CSED Alex Bloggers

Tip: Be Administrator

2011-05-03T18:53:00.000+02:00

Programming is full of ambiguous surprises :D You keep writing code, or configuring your environment just to be faced by a mysterious error message that takes you into a long cycle of search - try - search...etc

Okay, enough chitchat...

I was developing something against Azure Storage. For some reasons, I wanted to have my Azure Development Storage Emulator running on other machine than the development machine...

Well, that's pretty easy... Here are a couple of posts telling you how to do so:

You just need to change the (127.0.0.1) in the "DSService.exe.config" file to the {IP Address} assigned to your network card. After starting the development storage service you will be able to let other computers on the network do work on this emulator.

However, you may get into problems running the service after modifying the config file! And that's my case.. I kept seeing "Access Denied" error message when trying to start the storage emulator :)

After some search, I dropped into this question on msdn. The answer was telling that the fabric and storage services can't listen on IPs other than the 127.0.0.1 for some reasons.. One of these reasons was:

Both of these are likely to be run as administrator...

So, I thought to use the "Run As Administrator" option in Windows. And YESS, It Worked :)

If you still have problems reaching the server after getting the storage emulator running and listening on the machine assigned IP, you may check your firewall settings.

Good Luck!

Innovative Maze Solving with Mathematica

2011-03-25T15:39:00.005+02:00

A typical data structures assignment involves using stacks/queues to generate/solve mazes. This is usually performed by variants of BFS or DFS. As many of my students are currently busy with this task, I thought of presenting them a number of nontraditional solutions incorporating a real world example and some advanced techniques.

There has been a series of posts on a this problem on the Wolfram blog attacking the hedge maze at the Blenheim Palace. The solutions presented started with processing the aerial image acquired from Bing Maps, and proceeded to explore a variety of techniques from standard graph theory to a twisted application of topology.

The series progressed as follows:

aMAZEing Image Processing in Mathematica

Navigating the Blenheim Maze

The Battle of the Marlborough Maze at Blenheim Palace Continues

Retreat from Blenheim

Hope you find it interesting!

Best Downloads for Linux

2010-07-21T20:57:00.001+03:00

As a follower of the very popular productivity website Lifehacker.com, today I just stumbled on one of their most recent posts. The post, titled Lifehacker Pack for Linux: Our List of the Best Linux Downloads lists and describes a number of free/open source software products that can be downloaded and installed on Linux. The post mentions that these are mostly for the Ubuntu distribution, but many of these applications have releases for other Linux distributions as well.

I personally find this list to be very useful, since it includes many applications that one would need in everyday's work/life, and many of them are not included by default with Linux. These include: web browser (Firefox, Chrome), email client (Thunderbird), office suite (OpenOffice.org), text editor (gedit), and many more. The list even provides direct links to download these applications or to directly install them in Ubuntu.

The Arabic CLIP for VS2010 is RTW!

2010-07-18T19:15:00.001+03:00

Caption Language Interface Pack

The Arabic CLIP for VS2010 is live!

I am very pleased to announce the release of Arabic Captions Language Interface Pack v. 2.0 for Visual Studio 2010. Now, we are able to help Arabic developers use the Visual Studio 2010 in their own language, and CLIP is the first step in the roadmap to have better localization solution in the future. The Arabic CLIP project has been done in close collaboration with local communities. It has been translated by جامعة الإسكندرية - كلية الهندسة - جمهورية مصر العربية (University) and reviewed by local MVPs.

Click here to download

background information

The Captions Language Interface Pack is a tool that uses a tooltip caption and/or a small discrete dialog to display translations for user interface items. The user hovers with the mouse on top of the Visual Studio UI elements to see an instant translation. This release includes translations for following VS2010 components:

VS IDE, Deployment, Web Developer, VB, CSharp, VC, VSData, WPF Designer, Team Dev Debugger, Express features and help viewer.

Click here for more information about CLIP(English)

Click here for more information about CLIP(Arabic)

THANKS TO ALL THE TEAMS WHO ENABLED THIS RELEASE

This project is a great cross-team collaboration and partnership with many teams and people involved. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your contribution!

Community Partners:

جامعة الإسكندرية - كلية الهندسة - جمهورية مصر العربية (University):

Professor Mohamed S. Abougabal,

Professor Amin Shoukry,

Professor Saleh Shehaby

and student team:

Doaa Medhat Ashour

Evronia Azer

Fadwa Ahmad Ezzat

Kareem El-Sayed Khamis

Mohamed Adly Abd El-Fatah

Rasha El-Sayed Ali Mahmoud

Samia ELsayed megahed hafez

Sammar Moustafa Ibrahim Sayed

Arabic MVPs who contributed to linguistic review

Microsoft partner teams:

Local MS Office: Dina Lasheen, Baransel Dogan (Metis), Ahmed Aboulmagd, Ammar Abuthuraya, Moatasem Ayyash

STBI ATI developers: Lixin Song (WUXI HISOFT SERVICES LIMITED), Karsten Schneider (P2 SOLUTIONS GROUP LLC)

Office CLIP team: Jonathan Duncan, Seamus Browne, Andre McQuaid, Colin Fitzpatrick

STBI CPE team member:

Cristina Nardini, Lynne Dong, Maria Jesus Perez Perez (Lionbridge), Jae-Young Lee (AdaQuest, Inc.), Peter Khumara (Comsys Information Technology)

Cheers,

Lynne Dong

Program Manager

STBI CPE

Teach Your Android The Arabic Language :D

2010-06-08T18:20:00.000+03:00

Earlier this year I've upgraded my HTC Magic to use Android 1.6 instead of Android 1.5. One of the disadvantages of that process was losing Arabic support on my phone.

A friend told me about this website.. Arabic Android (https://sites.google.com/a/ut.utm.edu/arabic-android)

Yesterday, I used this site to let my phone read Arabic content (Even if the letters are not connected!!). It's very easy and it took less than 2 minutes.

- I first downloaded "update_fonts_signed.zip" from the downloads section.

- Then, I followed the instructions on their How To page (How to use update_fonts_signed.zip).

You see, two very easy steps, ha! :D

There is another manual way described on the other How to page (How to replace default font). But I went for the easy method.

Well, good luck with your Android ;) Proceed on your own risk if any :D

Tutorial: Validating User's Arabic Input using Regular Expressions in PHP

2010-03-20T23:59:00.010+02:00

In PHP, Regular Expressions can be used to match a string to a specific pattern, this can be used to validate user's input to avoid certain security problems such as spoofed form submissions and cross-site scripting (see http://phpsec.org/projects/guide/), this can be done using preg_match() function

Here I'll talk only about using preg_match() to validate arabic input, for an explanation of regular expressions in PHP, see http://www.phpro.org/tutorials/Introduction-to-PHP-Regex.html

First Method you can use to make regular expressions include arabic is using \p{Arabic}, this makes preg_match() accept arabic strings,

that's not completely true :D

The previous paragraph is maybe what you would get if you searched the Internet for arabic patterns, but it needs following modifications to work correctly:

use /u modifier so the pattern will be treated as UTF-8 (you can make it for all your patterns since it works only for alphanumeric characters) >> '/\p{Arabic}/u'

use the HTML META tag so that Request parameters (GET & POST) will be encoded as unicode (the charset attribute should be UTF-8)

those two steps are important to make your validation work

another method is using arabic characters unicode codes, you can use /\x{****}/u to represent any unicode character, also /[\x{****}-\x{----}]/u makes the pattern support any character/symbol which its unicode lies between **** and ----, but do not forget the /u modifier and setting charset to UTF-8

New Google Buzz vs. Twitter and Facebook

2010-02-09T22:32:00.002+02:00

Google strikes again!!

The folks at Google just rolled out yet another application that tackles an area previously dominated by Twitter and Facebook: Microblogging! Microblogging is posting small entries that usually consist of nothing but a short sentence fragment, or an image or embedded video. This is commonly known as "tweeting" for those who use Twitter (except that Twitter only allows text and URLs - no images or videos). The same concept is found in Facebook where users post status updates, images, videos and links.

Enter Google Buzz: a microblogging system on top of Gmail that enables users of posting text, photos, videos, etc., and share with either their friends or everyone. Watch this video to get the idea:

Google Buzz is being enabled into the existing Gmail accounts slowly, so it's not yet available for all users. I haven't tried it out myself yet, but I can't wait to start "buzzing"

Vodafone Egypt HTC Magic: Rooting and Upgrade

2010-02-05T21:14:00.001+02:00

Hello back! Long time since my previous post about the major pros and cons I encountered with the HTC Magic offered by Vodafone Egypt.

With no long introductions, here is the story of this new post...

A couple of days ago, I took the risk and started the process of rooting and flashing a new Android image to my HTC Magic. There were two major things in my mind then: First, I wanted to upgrade from Android 1.5 (Cupcake) to Android 1.6 (Donut). Second, I wanted to release my phone from the Vodafone Network Lock.

So after all, what did I win? and what did I lose? This won't be a full list.. It's only the major things I experienced during this short period after the upgrade operation :) Again as I said in the previous post, this can differ from one to another (depending on usage and interests)..

Let's start by the loss to keep the good things for a good ending :D

1 - I still couldn't UNLOCK the phone. It looks like I need to obtain an unlock code from Vodafone itself.

2 - I lost the Arabic support. Applications now display Arabic as symbols. However I could still install an "Arabic Keyboard", an application for sending and reading SMS in Arabic "Mirsal" and some other applications that display Arabic very well. (All from Market).

Well, I didn't experience any more troubles (Thanks Allah). I won some things that I really appreciate and making my loss inconsiderable :)

1 - Android 1.6 with many cool new features over Android 1.5.

2 - By the first sight, I couldn't wait to try this "speech recognition" feature. You can search by voice instead of typing keywords. Or you can tell the phone to dial someone or some number instead of typing.

3 - Android Market. Yes, now I have the official android Market application. This itself is a big great advantage. Now I can browse, search, download and install more and more applications. One application that I couldn't try before having this "Market" application is the Google Goggles application.

mmm, this is all I wanted to tell you for now. But I believe there are more to enjoy ;)

I still didn't tell you how? Well, before you proceed I've to state this disclaimer: "Please make sure to take your own responsibility and risk before applying or trying anything of the following steps on your phone. If anything went wrong, there is no one to blame but yourself :)"

Okay, I don't like to make a copy/past articles. So follow this link for step by step procedure. btw, it is a good practice to read it all and download everything you'll need before starting.

Good Luck :)

Mozakerty is now online

2009-12-28T08:07:00.000+02:00

Mozakerty is now online: "

Mozakerty

What is Mozakerty ?

A new tool for communication, collaboration and interactivity between student members and the teaching staff.

What is Mozakerty for ?

Establishing studying community to ease studying online and Share information.

Discover a new way of studying, scheduling, and organization of study materials.

Making resources available for every one.

Why Mozakerty ?

Tired of papers ?

Tired of unorganized documents everywhere ?

Some questions are repeated over and over again ?

Is there new lectures ?

What will be delivered this week ?

Want to be notified of new events and lectures ?

What is tomorrow schedule ?

Want to share questions, answers, notes ?

Want a new way to study ?

Here is the solution: Mozakerty

What exactly does Mozakerty stand on ????

Model ? we already have one.

Forum ? we already........etc.

Group ? we ....bla bla bla

Social community ? we have facebook, twitter, ....etc.

What about All of these features in a new way to study ? Moakerty.

