin called zmail. I got used of gmail skin and I would like time ago to have all my mail boxes with same interface at least.
A lot of people may get bored that gmail skin is not customizable. You can customize it using Firefox plugin.
check more details about zmail from here.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

What Keeps me Happy at Work?

I like to be more related to my tasks and feel more productive. This should be done by improving my life style to feel some kind of achievements and renewing my habits continuously.
  1. Pause your computer: it is not necessary to turn it off, but at least i take few seconds to make a small walk to refresh my mind and give my eyes some rest.
  2. Don't check my email at the start: A lot of people check their email at the start of the day, once they arrive at their disks. I think this is not good attitude. I check the email related to my tasks first, then start on my tasks. I check emails after i finish, or when i go home. I finish my top priorities first.
  3. Drop tasks: frequently I drop tasks I find that they are less important. hence, I have always an inner satisfaction that I should not always finish my tasks list.
  4. Learn from my faults: I find it a great habit to be ready to hear people's criticism about myself and discuss it with them open-mindly.
  5. Be Creative: I like to achieve my tasks in a creative way. I should try always to add value to my work.
  6. Learning: look for ways to add to my knowledge by following new trends and new technologies.
  7. Evaluate myself before anybody evaluates me: I try to reconsider my habits and my behaviors periodically. Try to break any negative habits I have in dealing with my team, or with customers.
  8. Take Vacations: :)
  9. Be Positive: Add positive effect on people around you, and avoid their negative impact.
  10. Add to conflicts: when I have conflicts with others, I should try to think about a way of how to accelerate the disappearance of that conflict.
  11. Focus: when I am in a task, I focus just on this individual task. I avoid tasks mazes.
  12. share my achievements with others: I should communicate my achievements to my team to feel the value of our work all together. We should Speak up and find ways to let the right people know how we are contributing to the success of the company.

Firefox Add-ons for developers and designers

Firefox has cool add-ons which make the job of website designers and developers much easier. Here is our list of 30+ excellent Firefox add-ons that every web developer and designer should know about.
this link lists all these add-ons.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

MAC character set reference


Ever wanted to type the copyright icon, or do an accent over an A without having to resort to some character palette? We have, and it takes time and is an effort. So we put together a series of help sheets that reference all of the characters that aren’t listed on your keyboard, along with their shortcut keys to make your life easier.
Get the List from Liquidicity

Desert Rose


I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of fire
Those dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire
And in the flames
Her shadows play in the shape of a man's desire

This desert rose
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

And as she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothing's as it seems

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of rain
I lift my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes
This rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of her love

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

Sweet desert rose
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

Sweet desert rose
This memory of Eden haunts us all
This desert flower
This rare perfume, is the sweet intoxication of the fall

Thursday, August 16, 2007

PDF Library on MAC

It happened by luck...
I was dragging a PDF file, then I dropped it mistakenly on itunes. I expected an error message or something popping into my face. Surprisingly, the PDF file was added ti the library.
At first glance, I thought it would be a bug or sthg :), so I clicked the file, and it opened the MAC viewer to display the PDF file.
WAAW, the itunes support PDF Files :), I am new to MAC world and it is clear that I miss a lot. I decided to give it a chance and check how much itunes can go far with me as a PDF organizer for files on my MAC.
I created a new library and called it "ebook" and I dragged some pdf to that library.
the itunes copy any files dragged to its library. In this case, I will have at least two copies of each files.
from preferences->advanced uncheck the "keep itunes music folder organized" and "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library".
This doesn't look enough so far, i need some kind of tagging. thx to the "smart playlist" I can automatically assign a keyword and it will be added automatically to this playlist.
Hence, all I have to do is to add a prefix to my PDF files depending on the folder structure i need it to be.
I browse media and documents through only one application now :)
the advantage of itunes was to make a virtual structure. So, it wasn't a big deal where i place physically the file as long as i organize it well by tagging through the playlist, and the file can exist in many playlist (many-to-many relation) and this is sthg u don't get by folders.
Don't forget that this also will work under Windows as well ;)
I was happy with my itunes so far, although it doesn't support search in PDF contents.
searching in PDF contents is supported in Spotlight, so it was not a big deal. Another problem is that files are not opened inside itunes, instead, they were opened by the MAC Viewer.

What else can I have here?
I found a great tool called yep, It is really a great tool. It has the same decent look as any MAC tool.
It does everythg: searching, printing, tagging, browsing..etc it is really a great document store. It is freeware; I hope it remains so.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Flock's Distraction

Every nation had passed by hard times through its history. Hard times are mainly harsh realities of war and economy.
The way to overcome such moments discriminates the nations and determines which nation will dominate the others.
I don't get why we always obfuscate our problems, the government is not honest in the press releases about any event. Actually, it is not surprising to see that the country's obsession with celebrity is increasing during the last 60 years.
People look for escape during hard times. It is an acceptable way to reduce your pain. I admit that there are a lot of evidences of how this can be used positively. But my concern is that when it becomes to a daily routine running over and over by everybody.
Someone uses people's need to a constant in their lives and a hero who can boost morales by devoting more interest in Celebrities such as famous actors or athletes.
We should try to make the mentality more mature , not to destroy it by making it a shallow mentality seeking gossip columns and films posters.
The best way to face your problem is to know it, not to escape it.
It becomes annoying when a citizen feels that his country is forgetting his pain. Instead, all what his country is doing is to love its celebrities.
Japan didn't submit to these silly procedures after its defeat. they focussed to restructure their country, and they did it as a charm.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

RSS Reader For MAC OS

I was trying to figure out the RSS readers i can use on my macbook.
I find an application called Shrook
At first glance, i didn't like it. I can't drag a link from Firefox. It works only with Safari.
Actually I am not a Safari fan as it has some problems with many sites. Rendering Arabic sites is always corrupted on Safari.

I decided to move to Google Reader
I didn't use it b4. I relied on Google Desktop reader, and it was enough for me at that time.
But I realized sthg very weird that may push me to refer to Shrook again.
I didn't find "SEARCH" in Google Reader!!!!
I didn't try to bother to look for it at first, I never expect that it is not there. IT's GOOGLE!!!

The Thai won the Imagine CUP

Thai students win the Imagine CUP. Their project was text-to-speech.

Details for the judge moments can be found here

Monday, August 13, 2007

The C++ Future

Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup, (English attempt at pronunciation of his name would be "B-yar-ne Strov-stroop") creator of C++, discusses new features that will be present in the next version of C++ (tentatively C++09). He addresses many important questions form the audience, and gives his views on C++ compilers, including GCC and Visual C++.
check the video here

you can get a list of applications built on C++ here

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Install Beast the open source forum

to install Beast open source forum:
  1. I prefer to get the code from Trunk, but last time I tried to do so, i found the version unstable. So, i used the tags link.
    $ svn co http://svn.techno-weenie.net/projects/beast/tags/rel-1.0pre/  beast
  2. Install RedCloth
    $ gem install RedCloth
  3. Install open-id
    $ gem install ruby-openid
  4. Install gettext
    $ gem install gettext
  5. Edit the environment.rb by changing the Salt Password by any different value.
  6. You Are Done

Monday, August 06, 2007

Windows Vs Linux

Today i saw a map on http://www.sanasecurity.com/ for system calls on both windows and linux.
I was shocked seeing how many calls are needed when u run IIS on windows. dude, this is really complex, hence very hard to be secured.


System running IIS on windows.
system running Apache on Linux