Sleepless in Alexandria

It was week...i don't sleep more than couple of hours per day.

I feel my head is going to explode. I tried to sleep late at night, at the morning and the afternoon. and everythg was useless till now.

i need to sleep but i can't, I will have a busy week :(

Egyptian Good-Morning

Zimbra Review

I had the chance to work on the open source edition of zimbra collaboration suite (ZCS). It was planned to deploy that mail server as part of a fully integrated system containing CRM and Workflow. the three major components should be integrated together to automate all the business intelligence these company's needs.
well, it was logic to start by searching for Zimbra reviews. Unfortunately, all the reviews at that time were functional reviews. I have to confess that i was impressed by its functionalities and specially the "Zimlets". I also started to check the forum and I found it promising. After working on zimbra; I really have to say that I appreciate their forums very much, guys are really helpful on this forum .
I will focus on usability and not functionality.
so, I took the responsibility of deploying and supporting the ZCS.
talking about interface: when I get an eye on the zimbra interface, i felt that I am opening a desktop application. mmm, I forgot to say that opening the zimbra client for the first time is a miserable situation. it was a bad experiment for me. opening the browser for more than 60 secs waiting to see login screen is a terrible thing for user satisfaction.
well, to be honest, the client interface is not only slow for the first time; but actually the peak is on the first opening time. my client was complaining that they get very slow response till they get the login screen. now, let's talk about the browser you can use with ZCS.
IE 5,6,7 were terrible. i found it very bad to enforce the client to change his browser in order to prevent the terrible message appearing with IE with the client interface.
Briefly, if u aim to use ZCS forget the Internet Explorer.
the "Internet Explorer" becomes "Internet Explosion" .

The firefox is much better, it is better in performance than IE but still terrible comparing with gmail for example.
I didn't try opera nor Mozilla on zimbra, i was depressed enough at that time.
as a user, i find the selection is not friendly at all. Majority interfaces use check boxes. in order to apply an action on a selected message i had to be very fast, because after some while the selection is lost!!!
also, there is no progress bar; i click and find nthg changing (due to response time, or the selection problem i pointed to before) so wt i was doing is keeping clicking:S

the administration interface is not reliable at all. sometimes it doesn't refresh the server status. also there was deleted domain, but it remains within the domains list for sometime, which made me confused.

the stability wasn't better than the interface. i faced a lot of problems with stability, users had many problems with accessing their messages, or logging in. well, i don't want to get deeper in technical details and how they could be solved. at the end i had to made some batches to solve the problems happening frequently with users.
I tried to search in the HW configuration but i didn't get anythg. the memory had never reached 100% of usage.
maybe later i will post about these monitoring results.

Back to Blog

It has been 5 months since I quit blogging.

I think that I need to be back.

Quit

I quit Blogging.

New Member to EGJUG

Today I subscribed to the EGJUG (Egyptian Java Users Group)
You can visit it on http://www.egjug.org

I think it's a quite cool step, I hope it will be a healthy group.
I checked the projects proposed. Well I still have no idea whether I can contribute in one of them or not yet. It will depend basically on my time schedule and priorities.

Wt I liked...is that members look enthusiastic.

mmm, my first contribution was comment added on the sample logo they will publish for the group. I found it too crowded and fancy. Although, I liked the efforts and the spirit beyond the logo.

Pluto is an "ex-planet"

There in no Pluto Anymore.....
Bye Pluto,
Adieu.



It seems that size does matter in space, and the downgrading of Pluto to a mere "dwarf planet" has put teachers, publishers and toy manufacturers into a bit of a spin. We will all now have to adjust to the fact that our solar system has only eight official planets and not nine. This was the decision of the International Astronomical Union, meeting in Prague to reclassify Pluto and put an end to years of debate over what exactly is a planet.

Scientist Jocelyn Bell Burell said: "The recommendation is that we consider Pluto and other similar trans-Neptunian objects to be in a special class of which Pluto was the first to be discovered."

Pluto's discovery was in 1930 but the rapid development of more powerful telescopes has revealed several similar masses.

Michael Shara, curator at New York's Natural History Museum said: "This decision in fact affects the way we look at the evolution of our solar system. The reason Pluto isn't a planet is because Pluto doesn't control the gravity and the orbits of all the objects near it."

Smaller than several moons, Pluto, the dwarf planet, is due to be reached by a US unmanned spacecraft in the year 2015.

It seems that we r in the age of "ElKoosa", just because pluto is small , he couldn't defend himself. and unfortunately they pick on him... :-)

I think we still have another Pluto.......

First Who.....Then What

The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it. They said, in essence, "Look, I don't know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we will figure out how to take it someplace great."

This short article is based on a great book "Good to GREAT".

I found it very logic, I experienced this already…It's all about the people.

If you begin with a good mindset "the who" rather than a predefined goal you have more flexibility to adapt yourself to a changing world.

Even though someone has the wrong people, and he has a great vision and can drive in the right direction. Well, he has made it once; does this mean he can make it another time? Does this mean he finds his way to "Great"? At least he didn't invest in his team (assuming of course that he has the wrong people).

To be "within a Party" or not to be

I think a lot of joining a political party. I thought of joining "Ikhwan" and "AlGhad", but i was hesitating.
well, why i am still hesitating in that issue. I don't know actually wt's up with me. but I have some thoughts that mayb the cause preventing me from taking this step.

My life style: I beleive very much in the dynamic style. I beleive in short period plans more than long term ones. I prefer to react based on the events I face. I call it "the on the fly reaction". If I want to talk with discuss an issue with somebody an issue, I leave the conversation leads me without preparing something.

This style makes me unlike the "party's style". It is known that the party works on predefined policy and planned attitude.

For some how, I guess I am not an easy person to fellow a leader; Although I am an easy person to be managed. I don't like to be directed in my thoughts and my ideas. I like to analyse the situations based on my mindset.

I can remember the Malcolm X biography. when he was fellowing the NOI (Nation Of Islam) leader Elijah Muhammad and he felt for some how that he doesn't agree finally with all his actions....but it was too late, he continues for some time the fellowship, although he knows he doesn't feel comfortable. It was just the fair of facing his master after all.
I feel that when someone is involved with a party, it is difficult to refresh his ideas and his culture, because in some time he will be just motivated by the "party's inertia" he got a long and long time ago.
Also, I think that the party's engagement makes the person more distracted from the real aim "the nation", because he will b busy defending his party against enemies of other parties, coordinationg his party and fighting the factions....etc

Till the moment I am not involved within a party, mayb i will b later, or i will never b. actually i don't know. i don't plan for this. If i feel the need of joining a party, i will do it. and mayb i am wrong abt my theory, and mayb i shouldn't put it as a generic case or sthg!

but this imposes a big question, are we able to be able to define our path? is each individual can be aware of the impact of his actions on the whole society? are we aware enough of the political tricks?
if the answer is no, then everyone should search how to b able to b an effective cell of the society , to be a "Self Party" or "Mono Party".

Reading, Learning, Observing, Thinking.......
These are not conventions we use only just to pass the exams and get certificates.

Dilemma

it's clear now that a lot of the ppl i love arround me are involved in the same dilemma.
I wish i could help them getting out off this. but.....

Anyway, i will do my best.