Mozakerty is developed by me and 5 of my friends (5 months working)

for more technical info on Mozakerty visit my site's page here.

CSED Community Release

2009-12-14T20:54:00.009+02:00

We would like to announce the Release of the website

www.csedcommunity.com

The website is a new Community for the students of CSED that contains:

· Projects (for college or free time projects)

· Ideas of projects

· Resources for subjects

· Quotes

http://www.facebook.com/pages/CSED-Community/224224073627?ref=nf

For now, it is only for CSED Students at Alexandria University.

Soon isA, we may add other Computer Students' Communities.

If you are still a student, you will be sent a form to create your account.

If you are a graduate, you are welcomed to give us your comments on our products.

If you have Computer Science Students Community that you want to share with us, contact us

Waiting your feedbacks at feedback@csedcommunity.com

Thanks for your time :-)

Microsoft's COFEE Spills All Over Internet, First Exclusive Images On Internet

2009-11-09T14:00:00.000+02:00

Microsoft's COFEE Spills All Over Internet, First Exclusive Images On Internet: "

As quite expected Microsoft's automated computer forensic utility COFEE (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) meant for law-enforcement agencies got leaked on internet and is now readily available on torrent portals and file-sharing websites.

These Are The First EXCLUSIVE Images Of COFEE Utility

The utility is designed EXCLUSIVELY for crime-investigators allowing quick and fully-automated extraction of forensic data from computers suspected of containing criminal activity evidence letting investigators search through data on-site, the utility is provided for free by Microsoft to law-enforcement agencies world-over in a USB device which executes more then 150 commands to collect forensic data offering features such as the ability to decrypt passwords, search the computer's Internet activity, and analyze the data stored on it even including the data stored in volatile memory.

Vodafone Egypt: HTC Magic with Android 1.5

2009-11-09T01:39:00.001+02:00

Recently Vodafone Egypt has announced its superiority to bring an Android device into Egypt for its lovely customers ;) This device is the neat HTC Magic in its white suit.

Details of the offer can be found on Vodafone website, including the specs of the phone...

By nature everything has advantages and disadvantages... So let's start by.... mmmm, ok disadvantages first :) Here are the major disadvantages I encountered, it may differ for someone else ;) Even though they are listed as disadvantages, I don't have much blame for this..

Hmmm, How will I browse the application store (Android Market)?! I need to download applications from there to my phone.. Well, there should be an application called Market for this purpose. This is the official one by google. Unfortunately, this one is not there.... Don't despair, SlideME is here.. SlideME is a community for Android developers and is an Android Market too.. This phone is packed with SlideME application :)
3G connection and WiFi are really working great.. The problem is, WiFi only works with networks conducted through a router or an access point. Adhoc networks aren't that easy :( I couldn't connect to an Adhoc wireless network at home.. Searching the web, I found a way through.. but it requires me to root my phone!! May be later I'll find an easier way, but it'll stays a limitation till then.
I've been told while buying that it is locked for Vodafone network.. I can't testify this fact, I only have a Vodafone SIM card :)
You can use bluetooth to connect your mobile to a headset, but not for data transfer.. It's not that bad, you actually get a USB data cable with the phone... You can use it for this purpose, or for debuging your own developed applications on the phone ;)

However, you can overcome some of these disadvantages by giving up your warranty and start doing some hacks to root your device (i.e, gain a root access) which will enable you to install more applications, flash a new Android image to your device, or even more; You're the master then ;) This one itself is a big advantage, your limits are the hardware.. You can play with the software as you like, even the OS “It's open sourced ;)”

I didn't build an enumerated list for advantages, but this HTC Magic is really doing great.. It's fast performing, it has google apps (gmail, gtalk, maps) installed.. You can use GPS or Wireless Networks for determining location.. Connect to the internet through 3G or a WiFi connection.. Enjoy 3.2MP camera with auto focus and video capture abilities.. Synchronize your contacts, mail and calendar with google account.. Customize it and make it yours.. Download and install applications for free from the Market.. Or even develop your own applications.. Enjoy working with the touch screen.. There is more for this list :)

Really, I'm loving it ;) Check videos on YouTube for more demos :)

Ubuntu Upgrade.. Easy as a Click

2009-11-02T00:26:00.000+02:00

Yes... It's just few clicks to upgrade your current version of Ubuntu to the newest version Ubuntu 9.10 which is given the name 'Karmic Koala'

As stated on Engadget.. This new version is featuring a faster graphical boot sequence (no more scary text scrolls), a revamped audio framework that improves sound control across multiple applications, and a new Software Center that visually simplifies the Add/Remove Applications tool. Firefox 3.5 also comes with this upgrade...

Upgrading is really easy. The time it takes just depends on your internet connection. Just open the update manager from the system menu...

Near the top, you'll get a new release notification.. Click the Upgrade button and follow the instructions.. You'll reach soon :)

The coolest thing is you can still use your computer while the upgrade is in progress.. I still had my browser opening many tabs, my chat client is still working showing my buddies, a song is playing...etc You don't have to take your work off for the upgrade.. You will only need to restart when it's done..

Have Ubuntu 9.10? Enjoy... Older version? Go upgrade... Don't? Go get it and enjoy Linux for human beings :)

P.S. I made the upgrade from Ubuntu 9.4

Web Browsers for Dummies

2009-10-06T21:25:00.002+02:00

Considering the amount of time everyone spends online today, it is funny that many people still don't know what a web browser is, even though they use it every day.

The following video is a questionnaire conducted by Google while promoting their browser Chrome, and it shows that many people don't know what a browser is, or they confuse a browser with a search engine. Only a few people answered correctly.

It also seems that Google is determined to educate people on what a browser is. The latest post on the Official Google Blog has a quick comparison showing that people spend way more time on the web than they spend in their car. However, they are more likely to know which car they are driving than to know which browser they are using.

The author of that post, Jason Toff, created a small video clip explaining what a browser is. It is intended for those who know almost nothing about the computer's technical terms. Take a look:

In addition, Toff has also created a simple site, WhatBrowser.org, that gives even more information about browsers. On this site, you can see which web browser you're using, explore links to browser diagnostic tests and read some useful tips for getting the most out of your browser.

So, do you know which browser you're using?

Paint.NET is a Quality Photo Editing App for Windows

2009-10-05T10:30:00.001+02:00

Paint.NET is a Quality Photo Editing App for Windows: "

Looking for a quality all-purpose photo editing program for everyday use? Paint.NET is a free app which is a useful addition to your Windows system.

Installation

During the installation process you will have the opportunity to choose between a Quick Install and a Custom Install. In the same install window you will also be able to specify the language that best suits your needs. Both options are very nice to have. You should also make sure you have the Microsoft .NET Framework installed first, but if you don’t the installer will direct you to the site to download it.

Note: Custom Install setup shown here.

Along with being able to choose the install directory of your choice, you will also be able to make selections for image defaults, creating a shortcut on your Desktop, and two types of automatic updates to check for.

Before the install process begins Paint.NET will create a restore point.

Paint.NET will also work to optimize performance for working on your system…yet another nice feature.

Paint.NET

Once you have finished the installation and started Paint.NET, this is what it will look like. Except for the floating toolpad, everything else is at the top giving Paint.NET a nice uncluttered look.

Menu Set for Paint.NET

Time for a good look at the menus available for Paint.NET. Here you can see the File, Edit, View, and Image Menus…

Followed by the Layers and Adjustments Menus.

And finally the Effects, Window, and Help Menus.

Note: Notice the pre-plugin look of the Effects Menu…it will not be a small menu for long!

Plugins

Plugins are one of the terrific things about Paint.NET…choose only what you like (or need). Once you have the zip files for the plugins that you choose downloaded and unzipped, simply place them in the “Effects Folder” and restart Paint.NET. Everything will automatically be ready to go!

Note: The link for the plugins repository is provided at the bottom of the article…

And here is our Effects Menu after we added in our favorite plugins. The Main and Sub Menus are filled with lots of picture modifying goodness now (very nice).

Paint.NET in Action

For our example we decided to crop an area out of a larger picture. Using the “Rectangle Select Tool” from the floating toolpad, we focused on the girl in the center of the picture. Notice the slight change in color and nice dotted outline marking the exact area selected…then all that we had to do was go to the “Edit Menu” and use the “Copy” & “Paste in to New Image” commands.

And there is our new cropped image…all ready to save and/or modify further.

Conclusion

If you have been looking for a free all-purpose photo editor that is very dependable and useful to have around, then Paint.NET is a program that you should definitely have installed on your system.

Links

Download Paint.NET (version 3.36.3158.38068) – Stable

Download Plugins for Paint.NET (Listed as A-L & M-Z)

Works On: Windows XP (SP 2+), Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server (2003 SP 1+)

This article from : How-To Geek

Introducing CubeSat

2009-10-02T01:13:00.006+02:00

CubeSat is a 10cm cubic nano-satellite that weights only 1 kg and uses commercial off-the-shelf electronic components. Nano-satellites can be developed in about 1 year at extremely low costs, which creates new possibilities for space missions and business, enabling quick and low-cost demonstration of novel space technologies. Considering these effects, more than 30 universities and research institutes as well as venture businesses are currently pursuing their own CubeSat projects. It is emphasized that it is very important for [space engineering] students to experience the whole cycle of a space project, including mission conceptualization, satellite design, fabrication, ground test and feedbacks of the results, launch and operation.

So, I wish to see some Arabian students working on stuff like that soon. At least, they could build/purchase the device, develop some technology and maybe launch it or keep it in their universities for more such projects. Take Malaysia for example: 5 universities collaborated in developing InnoSat which was launched last April.

We can start by finding interested professors in Arabian universities. Then we can try to collect some capital through the available funding programs. This can be used to buy the required components, but it would be nice if we could build some of them ourselves. Hopefully, this will enable our students to learn the basic skills of space engineering. In case these efforts arrived at good results, maybe this is going to create some business opportunities for space projects in our region.

Space is fun, but this is only one area. The point is, we have to do something instead of just watching. You have to do something! GO DO SOMETHING!!!

Microsoft Office 2010

2009-05-25T11:28:00.001+03:00

Office 2010 Technical Preview screenshots

Linuxdoc

2009-05-25T11:25:00.000+03:00

Want to know about Linux ?
Want to learn more about it ?

Here is a free project will help you to know what u want to know about Linux " Linuxdoc "

It's a free project of Benjamin Mako Hill

Wolfram Alpha: A new way to search the web... or is it?

2009-05-20T06:42:00.002+03:00

Many of us have heard about the new search engine Wolfram Alpha (made by the same folks who are behind Mathematica, the computational software used in mathematical, engineering, and scientific fields). The new search engine only came online yesterday, but has been hyped up for quite a while now. Even before it was open for the public, some people called it "the Google Killer", even without using it themselves, but only based on some articles and demonstrative preview videos released by the developers.

So now that it's out in the open, what is Wolfram Alpha? The new search engine calls itself a "computational knowledge engine". The basic idea is that you type something in the search box and hit the search button. The engine does not return a list of answers as most other search engines do. Instead, it presents facts about the search term(s), summarized and organized in a way that is easy to understand at a glance. The search terms could be anything. For example:

Canada population: will display the population of canada, and charts how it changed over a period of time

Moscow rome: displays some facts about the two cities, including a comparison of their populations, time zones, the distance between them, flight time, etc.

A calculation (e.g. $250+15% or 4.5*log(pi/2)): The engine will compute the answer, and display the entered formula using the actual mathematical terms (e.g. replacing pi with the Greek symbol, using proper fractions, etc.)

A math formula (e.g. x^2 sin(x)): The engine will plot the curve of the formula, compute its roots, and display tons of related information (its derivative, integral, local minimum and maximum, etc.)

and more..

Granted, I think Wolfram Alpha has a neat way of summarizing facts into a nice presentable manner, not to mention the mathematical capabilities (solving equations, plotting functions and expressions, etc.). I admit, this is a major strength, which is not surprising, given the background of Wolfram research. However, I personally think it is far from being a Google killer. In fact, the two engines are totally different in the way they operate, and the information they return.

The down-side: lots of the searches return no results. Some of the searches would return nothing, but if you navigate through the categories then repeat the search, then you'll get a result. This is a flaw in my opinion, and it makes it hard to simply search for something from the main search box. The engine makes up for its lacking database by providing a link to "search the web". However, the link is hidden in the bottom left corner and may not be seen unless someone is actually looking for it.

In my opinion, I think the only real edge that Wolfram Alpha has is the mathematical power. No other free online tools can solve complex equations, plot formulas and functions, or provide this much related mathematical information. If the folks behind this engine want to improve on it, I think they should focus more on this aspect, to make it stand out even more.

Although the summarization and presentation of information is neat, I don't think there is real use to it (besides playing and just seeing how cool it is). For someone looking for some fast information, any existing search engine will probably do the trick. If the user actually wants to research something and get all the facts in a way that makes sense, there is no way to trust the results presented by Wolfram Alpha, especially since it does not offer any information as to the source of these results (which would be required in any self-respecting research).

Finally, Wolfram Alpha is definitely not a Google killer. It is yet another tool for web surfers to add to their toolbox. It is yet to be seen whether it survives and grows to be an actual competitor, or it withers and dies. Either way, it will definitely give the existing search engines something to think about in terms of summarizing and presenting results.

Update: I just found out something that confirms my expectation of Wolfram Alpha's limited use. The Wolfram Alpha Terms of Use state that "The free Wolfram Alpha service is available for ad hoc, personal, non-commercial use only", and that users must attribute results produced by using Wolfram Alpha to the company, and that failing to do so may constitute academic plagiarism or a violation of copyright. I totally agree with Thomas Claburn that the facts (which is what the service provides) cannot be copyrighted. This is like using Microsoft Excel to produce some summarized tables of some information, then having to attribute these results to Microsoft. This restriction will only limit the potential usefulness of Wolfram Alpha.

Please do it right...

2009-02-20T19:30:00.001+02:00

Hi, I'm here trying to get back to life :) I won't make a long intro, let's start...

Data centric applications are widely used. Maintenance can be a piece of cake or a source of pain. Some people tend to break the rules, doing a nasty design that just works for the moment but fails later. Adding more features or maintaining existing ones brings a lot of headaches like inconsistent data and broken constraints. The problem gets bigger when there is no documentation.

So, please do it right... don't depend on people who come after to review your work and correct it. Keep it clean so they can make further improvements, instead of letting them still trapping bugs.

The following tips, though basic & simple, but IMPORTANT. People doing the maintenance feels them by heart.

Enforce Primary Key (PK) and Foreign Key (FK) Constraints:

Heck!! It's an a-b-c database tip. Are there anybody don't enforce PKs?!! Unfortunately, YES. Ignoring PKs and FKs leads to great problems later. It results in inconsistent data. Tables can contain duplicate records, which results in exceptions for queries expecting single value result. Some records may reference non-existing records in other tables, which lead to unexpected results for join queries. Absence of PKs or allowing nulls for them can result in complete records of null values too. Also, absence of FKs can lead to referencing data in wrong tables!!! So, Please do it right and enforce constraints..

Don't rely on users to do things right:

Users usually do mistakes. They usually don't understand that simple mistake (like a duplicate record) can make many things fail. They don't understand how will you suffer to overcome their errors, and bring data to a consistent state. That's why you must enforce constraints and data validation on every operation they do. Even you enforce validation on GUI, you should enforce the constraints on the DB objects too. This makes sure your data is consistent and valid. So, Please do it right and don't rely on users..

Use the appropriate data types:

For every column in your entire database, pick the data type that best suites the values stored in it. Avoid strings for primary keys. Picking strings for PKs leads to performance deterioration for queries involving operations on the PK like joins and multiple match queries. So, Please do it right and use appropriate data types..

Use stored procedures and functions when appropriate:

When there is a common functionality shared among many queries, forms, reports...etc, make use of the stored functions. Some people copy and paste the code as many times as they need it. Any modification later in the functionality has to be applied to all these places, which result in forgetting some places and having them behave differently as they are not updated. Stored procedures and functions saves time as you've to update one place. They also makes it safe as all queries using this functionality will behave the same. So, Please do it right and use stored functions when appropriate..

Use the right trigger on the right objects:

Misplacing a trigger results into unexpected functionality as it fires on wrong actions. Also, someone who is maintaining the application would spend much time trying to figure where is this trigger and why it's firing on these actions. So, Please do it right and use triggers correctly..

Avoid redundant data:

When designing your database, normalize it and avoid redundant data. Redundant data leads to inconsistency and newbies may get confused, what are the correct sources for the data?!! Replicated tables and redundant columns lead to unexpected behavior for different views of the data. Some queries would update table1 while other queries expect to get the same data from table2!! So, Please do it right and avoid redundant data..

Documentation:

Documentation saves much of time when maintaining an application. It help newbies to understand what should be done to fix problems. It helps to understand the structure and design of the application. At least explain the design of the database and describe the contents of each table. Missing the documentation leads to having developers guessing the relations and meaning of different items in the database. These guesses can be wrong, which may lead to wrong decisions. So, Please do it right and document your work..

One big query or Many small queries:

I faced some reports where the data were gotten by multiple small queries. One query gets the master data, and other queries computes the details for each record of the master. When these queries are compiled into one big query, the report loaded much faster. This one is a trade off between performance and simplicity of the code. You should pick the right decision on the basis of your application.

Finally, Please do it right.. If you have further tips, add them in the comments.

Browser Wars

2008-12-22T22:53:00.003+02:00

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...
No wait!! That's another set of wars that we are talking about here, one that does not involve lightsabers and droids. According to Wikipedia, the term "Browser Wars" refers to the competition for dominance in the Web browser marketplace. So far, there has been two major browser wars:

Browser War I (late 1990s)

Main opponents: Netscape Navigator (aka Netscape Communicator) and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)

Highlights:
In order to compete, the two browsers kept on adding features to one-up each other. Each browser had its own implementation of JavaScript (which were not compatible). Each browser had its own set of supported non-standard HTML tags. Adding new features had higher priority over fixing bugs, which resulted in both browsers being somewhat unstable.

Microsoft delivered the winning blow by integrating Internet explorer with its Windows operating system, which made the browser readily available to every Windows user - a move that was broadly criticized.

Effect on the Web experience:
BW-I was a time of Web chaos: shaky Web-standards compliance, frequent browser crashes, and many security holes. It was hard to design Web-sites that could behave similarly on both browsers, and thus it was common for Web designers to display 'best viewed in Netscape' or 'best viewed in Internet Explorer' logos. Some Web-sites even went as far as to work only on one browser or the other. This was indicative of the divergence between the "standards" supported by the browsers and signified which browser was used for testing the pages.

Browser War II (2003 - present)

After Netscape was defeated, they open-sourced their browser code, which led to the formation of the Mozilla Foundation — a community-driven project to create a successor to Netscape. After several years, the new browser "Firefox" was born (version 1.0 was released on 9 November 2004). Since then it has continued to gain an increasing share of the browser market, and became the main competitor against Internet Explorer.

Other contenders joined the war at different points in time, including (but not limited to) Opera, Safari, and the most recent contender, Google Chrome.

BW-II differs from BW-I in a major aspect: The contenders try as much as they can to work under the umbrella of the Web-standards. All browsers have compatible JavaScript engines (except for minor differences), and support more-or-less the same set of widely-recognized HTML (or XHTML) tags. Whenever a new feature is added to a browser, it soon becomes an expected feature in all the others (e.g. tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, phishing filters, etc.). The contenders compete mainly in the following areas:

Browser speed (the time it takes to load pages)

Resource usage (amount of Memory and CPU needed)

Stability

Security (vulnerability to malicious code, holes that can be exploited, etc.)

Until the moment of writing this post, Internet Explorer still has the major market share, but the other browsers (particularly Firefox) are more popular particularly within the IT industry professionals because of serious security flaws in IE, in addition to some of the unique features provided by the other browsers (e.g. Firefox's support of custom extensions, and the multitude of such extensions available online, which makes it possible to personalize the browser to each user's needs). Also, IE seems to be falling behind in terms of browser speed. In a recent browser benchmark comparison done by gHacks.net, IE proved to be the worst among all tested browsers.

Effect on the Web experience:

Unlike BW-I, the current browser war is proving to be in the best interest of the user. The competition is bringing out the best of all competitors, and providing more and more features that help enrich the Web experience. The majority of Web sites today behave exactly the same on all Web browsers, and it is considered a design-flaw if a Web site does not work correctly on a certain browser. Tools are available to encourage (and sometimes enforce) using only the recognized Web-standards when designing a Web site. These standards have been vastly extended since the first browser war, and supporting non-standard elements is no longer an issue.

Grizzly 1.7.0

2008-12-13T01:30:00.001+02:00

Source : http://blogs.sun.com/harshag/entry/grizzly_1_7_0_terminology

Grizzly 1.7.0 - Transport layer Details.

I've been working on integrating Grizzly transport into Glassfish ORB for quite some time now. Long since we were looking for ways and means to improve performance of CORBA request processing at the transport level in both Glassfish and JDK. That included connection management, parsing the messages, encoding and decoding messages etc. When we looked at current implementations in the open sourced field, we could not retrofit our requirements (from IIOP) into the existing frameworks. On top of this, we wanted a performance centric I/O framework. That brought up a new project called Grizzly with submodule framework using java.nio.

Here is a brief definition of Grizzly terminology:

Filter:

A filter is a component when placed in stream filters the stream. The interface tied to this is ProtocolFilter which has 2 methods execute() and postExecute() The filter can also be transformed into various forms based on the needs of the Grizzly framework user. For example, ParserProtocolFilter is designated to read certain number of available bytes from a given stream and then use a given parser implementation object to parse the read byte buffers.

Context:

A context is a place holder object to tell about the current state of event processing in Grizzly framework. Context gets to life at the beginning of selection cycle and ends in the callback handlers. Context has something called recycle() to recycle the state full information. All this happens in another interesting and important class called Controller.

Controller and Event Handling:

Controller is the one which does the very important event handling in Grizzly. Controller takes 2 approaches in handling NIO events. One is, through the callback handlers. And the other is, through filter chain. The filter chain gets executed sequentially until all the filters in the chain are (Chain of responsibility pattern) exhausted or until the current filter says to break the chain at the current instant. After this, all the filters' postExecute() method gets called in a reverse order to take certain appropriate actions while exiting the filter. Please remember that, the controller uses only one approach not both at any given time.

Callbackhandlers are very obvious from the code. The events it can handle are OP_READ, OP_WRITE, OP_CONNECT. Every time there is an event, the particular onRead(0 /onWrite() /onConnect() gets executed based on the type of the event. In order to accomplish this, one needs to first define a connector handler and callback handler. Controller uses something called SelectorHandlers and ConnectorHandlers to process events on the server side and the client side. Take a look at Controller code in Grizzly workspace for better understanding.

ConnectorHandler:

The Connector handler is the one that falls on the client side. It uses callback handlers to do the callback action based on the event types. That means, say, we are writing a client side implementation... in that we know where to contact server (host:port info.) once call to connect(..) is made, a connection is established. ConnectorHandler has specific methods to do reading and writing in both blocking and nonblocking modes.

SelectorHandler:

SelectorHandler basically runs in a separate thread. (can be configured according to onesneeds) and is a listener for a given channel. It handles / accepts events to handler new connection requests. The Controller is the guy which kicks in selector handler's selection cycle. Each selector handler upon selection,delegates the event handling like read, or write or connect with ContextTask (a thing to do) object and places the context task on a queue. Note that, ContextTask is a callable and hence gets called by a next available grizzly worker thread to do the task (callable). This is how each event is processed in Grizzly.

Pipeline (a thread pool):

Grizzly defines a default pool of threads and calls it a pipeline. Users can configure this pool implementation and it's very obvious from the code.

ProtocolChain:

ProtocolChain is a chain of filters. Can be used to read, write and parsingof a given stream from a channel.

--Harsha

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Internet Routing in Space (IRIS)

2008-11-29T00:41:00.001+02:00

Internet Routing in Space, also known as IRIS, is a project being conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense to place an IP (Internet protocol) router on a geostationary satellite. The project is intended for military communications but may eventually be used by the private sector as well. If widely implemented, this technology has the potential to dramatically increase flexibility and traffic handling capability compared with existing satellite Internet systems.

With current satellite Internet technology, transmission of packets between earth-based end users requires that the data be sent from the source end user to the satellite, where it is received and retransmitted by a repeater. The signal then goes down to a centralized router on the surface, then back up to the satellite where it is processed by a second repeater and then sent down to the destination end user. That means every packet must be received and retransmitted at least three times and must make two complete round trips to the satellite. In the IRIS system, the satellite will receive packets directly from the source and transmit them directly to the destination, eliminating all intermediate surface nodes and requiring only one round trip to the satellite. This will reduce the latency, simplify the system, improve reliability and lower the overall maintenance cost.

The IRIS project is scheduled to be completed and the satellite launched in 2009. Cisco Systems is designing the software for the on-board router. The hardware is being built by Intelsat, the largest provider of fixed satellite services worldwide. Overall coordination will be done by the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency.

NASA reported in November 2008 that the Agency had completed a successful test of a deep space communications network for their similar project, Interplanetary Internet.

MORE INFO:
> NASA reports on their first successful test of deep space communications network.
> BBC News describes the basics of the IRIS project.
> Govtech.net has more information about Internet Routing in Space.

Fantistic Contraption...When Physics can be Fun!!!

2008-10-24T02:54:00.001+02:00

While skimming through various blogs, I came across a very interesting post on the How-to Geek. The post was about yet another online flash game, but this time it is based on physics and puzzle solving, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Fantastic Contraption turned out to be an extremely fun game to play. The objective of the game is to move the red object (usually a circular object, but sometimes other shapes) to the red area (called the "goal"). Sometimes there are some obstacles in the way. To achieve the goal, you have to build a "contraption" using the tools at the top of the screen, and use this contraption to move the red object to the goal area. To make things even harder, you can only build your contraption within the light blue area (the workshop).

The games with a large number of levels, each of which has a different arrangement of objects. One good thing about this game is that you don't have to proceed through the level sequentially. If you find yourself stuck at a particular level, you can go to the main menu, and play a different level of your choosing.

You can also save your contraptions (in mid-level, or after you've solved the level), but you have to create an account in order to do this (which is free). You will be given a link that you can share with others so they can directly see your contraption in action. You can also upload your contraptions to the server. Once you solve a level, you can view contraptions built by other users for that particular level. Here are some of the contraptions I've built (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O). I am not listing them in level order, or even including the level, so that I don't spoil your experience with the game.

Warning: The game is very addictive, so make sure you don't lose track of time while playing it.
Have fun!!

Embeded open source java repoting library

2008-09-27T02:27:00.000+02:00

Have you ever need to create a report and want to change it's content or design or send it preameters then you export it as PDF, XLS or CSV from your java code, sure yes.

Open source java library it is now available from JasperSoft company which is the market leader in open source business intelligence tools, the reporting libraries are called 'Jasper Reports '.

Jasper Reports, it is the world's most widely used open source reporting engine.

you can download its JAR from:

http://jasperforge.org/plugins/esp_frs/?group_id=102

then choose the required pakage version, and choose download.

after finishing download you will find jasperreports-version.jar file is located on your hard disk.

You can copy this JAR file under your lib folder under your java project,

Now, sure you need to create you first report using Jasper reports, there is a GUI designer for creating reports by only drag ad drop report components from toolbox.

This designer is called IReport, which simplifies the development of even the most complex reports.

you can download it from this link:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=64348&package_id=64215

and choose your suitable installation, also IReport is now available as a plugin for NetBeans IDE

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=64348&package_id=263429

a tutorial for IReport to start creating reports using it, is avaliable for download from:

http://www.4shared.com/get/53621480/f3076340/ApressTheDefinitiveGuidetoiReport_2007_BBL1590599284.html

and starts to access it from your java code which will be available soon in a new post after you will finish creating your reports using IReport.

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Original Post By : Asmaa Mahmoud "http://www.new.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=6910&post=25848&uid=5425349500#post25848"

I need this baby in a month, send me nine women!!

2008-09-18T00:35:00.002+02:00

Don't be tricked by the title, I really don't need a baby in a month! Here is the story...

Yesterday, I dropped by a post on Joel on Software: "Stack Overflow Launches"... It was talking about launching a collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers called Stack Overflow.

Stack Overflow is not like an ordinary forum, where questions and answers go in the form of a discussion with possibly wrong answers and spams in between! One of the most significant features of Stack Overflow is their voting system, where questions and answers are voted for correctness. Top voted ansewers float over the down voted ones. This helps you getting the desired solution on the top of the page. You can figure more features by visiting Stack Overflow.

Among Joel's post "Stack Overflow Launches":

"...If you’re generally interested in programming and want to learn something new every day, visit the hot tab frequently."

Intersting... I added Stack Overflow's feed to my RSS Reader. And today, I read this question:

"Under what circumstances - if any - does adding programmers to a team actually speed development of an already late project?"

And it was titled: I need this baby in a month - send me nine women! That's the mystery behind the title. The question discusses one aspect of Software Engineering during the management of the project. Answers showed important considerations when attaching new programmers to running projects. For instance:

The proposed individuals to be added to the project must have:
At least a reasonable understanding of the problem domain of the project
Be proficient in the language of the project and the specific technologies that they would use for the tasks they would be given
Their proficiency must /not/ be much less or much greater than the weakest or strongest existing member respectively. Weak members will drain your existing staff with tertiary problems while a new person who is too strong will disrupt the team with how everything they have done and are doing is wrong.
Have good communication skills
Be highly motivated (e.g. be able to work independently without prodding)

You can read the full answer here...

I experienced some of the points in the answer. Indeed, it takes long time to understand the code base, conventions, problem domain...etc of a running project, which can make a great waste of resources and time!!

Other answers mention The Mythical Man-Month. Which is:

a book on software project management by Fred Brooks, whose central theme is that "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." This idea is known as Brooks's law.

Follow the links above through the post, and enjoy! :)

OpenBSD

2008-09-17T08:59:00.000+02:00

OpenBSD is a free open source operating system based upon the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) for UNIX.

The OpenBSD project, coordinated by Theo de Raadt, is known in the programming community for its attention to security. His team is perhaps best known for developing OpenSSH, an open-source secure shell daemon for encrypting network packets.

The project is also known for introducing several important changes to the way the rest of the open source community works, including providing public access to content version control (CVC) repositories and commit (code change) logs. Because OpenBSD is both compact and secure, one of the most common reasons for implementing OpenBSD is as a firewall.

According to OpenBSD.org:

OpenBSD is developed by volunteers. The project funds development and releases by selling CDs and receiving donations from organizations and individuals. These finances ensure that OpenBSD will continue to exist, and will remain free for everyone to use and reuse as they see fit.

The OpenBSD logo and mascot is a pufferfish named "Puffy."

MORE INFO:
> OpenBSD may be downloaded from OpenBSD.org.
> The OpenBSD Foundation supports OpenBSD and related projects like OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, OpenNTPD, and OpenCVS.
> Wikipedia's entry for OpenBSD provides more technical information and history of the distribution.
> Get an executive summary of what's new in OpenBSD 4.1 at the Enterprise Linux Log.

Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-11T01:04:00.001+02:00

TODAY'S WORD

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator under development by CERN, the world's largest organization devoted to particle physics. A particle accelerator, sometimes called an "atom smasher" by lay people, is a device that propels subatomic particles called hadrons at high speeds. Machines such as the LHC make it possible to split particles into smaller and smaller components in the quest for the identification of so-called elementary particles, from which all matter and energy might derive.

Watch a video about the Large Hadron Collider.

The LHC, located at CERN headquarters, conducted its first test today on September 10th, 2008. In operation, the LHC is expected to replicate, on a miniature scale, the conditions existing in the universe a tiny fraction after the Big Bang. Thus, it may be possible to discern what happened in the early evolutional stages of the universe. Among other things, the LHC may yield evidence of further dimensions beyond our familiar four (three spatial dimensions, plus time).

The LHC is expected to help physicists, astronomers and cosmologists answer questions about the nature and origins of matter, energy and the universe. For example:

Is antimatter simply a "mirror image" of matter or is the relationship more complex?

Why does matter seem to predominate over antimatter in the universe?

Why didn't all the matter and antimatter combine long ago, converting the whole universe into energy?

What is the nature of dark matter?

Why do only some particles have mass?

The LHC will use intense magnetic fields generated by superconductivity to accelerate hadrons in a circular path 27 kilometers (about 17 miles) in circumference. The particles will interact with the magnetic fields to gain energy with each revolution. The LHC will be capable of accelerating protons to energy levels of about 14 TeV (trillion electronvolts, where a trillion is equal to 10^12 ) or 2.2 x 10^-6 joules. Nuclei of lead atoms will be accelerated to speeds sufficient to cause collisions having energy levels near 1150 TeV or 1.8 x 10^-4 joules. The electronvolt (eV) is the amount of kinetic energy gained by an electron passing through an electrostatic field producing a potential difference of one volt.

MORE INFO:
> LHC.ac.uk discusses the big questions that may be answered by the LHC.
> CERN maintains an official LHC Web site.
> Scientists will use a worldwide computer network to process data generated by the LHC.
> Petermccready.com maintains an interactive image of the LHC.

Optimizing the conversion of numbers to strings and vise-versa

2008-08-29T07:23:00.005+02:00

Read this interesting article to see how the guys at Mainsoft optimized the conversion of numbers to strings and vise-versa by more than 2.6x. Their goal was to leverage the performance of text-based internet protocol implementations such as XML and HTML.

The article also introduces a valuable comparison to conversion algorithms in .Net. Java. It's a good reminder for all of us to keep looking for improvements and stop taking things for granted. The source code is available too.

TopCoder & KawigiEdit

2008-08-17T23:44:00.001+03:00

Yesterday, I was on an SRM on TopCoder… It is more than one year long since the preceding SRM… I just got the notification email of the SRM, I remembered the past days of Algorithm Competitions and thought… Why do not I participate? It’s Saturday and I am free :-)

15 Minutes before the coding, I’ve no ready environment!! But my friend Ahmed Mounir could help… He sent me an Editor Plug-in for TopCoder’s Arena and the instructions to install it…

That was about me!! So what about TopCoder and KawigiEdit?! Just go on…

TopCoder is a web site providing online algorithm competitions. You compete with people all over the world on time based competitions to solve some problems. It gets you experience and improve your coding skills and the way you think. TopCoder’s Arena is the place where you code, register, challenge and compete with other people on SRMs.

Not only Time Based Algorithm Competitions (known as SRM “Single Round Match”), but also Design and Software Development and Assembly competitions exist. But I only tried the Algorithm competitions. You can get more info from www.TopCoder.com “Just do it & Hit the link :-)”

Okay, as you still patient till this line :-D … let’s move to KawigiEdit…

KawigiEdit is an Editor installed as a Plug-in on TopCoder’s Arena. It has more features and more helpful than the standard editor of the Arena. It comes with templates that generate the structure of your code… You will need to fill in the implementation of the required function. It can also run the test cases for you. You may also save the file locally & access it using another IDE… I did so to use my more friendly IDE, Eclipse…

This is the link to download the Editor… and another for the documentation. Kawigi’s main page is here… As a quick guidance, download the editor, and do the instructions under “Installing KawigiEdit” in the documentation.

Want my advice? Give TopCoder competitions a try… You will never regret –In Shaa’ Allah- Yesterday, Egypt was ranked 30 over the world… Today, I found it in the 29th place. And there are a little more than 150 members from Egypt… You can make it better, Can you?

Building a New Computer

2008-07-21T16:46:00.000+03:00

Although many people are already experts when it comes to building a new computer from scratch, many others are still a bit intimidated by the concept of looking for each component, and putting everything together. For those who actually want to know how to build a computer, the computer help website "The How-to Geek" has put up an excellent tutorial about building a computer from scratch.

The tutorial is mainly divided into five parts (the titles are self-explanatory):

Part 1: Choosing Hardware

Part 2: Putting it Together

Part 3: Setting it Up

Part 4: Installing Windows and Loading Drivers

Part 5: Tweaking Your New Computer

The tutorial is very thorough, and full of pictures and screen-shots which makes it even easier to read and follow. If you are interested to learn about building computers, make sure to check it out.

The History of Programming Languages

2008-07-12T00:56:00.002+03:00

For 50 years, computer programmers have been writing code. New technologies continue to emerge, develop, and mature at a rapid pace. Now there are more than 2,500 documented programming languages! O'Reilly has produced a poster called History of Programming Languages (PDF: 701K), which plots over 50 programming languages on a multi-layered, color-coded timeline.

How It Started

We first saw the "History of Programming Languages" diagram, created by Éric Lévénez, while visiting our French office. We were so taken with the level of detail and the visual impact of viewing 50 years of programming history that we wanted to come up with a way to share it more widely. We started big. We printed it out full-size, all 18 feet of it, on our plotter and ran it along a wall at our Mac OS X Conference last fall. So many people came by to make notations on the diagram that we knew there would be a lot more interest and discussion if we could only get it in a more manageable format. With Éric's permission, we collected comments from our authors, editors, and friends, and rebuilt the file so we could print it at its current dimensions, 39" x 17". Éric maintains a site with his original diagram, change logs, an explanation of how he creates his charts, and links to additional resources such as Bill Kinnersley's Language List of over 2,500 programming languages. Éric also has Windows and Unix historical diagrams that he makes available for non-commercial purposes, all at www.levenez.com.

About the O'Reilly Poster

"Cool" is generally the first thing we heard from people who reviewed our poster. Then came reams of suggestions for additions to the diagram. We made only a small number of changes--in order to keep the file in a relatively manageable state that enables us to print and share the poster--but there is a high level of historical knowledge and personal experience of the events in this poster among our friends, authors, and editors. We hope to inspire and capture your comments and discussion here in our History of Programming Languages Wiki. Please note, however, that we do not intend to update the poster. Our walls aren't big enough.

Getting Your Copy

The poster is available online in PDF format (701k). You can also find full-size copies, while they last, at O'Reilly conferences (http://conferences.oreillynet.com/).

Special Thanks

Thanks to all who reviewed and commented on this poster along the way, including Éric Lévénez, Mark Brokering, Mark Stone, Daniel Steinberg, David Flanagan, Ian Darwin, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Hendrickson, Laurie Petrycki, Geoff Collyer, and Mark Brader.

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URL : http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/languageposter_0504.html

HTML 5

2008-07-08T23:44:00.001+03:00

HTML 5 is the next planned revision of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is a set of markup symbols or codes that can be inserted in files intended for display on Web browsers. In 2007, HTML 5 was adopted by the new HTML working group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This group published the first public draft of HTML 5 in January 2008. Refinements may continue for years before HTML5 becomes a formal recommendation.

HTML 5 is expected to offer numerous improvements over HTML 4, including:

New parsing rules for enhanced flexibility

New attributes

Elimination of outmoded or redundant attributes

Immediate-mode drawing

Drag and drop

Back button management

Timed media playback

Offline editing

Messaging enhancements

Detailed rules for parsing

MIME and protocol handler registration

HTML 5 will be designed so that older browsers that do not support it can safely ignore the new constructs, producing legible Web pages in most cases even if the syntax is not compatible.

Elliote Rusty Harold, an Adjunct Professor at Polytechnic University, wrote on IBM's developerWorks pages that HTML 5 will be:

...instantly recognizable to a Web designer frozen in ice in 1999 and thawed today. There are no namespaces or schemas. Elements don't have to be closed. Browsers are forgiving of errors. A p is still a p, and a table is still a table. At the same time, this proverbial unfrozen caveman Web designer would encounter some new and confusing elements. Yes, old friends like div remain, but now HTML includes section, header, footer, and nav as well.

MORE INFO:
> The W3C has published the technical details of HTML 5.
> The W3C also explains the differences between HTML 4 and HTML 5.
> There's a handy linked index to elements and attributes in the HTML 5 specification.

The Best Freeware List

2008-06-20T18:53:00.000+03:00

For those, like me, who love free software (who doesn't?), it can be hard sometimes finding a good piece of software that does a certain task, especially since these freeware products appear and disappear all the time. This is one scenario that has happened to me personally too many times: I find a nice freeware program, and I use it for a long time. Then at some point, I recommend it to someone, only to find that it has now become a commercial software (and not free anymore), so I have to go and try to find a good freeware product to replace it. If this has ever happened to you, then you know what I mean.

That's why I was very glad when I found Gizmo's Tech Support Alert. This site offers a list of the top freeware products out there. It is classified into categories like:

Security / Privacy / Encryption

Internet: Email / IM / FTP / File sharing / Download managements

Enhancements to Windows / Desktop

Computer maintenance / Performance

System utilities / Backup / Data recovery

Audio / Video / CD / DVD

... and more.

Each category is further divided into subcategories for easy navigation. Each sub-category usually features 3 or 4 products, with a full review showing the pros and cons of each product, so that the reader can make an informed decision of which product to use. The list is also updated constantly, removing products that are not freeware anymore, and adding new software that just proved itself to be worth mentioning. The website also provides a free monthly newsletter (with a paid version that has more stuff in it), and a forum where visitors discuss freeware programs and computer problems.

This site used to be a lone effort by Ian "Gizmo" Richards, who created and maintained a highly popular list of the "46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities", but over time that list grew well beyond 46 and reached the point where it could not be maintained by one person. So, now the website has changed to wiki-style, where it relies on the contribution of dozens of volunteer editors who edit and moderate suggestions from thousands of site visitors. As a result the range of software covered is ever increasing and quality of the reviews ever improving. In some sense, some might think of it as a Wikipedia for Freeware.

At this point, whenever I am looking for a software product in a certain category, this is the first place to check. I wonder how many others do the same. Again, the URL of the website is http://www.techsupportalert.com

Google's New Favicon

2008-06-18T22:05:00.004+03:00

When you are as famous and well-known as Google, the slightest changes in your identity will be noticed by millions. A couple of weeks ago, many people around the globe have noticed that the big capital "G" that was used as a favicon for the Google website was replaced with an unrecognizable lower-case "g" (which is the second "g" in "Google").

Old Favicon

New Favicon

Some people seem to like to new icon, while many others (including myself) seem to prefer the old one. I personally think that the old favicon was instantly recognizable as the initial "G" from "Google", while the new one does not have that quality. For a brand name like Google, I believe it is very important to have a logo (or even something as small as a favicon) that can be recognized.

Google's reason for this change (as mentioned on their blog) is the following:

..we wanted to develop a set of icons that would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices..

They also state that the selection process was not easy, since they had to chose from among more than 300 different permutations. Some of the other alternatives they came up with are:

Seeing these designs, personally I would have chosen one of the more colorful designs with the capital "G" in it, since these two features (the capital "G" and the colors) are what comes to mind when you think Google. However, they also say that this is not the final design, but rather a first step to a more unified set of icons. So, hopefully, they will come up with something better. They also welcome suggestions, so if anyone can come up with a idea for a design, they can submit it here.

So, what do you think about the new favicon? Do you like it or not? and why?

Firefox 3

2008-06-18T02:01:00.003+03:00

Firefox 3 (Fx3 or FF3) is the third version of the popular Web browser released by the Mozilla Corporation. FF3 includes improvements to security, performance, support for developer add-ons and usability.

New features for this version of Firefox include:

One-click bookmarking, in which clicking a "star" button allows a user to quickly add bookmarks from the location bar, file and tag them.
Full zoom for Web pages, including the option to save zoom setting for individual websites.
A new API for microformats that developers can use to build add-ons.
Support for offline Web applications that will work within the browser and synchronize once connectivity is restored.
Resumable downloading, allowing users to continue downloads after interruptions, such as restarting the browser or resetting a network connection.
An add-on Manager that offers improved management of plug-ins and other third-party components.
Updated password management.
Improved graphics and font handling provides rendering improvements in CSS and support for images with embedded color profiles.

Firefox 3 also addresses malware and phishing protection in a number of ways, including:

Malware warnings, which alert users when they visit sites known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malicious software.
Web forgery protection, which prevents the content of pages suspected as Web forgeries from being shown.
Add-ons and plug-in version management, which automatically checks for and disables older, insecure versions.
Support for Vista parental controls, which can be set to disable file downloads.
Improved protection against cross-site scripting and JSON data links.
A site identification button that acts as a color-coded security indicator and displays information about a given site, including the presence of SSL.

Firefox uses the open source Gecko layout engine and is based on the Mozilla browser from which much of its code was originally derived. The source code for Firefox is free, open source software (FOSS) and is released under a tri-license GPL/LGPL/MPL. Mozilla has released Firefox 3 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages.

According to Mozilla's performance tests, Firefox 3 is twice as fast as Firefox 2 and nine times as fast as Internet Explorer 7. Mozilla's memory usage tests found Firefox 3 twice as efficient as Firefox 2 and more than four times as efficient as IE7.

MORE INFO:
> Mozilla is hosting a World Download day for Firefox 3, with hopes of setting a Guinness World Record for most downloaded software on a single day.
> Deb Richardson has posted an excellent Field Guide to Firefox 3.
> Mozilla also hosts a webpage for the Firefox 3 development community.
> Mozilla's Firefox blog features links, resources and commentary about the upcoming release.

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Robotic Personality

2008-05-30T21:41:00.001+03:00

Robotic personality is an advanced aspect of artificial intelligence (AI) in which smart machines display idiosyncratic human behavior. In particular, "personality" refers to the ability of a robot or personal computer (PC) to interact with people emotionally as well as on a logical level.

The notion of robotic personality is based on anthropomorphism, a tendency for people to think of certain objects or machines as having human-like characteristics. Anthropomorphism is not new. In the 1800s, Charles Babbage conceived a device called the Analytical Engine that seemed as if it would have a sense of "aliveness." Today, computers and robots have brought anthropomorphism out of the realm of science fiction. Robots can be programmed to rescue a human from a burning building or to administer medication in a hospital. High-end PC programs can learn from their mistakes (or from the errors of their users), improving performance over time. Machines can generate order from chaos, one of the prime criteria scientists use to define life.

In science-fiction books and movies, computers and androids are easy to anthropomorphize. A well-known example of anthropomorphism with respect to a computer occurs in the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this story, a spacecraft is controlled by Hal, a computer that becomes paranoid. A fictional android with especially human-like characteristics is Data from the series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Owners of high-end personal robots sometimes think of the machines as companions.

MORE INFO:
> The Guardian (UK) describes how robots might interact with humans in the future.
> Hammacher Schlemmer distributes an interactive robot panda with multiple personalities.
> Maja Mataric is developing a care-giving robot with a personality.

VerveEarth - Surf the web by geoghraphy

2008-05-26T23:24:00.001+03:00

Checking my email today...
My eyes stopped on that subject "Amr Kabardy's Blog, Egypt & VerveEarth"!! What is this?

I opened it to find:

Amr,
Your blog Amr Kabardy's Blog caught our attention. I'm the founder of a recently launched startup for bloggers. We are searching the internet for the world's blogs by geography, and we found yours for Egypt. I would like to invite you to our site which....etc

WOW! So, What is that site? Here we go...

VerveEarth.. is a new idea for surfing the web. You surf the web according to the geographical locations. You brows content via browsing and interactive map of the world; You can check what is going around in your region; You can check what are people blogging about in some region; You can share with friends; You can keep an eye on your favorites; You can register and link your blog, it may get more traffic to your blog :) ...and so on.

Give it a look, it still in the beta! but the idea looks interesting... Now, you see pages linked to their locations around the world :)

Here is the link: www.VerveEarth.com and the FAQ
And this is a link to my destination on VerveEarth :D
Have fun :)

رسمياً ، ويندوز اكس بي على حاسبات XO المعدة للأطفال ..

2008-05-17T20:12:00.004+03:00

أعلنت مايكروسوفت أخيرا عن دعم نظام ويندوز اكس بي لأجهزة OLPC XO (حاسب لكل طفل) رسمياً ، بعد أن أمضت أكثر من عام في تطوير اكس بي متوافق مع XO .نسخة XO الداعمة لويندوز اكس بي ستكون متوفرة في الأسوا ق ابتداء من شهر يونيو المقبل. وسيأتي معها نظام لينكس السابق الذي كان يعمل عليه الجهاز.

نظام الاكس بي المصمم للXO سيدعم الخصائص الموجودة في الجهاز مثل خاصية e-book reading والكتابة عبر القلم (writing pad) والكاميرا ونظام الـWiFi القياسي.حسب ماتقول مايكروسوفت فإن نسخة ويندوز اكس بي في XO تحتوي على كامل الخصائص الموجودة في أي جهاز عادي يدعم نظام الاكس بي.

سعر الجهاز سيكون مرتفع قليلا لوجود نظام XP فيه ، سعر الجهاز 200$ مع نظام XP ستكون تكلفته زائدة 3$ إضافية بسبب ترخيص الويندوز ، بينما النسخة الأخرى التي سيكون فيها إقلاع ثنائي (dual boot) اكس بي ولينكس ستكون تكلفتها زائدة 7$ ثمن القطع الإضافية التي تتيح التعامل مع أكثر من نظام.

بالتأكيد هناك الكثيرون ممن هم غير راضون عن الأمر برمته ..

منقوول من http://www.gadgetsarabia.com/2008/05/16/olpc-running-xp/

Hardy Heron

2008-05-16T19:09:00.001+03:00

Hardy Heron is the code name for version 8.04 of Ubuntu, the open source Debian-based Linux distribution. It is widely recognized as one of the most easy-to-use desktop Linux distributions for novice users. Canonical Software, the sponsor for Ubuntu, has released Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition to target the enterprise IT market, competing with Red Hat and SuSE Linux.

Hardy Heron can be run on a PC without uninstalling other operating systems. It may be downloaded or started up from a LiveCD inserted while Windows is running. When users open Hardy Heron for the first time, a virtualization application called Wubi will allow them to create a virtual Ubuntu installation inside of Windows. The next time they boot up, Ubuntu will be available as a boot option.

In general, Hardy Heron improves on earlier versions of Ubuntu by upgrading previous functions and software rather than adding new features. The operating system includes support for CD burning, a BitTorrent client, more wireless drivers and virtual network computing (VNC). Users that dualboot into either Windows and Ubuntu are also now able to read and write directly to the Windows partition. The update also features stronger encryption and improved support for third-party plugins and drivers.

Hardy Heron is the second version of the operating system to be released under Ubuntu's Long Term Support (LTS) agreement. LTS includes security updates for five years and three years of desktop support. Hardy Heron was released in April 2008 and succeeded Gutsy Gibbon.

MORE INFO:
> Learn which distributions of Linux have a GUI install at WhatIs.com.
> You can download the most recent version of Hardy Heron at Ubuntu.com.
> SearchEnterpriseLinux has a guide for learning more about Linux distributions.
> You can learn more about Hardy Heron at this wiki on Ubuntu.com.

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Bibliotheca Alexandrina - Behind Closed Doors

2008-05-06T23:03:00.000+03:00

Here is the story!

As we are approaching graduation in about 1 month In Shaa' Allah, Some companies are interviewing and hiring. Some companies are announcing themselves. Some companies are showing up in the market, taking the cover off their projects, attracting fresh minds to work with them :)

Here we go... The last Sunday -May 4, 2008- ICT department of Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) made a tour for my class... A tour Behind the Closed Doors of BA... A tour to reveal their projects... A tour to show up the stuff they work on... A tour to express what makes them busy... A tour that attract us to work for BA... So, after this great tour, what did we see? Here are some about their projects:

Virtual Immersive Science & Technology Applications (VISTA)
Well, It's a Virtual Reality applications, taking you inside the model, giving you the sense you are there in a real world... Using a special glasses, you can see 3D objects on 4 projector screens... By visualization of models, VISTA can be helpful with many fields of science. For example:

VISTA can help in the study of the effect of wind on the Sphinx using a 3D simulation that shows which areas of the Sphinx are most affected by the wind.
VISTA can help in Architecture too, a model of the BA is built. You can navigate throw it, even inside the building, emphasizing every single detail on walls, floors...etc
VISTA can help in Chemistry. Studying how atoms move, joint and split inside on the state of chemical atoms.

Check here VISTA website for more information, Demos, VISTA Projects...etc

Internet Archive
Hey, Web pages on the Internet are being modified, updated, removed and added frequently. Consider how would it be annoying if you want to go back to some page you've already read, but unfortunately the page is removed or modified so you can't get the desired info. With Internet Archiving, this problem can be solved. BA is proud to have on of the two copies of the Internet Archive allover the world. Personally, I found an older version of my homepage using their URL search.

Well, You can check the Internet Archive here.

Hmmm, I don't wanna make it long for you, I'm just talking briefly about two more projects.

Universal Networking Language (UNL)
The idea is that it would be much helpful if anyone can read any book in his preferred language -even the book is already written in another language- So, what about translation from language to another. It can be awful and hard. Consider that you want to translate 5 books in 5 different languages to the other 4 languages!! You'll have to run the translation process 20 times!! Hah, that's too much. Here came the concept; By using a UNL syntax each book is transfered once into the UNL syntax and then using a UNL compiler, the desired translated version of the book is output. Well, this seems easier. The UNL is describing semantics and not syntax of different languages.

Check here for more information.

Digital Asset Repository (DAR)
What is the DAR? I quoted the answer for you...

The Digital Assets Repository (DAR) is a system developed by ISIS to create and maintain the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's digital collections. DAR acts as a repository for all types of digital material (obtained from the Library or acquired from other sources), preserving and archiving digital media, and providing public access to digitized collections through web-based search and browsing facilities.

More information about DAR is here.

This is not all what we saw. We've been to the servers rooms, digitization rooms...etc But the post is getting too long :)
Wanna know more! Go here to the ISIS (International School Information Science) website, it will tell you what you need to know :-) All these projects are part of the ISIS work.

Note: All links on this post are last accessed on May 6, 2008

16 Ways to Keep A Razor- Sharp Focus at Work

2008-05-06T01:15:00.000+03:00

Focus is something of a novelty these days. We’ve got cellphones for texting and calls, IM, Twitter, Email, RSS feeds, Facebook, Myspace… the list goes on and on. If you don’t have ADD before you start working online, it seems it’s almost inevitable thanks to these inputs. If you’re a web worker who uses the Internet for the majority of the day, you’re especially at risk for losing focus.

Focus is something that must be fought for. It’s not something that automatically switches on when you want to. You have to make sure your surroundings are perfect for working if you want to be focused. Here’s a few ways I’ve found this to work:

Use offline tools. Paper products, pens, and other physical tools are a Godsend for those of us who have a hard time focusing throughout the work day. They’re so simple that we can use them quickly, without having to worry about becoming distracted.
Take more breaks. More breaks = More productivity. It may sound wrong, but it’s true. Breaks allow us to re-group our thoughts and focus for the task at hand. They also keep us fresh so that we don’t end up burning out after only a few hours work.
Smaller tasks to check off. When you’re planning your day, make sure that your “action steps” (aka items in the checklist) are small actions. Instead of “Paint living room”, try breaking it down into many tasks, like “buy paint, buy rollers, pick colors” etc.
Keep a steady pace. Don’t try to do to much. Keeping the pace manageable allows you to keep your focus. Unfortunately, people can confuse this with “Work till you drop without breaks”. See number 2.
Keep a daily “purpose” card. It’s pretty easy to get lost staring at the computer all day long. We’ll find rabbit holes to wonder down (ie. Youtube, Myspace, etc.) if we’re not careful. Having your daily purpose card gives you clarity and a reminder as to what you’re doing today.
Develop the mindset that the computer is only a tool. It’s easy to try and use the computer for too much. At its core, the computer is merely a tool (albeit a freakin’ awesome one) that allows to do work more efficiently. If we’re using it as something more than that, (like as a solution for your life), you’ll ultimately fail. It’s like trying to eat a steak dinner with only a spoon.
Plan your day to the T. If you’re finding sporadic periods of laziness throughout the day, it could be because you don’t take enough breaks (see #2), and you don’t have the day mapped out as efficiently as you could. Make sure your list of todos has lots of small, actionable steps that can be done quickly. This will gives a really satisfying feeling when you’re crossing things off your list like crazy.
Notice your lazy routines. Everyone has recurring lazy spots throughout the day. Plan to have your breaks for those times. You’re going to be lazy then anyway, right?
Plan the night before. Planning the night before is a great way to really get focused on the next day. “Sleeping” on your tasks and goals for the following day can really help your mind expect what’s going to happen the next day. Essentially, you’re preparing your mind for the following day. Advanced focus.
Turn off extra inputs. These are IM and email for me, but we all have our Achilles heel. Completely turn off any distracting piece of technology that you own. Every one of these inputs tries to steal bits of your focus. And they won’t rest until they do.
Set time limits for tasks. There’s no motivation like a deadline. Giving yourself real deadlines is a great way to stay motivated and focused on the task. Given the fact that we human are natural procrastinators, it’s no surprise that we’ll take as long as we’re allowed to finish something. Setting real but attainable limits is a great way to keep the project humming, so to speak.
Keep a journal of what you did throughout the day. I like to use a moleskine notebook for my lists just so I can go back and review it every now and again, to see what I’ve done. Knowing how far you’ve come can keep you sharp and motivated to finish.
Use programs to track where you spend your time. This is a real eye-opener. Knowing just how much time you spend every day/week/month on a certain site or with a certain program can quickly show you where your priorities lie. I recommend Rescue Time, but there are many others.
Visualize the day in the morning, before it starts. A little pre-work meditation on the day’s events is a great way to start the day off focused and productive. Don’t worry about a full 30 minute session, a quick review before you start the day is fine.

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How to Protect Yourself from Phishing?

2008-04-30T01:29:00.003+03:00

For those who don't know what phishing means, Wikipedia defines phishing as:

"an attempt to acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication."

The most common form of phishing is when someone receives an "urgent" email asking them to take immediate action to prevent some impending disaster. Here are some examples:

"Our bank has a new security system. Update your information now or you won't be able to access your account."

"We couldn't verify your information; click here to update your account."

Once a person clicks on the provided link, they are taken to a webpage that looks exactly like the legitimate web site that they know (e.g. the website of their bank). Because the page looks familiar, people enter their username, password, or other private information on the site, not knowing that they have just given their information to someone unknown, who can now use this information to hijack their account, steal their money, or open up new lines of credit in their name. They just fell for a phishing attack.

Google just issued a warning on their official blog, to warn people from these phishing emails. According to this post, you can reduce the chances of being a phishing victim by following these steps:

Be careful about responding to emails that ask you for sensitive information

Go to the site yourself, rather than clicking on links in suspicious emails

If you're on a site that's asking you to enter sensitive information, check for signs of anything suspicious

Be wary of the "fabulous offers" and "fantastic prizes" that you'll sometimes come across on the web

Use a browser that has a phishing filter

You can read the details of these steps here. In addition, there are several quizzes online to test whether you can differentiate between a legitimate webpage (or email) and a phishing one. Just type "phishing IQ quiz" in your favorite search engine, and enjoy!!

Nile University: Wireless Intelligent Networks

2008-04-16T09:06:00.001+02:00

For the last three days, I've been attending the conference on wireless intelligent networks organized by the Nile University in the Smart Village. The conference was held under the auspices of Dr. Tarek Kamel, the minister of communications and information technology. Ohio State and RICE universities also contributed to the conference. The conference was followed by a WARP workshop, but only a limited number of the attendees was invited.

It was a great initiative from the Nile University to introduce this interesting field to the academic community in Egypt. University students were also invited to get exposed to the ongoing research in wireless networks and get in touch with the world leaders in this technology. You can find all the information you need about the event on the conference website. The conference presentations should be available soon.

The conference was more oriented to EE topics. As a CS undergraduate, I had some difficulty following up with some talks, but it was a good experience after all. I talked to some of the speakers about the role of CS students in this field and here is what I got:

"The middle east is going to become very powerful both using and developing technology. There is going to be a tremendous need for better ideas," said Prof. A. Paulraj. He also mentioned some topics of interest regarding mobile technology including: powerful processes that consumed little power, new architectures that saves power using techniques like clock gating, more user friendly interfaces suitable for dealing with more data, security and clean slate internet.

"You should take your studies very seriously," said Prof. A. El Gamal.

"Go outside traditional education. Think outside the box. Whatever you learn isn't just courses, you should find points of interlinking between the things you learn. Think about the applications of what you study. Think about services and how it can be provided in a systematic and organized manner," said Prof. M. Eltoweissy.

"If you want to make something outstanding in networks, you have to combine the knowledge from both EE and CE. Without understanding the physical layer, your work will be rather theoretical," said Prof. A. Abozeid.

Finally, I would like to mention Prof. Hesham El Gamal and the Nile University students for their efforts in organizing this conference.

old games, great memories...

2008-03-27T07:02:00.004+02:00

Enjoy your trip back in time :) ... start here http://www.bestoldgames.net/eng/

so, what was your favorite game :D ?

Probabilistic Chips

2008-03-21T02:14:00.004+02:00

watch this interesting video! i liked the speaker way too much...

do you think it's really important that every calculation you make gives a correct result? of course it is !! but maybe not for all applications, let's see...

for example, if you're making a bank transaction, does it really matter the number of pennies or cents? what about computer simulations? it's already based on probabilistic models, so maybe a little bit of randomness in the results won't hurt too.

still not convinced? think about a DVD player generating many frames per second, if it messed up some pixels in a number of frames, it won't degrade the overall viewing experience, so maybe signal processing and sensor applications can find advantages to that new technologies.

but why should we bother developing new technologies given the undertaken risks in tolerating the incorrect results? that's because this can significantly reduce the power consumption without compromising user experience.

researchers are now developing a new type of transistors called PCMOS or Probabilistic-CMOS that will be available in 5 years, by making hardware a little bit unstable, we can realize the required randomness while significantly reducing the consumed power. actually this topic is very new that i can't find many articles about it, maybe you can check these links about a new embedded system architecture based on PCMOS, and a demo of PCMOS based DSP.

i think that's a very revolutionary approach in chip design, let's see what u think about that...

Setup your Symbian C++ Development Environment on WindowsXp

2008-03-18T23:53:00.012+02:00

this semester, we're studying Symbian OS Development for mobile phone software, the course started with C++ development using Carbide C++ and will move later to J2ME, we are currently interested in the S60 platform.

preparing for my next lab assignment, i invite you to join me in installing Carbide C++ on my WindowsXp PC, we'll proceed as follows:

1. install ActivePerl-5.6.1 (required to build your projects) (this setup adds some env variables).
2. install S60 SDK for Symbian, i don't recommend beta versions.
3. install JRE (required by the Carbide Eclipse-based IDE).
4. install Carbide C++.
5. for console apps to run, you'll need to add "textshell" in a separate line at the beginning of your "{SDK_PATH}\Epoc32\Data\epoc.ini" file.then open the Carbide C++ and create a new Symbian OS C++ project-> Generic Symbian OS-> Basic Console Application(EXE) build and run. Let's call this first project "Test"

Troubleshooting:

1. when i first tried to run, i got this error "BLDMAKE ERROR: Platform ARMV5 not supported by \Symbian\Carbide\workspace\Test\group\BLD.INF" i found that the BLD.INF file contained the project information specially the platform details, as a windows user you expect that to be: "PRJ_PLATFORMS WINSCW GCCE" i found it was "PRJ_PLATFORMS DEFAULT" u can change it manually but to avoid doing that everytime i found it can be customized in the Carbide under Windows-> Preferences-> Carbide.C++-> Platform Filtering Preferences where i unchecked everything except WINSCW and GCCE.

update: i found later that you can choose not to install the ARMV5 and GCCE in the SDK setup and everything will still work fine for you - as far as we are concerned.

2. Windows Vista users may face other problems but i can't cover everything here, however i can say that the Symbian online community is very active and you should be able to find the solution to ur problem after a simple search, just be patient it may seem difficult at the beginning.

next time we'll go through our first console application! have fun!!!

OpenDisc - Free Software to Download

2008-03-06T22:53:00.000+02:00

Are you a fan of free, open-source software?
If yes, then please continue reading. Otherwise...well...also continue reading, you might change your mind!!

A while ago, I was surfing the net, and I came across the OpenDisc project. This is basically an ongoing collection of high quality open-source software for Windows, classified into categories, such as: Design, Internet, Multimedia, Utilities, etc.

The programs in this collection include (click here for the complete list):

Blender: an advanced 3D graphics modeling program

The GIMP: the open-source alternative for Adobe Photoshop (although a bit hard to learn)

Azureus: a powerful BitTorrent protocol client

FileZilla: a fast and reliable FTP client and server

Firefox: web browser

Audacity: an audio editing program

VLC: a media player that supports a lot of audio and video file-types

OpenOffice.org: a full-featured office suite including a word processor, spreadsheet, web page editor and presentation program.

and many more...

Of course all these programs can be downloaded from their corresponding websites, but I think it is a good idea to group them all into one collection that can be downloaded from one location. The whole package can be downloaded as an ISO image that can be easily written to a CD. Go to http://theopendisc.com/ for more information or to download the package.

Also, another related project is the OpenEducationDisc, which is similar to the main OpenDisc collection, except that it claims that it focuses on providing students with quick, easy and powerful tools specially selected to solve their educational needs. However, I personally don't see much difference between the two collections (except for 3 or 4 science and mathematics programs). The whole list of programs can be found here.

Still, I think it's a good idea, and I'm sure more and more programs will be added to the list in the future. The project team is open for suggestions, and users can suggest programs on the forum.

ANT

2008-03-06T01:31:00.001+02:00

Are you creating large projects? Do you see the building process it complicated? Do you have to repeat many steps each time you build your project? Have you thought of a way to do this in one step? Apache Ant (or simply called Ant) can do this for you.

So what is Ant? I quoted this definitions for you:

"Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, but without Make's wrinkles." [http://ant.apache.org/ accessed on March 6, 2008]

"Apache Ant is a software tool for automating software build processes. It is similar to make but is written in the Java language, requires the Java platform, and is best suited to building Java projects." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Ant accessed on March 6, 2008]

If you are using Eclipse, then you already have an Ant plugin installed with your Eclipse. Ant is based on an XML build file. Each Ant build file contains some targets and each target encapsulates one or more tasks. Ant has some built in tasks like javac, jar, exec... etc and you can also extend it using Java classes creating your own custom tasks.

Well, this post won't be a tutorial on how to use Ant or the structure of an Ant build file; But I am going to tell you about my experience with Ant, so you can see how powerful is it.

During my internship at Easy Dialog on summer 2007, I was asked -as a training- to create an Ant custom task that inserts the project build information (project name, build date, time, user name...etc) into a database. So, I defined a custom task and created a Java class that takes the information and store them into the database through JDBC. So, whenever this custom task is called by Ant during build, the project build info is stored in the database.

Another time while working in my graduation project, we needed to create a Signed Applet. To create the signed applet, we've to do many steps: Build the applet classes, Export the applet into a Jar file, and signing the Jar file using jarsigner tool. Fortunately, there is a built in Ant task for signing a Jar file. So, I created an Ant build file that contained three targets:

A target for compiling the source files and getting the class files.
A target for archiving the .class files into a Jar file. This target depends on the compilation target.
A target for signing the Jar file, which depends on the second target.

With the third target set as the default one in the Ant build file, and using Eclipse, I can get the signed Jar file from the source code by just one button click! Do you see how easy is this? :)

If you want to learn more about Ant, just follow these links [accessed on March 6, 2008]:

لغة ج للبرمجة باللغة العربية

2008-03-04T00:10:00.001+02:00

عنوان قد يكون مضحك لكم يا رفاق العمل .... أليس كذلك ؟

ربما للوهلة الأولى نعم أتفق معكم ..... قد يكون صعبا على من تفتحت عيناه على البرمجة فلم ير إلا لغات إنجليزية وعلى حد علمى كلها كذلك حتى الآن

ولكنها فكرة جيدة بلا شك من وجهة نظرى محاولة تعريب لغة البرمجة

قرأت عن لغة ج منذ فترة ليست بالقصيرة لكنى فشلت فى استخدامها ثلاث مرات على ما أذكر بسبب مشاكل فى اللغة فى ويندوز إكس بى

واليوم هى أول مرة أنفذ على جهازى المتواضع برنامج مكتوب بلغة برمجة عربية !!!! ولم أتصور أنى سأفعل يوما ما

دعنا نرى الأمر من زاوية اخرى غير الضحك والتهكم

دعنا ننظر إليها كمحاولة مبدأية قد يكتب لها النجاح أو الفشل وقد تحتاج إلى سنوات وسنوات من العمل والتعديل والابتكار والإبداع و.... إلخ

ولكن من طلب منا أن نفنى أعمارنا فيها .... دعنا نلقى عليها نظرة ... ومن يكمنه المشاركة فليشارك ... ومن يقتنع بالفكرة فليمض

من قال أن العالم أعجمى أبد الدهر .... ربما يجتاج بناء نظم حاسب مماثلة أو قريبة من تلك فى العالم المتقدم إلى 1000 أو 2000 سنة

فإذا بدأنا الآن وكل وضع القليل سنصل بعد 2000 سنة وإذا لم نيدأ لن نصل أبداً

على أى الاحوال أنا غير مسموح لى التحدث فى شئ ليس له علاقة بالحاسب ومجالاته المختلفة هنا لأنى أنوى نشره على مدونة القسم إن شاء الله

وأرجوا المعذرة فى أخطأ اللغة العربية فأنا للأسف لست من الأقوياء فيها

دى روابط اللغة
الصفحة الرئيسية
http://www.jeemlang.com/index.php
كتاب التعريف
http://www.jeemlang.com/documentation/webframe.html

ده البرنامج اللى أنا شغلته النهاردة

! برنامج لحساب مضروب عدد صحيح

المتحول ن : صحيح

المتحول ص ، ع : صحيح

أجعل ع = 1

أكتب "أدخل عدداً صحيحاً لتعرف قيمة مضروبه :" ، سطر

أقرأ ن

أجعل ص = ن

أكرر طالما ص > 1

{

أجعل ع = ع × ص

أجعل ص = ص - 1

}

أكتب ن ، "! =" ، ع

Make3D: Convert your image into 3d model

2008-02-27T19:19:00.000+02:00

Today, While I was browsing my RSS reader... I stopped when my eyes picked this title "Make3D: Turn a 2D Picture Into a 3D Model". I followed the link to be impressed by what I saw.

Make3D is a service provided by Stanford University. Make3D takes a single two-dimensional image, process it, and creates a "fly around" three-dimensional model. You can then view the three-dimensional model and feel the depths of the pixels in the image.

"The service is based on an algorithm created by Stanford students Andrew Ng, Ashutosh Saxena and Min Sun that won the best paper award at the 3D recognition and reconstruction workshop at the International Conference on Computer Vision in Rio de Janeiro in October 2007." [Make3D: Turn a 2D Picture Into a 3D Model, accessed on: Feb 27, 2008]

Make3D uses powerful machine learning techniques, to learn the relation between small image patches and their depth and orientation. This allows it to model 3-d structures such as slopes of mountains or branches of trees. [Make3D home page, accessed on Feb 27, 2008]

I created and account and gave it a try. Result of my trial doesn't look so good but they have other models in the Gallery which look so good. Here is my try:
I uploaded this...

and I got this 3D model...

Just follow this link to Make3D home page, and you will find other links to the information you may need. You can view their publications in this area of 3D image construction; You can download their code; You can navigate to the FAQ for how it works and other questions; You can browse their Gallery; You can create an account and upload your images to get their 3D model; ...etc

Before I end this post, I would like to highlight that one of the graduation projects this year in class 2008, Computer and Systems Engineering Department, Alexandria University is working in this area -3D image construction- let's hope them the best of luck and wish we can see something impressive by the end of this semester.

Quantum Computers

2008-02-26T20:25:00.003+02:00

Quantum Computer:
It is any device for computation that makes direct use of distinctively quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. The word “quantum” came from the Latin word which means "how much". In quantum mechanics, it refers to a discrete unit that quantum theory assigns to certain physical quantities, such as the energy of an atom. Let's have some notes:

Quantum entanglement is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects have to be described with reference to each other, even though the individual objects may be spatially separated.
A quantum state is a mathematical object that fully describes a quantum system. Quantum states can be statistically mixed, corresponding to an experiment involving a random change of the parameters. When performing a certain measurement on a quantum state, the result is in general described by a probability distribution.
Quantum superposition is the fundamental law of quantum kinematics. It defines the allowed state space of a quantum mechanical system. For example, if a particle can be in position A and position B, it can also be in a state where it is an amount "3i/5" in position A and an amount "4/5" in position B. To write this, people usually say:
W) = 3/5 i A) + 4/5 B)
Bits vs. QuBits: Consider first a classical computer that operates on a 3-bit register. At any given time, the bits in the register are in a definite state, such as 101. In a quantum computer, however, the qubits can be in a superposition of all the classically allowed states. In fact, the register is described by a wave function:
W) = a 000) + b 001) + .........+ h 111)
Where the coefficients a, b, c... h are complex numbers whose amplitudes squared are the probabilities to measure the qubits in each state. For example, is the probability to measure the register in the state 010.

Power of Quantum Computers

Quantum Computers can solve any problem of these four properties:

1. The only way to solve it is to guess answers repeatedly and check them,

2. There are n possible answers to check,

3. Every possible answer takes the same amount of time to check, and

4. There are no clues about which answers might be better: generating possibilities randomly is just as good as checking them in some special order.

As an example, Integer Factorization is believed to be computationally infeasible with an ordinary computer for large integers that are the product of only a few prime numbers. A quantum computer could solve this problem more efficiently than a classical computer using Shor's algorithm to find its factors. So a lot of military agents provide massive funds for the experiments on that field of science.

For now, it is still a field of research and we don’t yet have a really effective & practical model of a quantum computer.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer
First "Commercial" Quantum Computer Solves Sudoku Puzzles: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=BD4EFAA8-E7F2-99DF-372B272D3E271363

Signed Java Applets

2008-02-16T20:33:00.002+02:00

Hey, welcome back with a new blog !! today I am talking about both Java and web, more clearly Java Applets

Let us see the problem. Days ago, I was developing a Java Applet that capture a snapshot for Desktop and send it to Flash movie embedded in the same HTML page to provide Desktop Sharing (viewing share not remote access) facility for our web application. I finished developing the applet on Eclipse IDE and it was running well. When embedding it in HTML page, it gave java.security.AccessControlException: access denied (java.awt.AWTPermission createRobot)
(as I used AWT package to capture the screen). So, what is the problem ?!!

I surfed the net for such problem and it was the first time to deal with Java security policy. This policy resides in java.policy file located at $JAVA_HOME\jre\lib\security. Problem is that Applets, unlike Applications, are not trusted by default by Java security policy. It is restricted for some operations like accessing the local file system, asking for socket connection,... etc. The solution is what called Signed Java Applet.

Before completing with Java Signed Applet, let us see why the applet run on Eclipse IDE the first time. When running the applet in Applet Viewer through Eclipse, Eclipse generates a policy file in the folder contains this applet called java.policy.applet and associate it with the applet. The content of the file (for my applet) was as following:

/* AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED ON Tue Apr 16 17:20:59 EDT 2002*/
/* DO NOT EDIT */

grant {
permission java.security.AllPermission;
};

It is clear that it allows the developer applet to do everything assuming that developers (which use Eclipse IDE) are mature enough to take care about disasters may harm their local computers. So everything is running on Applet Viewer.

Java Signed Applet is an applet associated with a digital certificate. Digital certificates are authored by trustworthy authorities. Signing an Applet needs to get a certificate from one of these authorities, which is most of time costs money for sure, so users can trust your applet and give it permission to do its operation. Digital certificate contains the holder party(which is you in this case) besides the certificate authority (e.g. Sun MicroSystems). No specific authorities monopoly giving certificates, but companies have good reputation or something like that can give this certificate. You can create your own certificate for developing and testing issues.

After singing the applet, browser will pop up a dialog to users when the applet is loading displaying the digital certificate associated with the applet and let the user permit the applet to be authorized on his computer or reject the certificate which let the applet behave like unsigned one.

We may talk about digital certificates in details later; but at a glance, it depends on public key encryption algorithms (e.g. RSA algorithm, click here to read more about RSA) that generates a pair of public and private keys and use this to verify the validity of the certificate within its expiration period.

Now, let us see how to sign our applets with our own digital certificate for development purposes:

1. Create your code for the applet as usual.
It is not necessary to set any permissions or use security managers in
the code.

2. Install JDK 1.5
Path for use of the following commands: $JAVA_HOME\bin
(commands are keytool, jarsigner)
Password for the keystore is any password.

3. Generate key:
keytool -genkey -keyalg rsa -alias tstkey
Enter keystore password: ******* (any password)
What is your first and last name?
[Unknown]: Your Name
What is the name of your organizational unit?
[Unknown]: YourUnit
What is the name of your organization?
[Unknown]: YourOrg
What is the name of your City or Locality?
[Unknown]: YourCity
What is the name of your State or Province?
[Unknown]: YS
What is the two-letter country code for this unit?
[Unknown]: US
Is CN=Your Name, OU=YourUnit, O=YourOrg, L=YourCity, ST=YS, C=US
correct?
[no]: yes

(wait...)

Enter key password for tstkey
(RETURN if same as keystore password):

(press [enter])

4. Export key: keytool -export -alias tstkey -file tstcert.crt

Enter keystore password: *******
Certificate stored in file tstcert.crt

5. Encapsulate your applet in a JAR file (click here to read how to create JAR files).

6. Sign JAR:
jarsigner signedApplet.jar tstkey
Enter Passphrase for keystore: *******

8. Verifiy Signing: jarsigner -verify -verbose -certs signedApplet.jar

130 Thu Feb 12 13:04:12 GMT+02:00 2008 META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
183 Thu Feb 12 13:04:12 GMT+02:00 2008 META-INF/TSTKEY.SF
920 Thu Feb 12 13:04:12 GMT+02:00 2008 META-INF/TSTKEY.RSA
Thu Feb 12 12:58:28 GMT+02:00 2008 META-INF/
smk 849 Thu Feb 12 12:49:04 GMT+02:00 2008 SignedApplet.class

X.509, CN=Your Name, OU=YourUnit, O=YourOrg, L=YourCity, ST=YS, C=US
(tstkey)

s = signature was verified
m = entry is listed in manifest
k = at least one certificate was found in keystore
i = at least one certificate was found in identity scope

jar verified.

9. Create HTML file for use of the Applet using tag

<"applet" code="SignedApplet.class" width=100 height=140 archive="signedApplet.jar">"</"applet">

where signedApplet.jar reside next to HTML file and SignedApplet.class encapsulated in it.

10. Run HTML page and test your applet.

I tested it on my PC using JDK 1.5 Update 8 to sign the applet and take the applet on my laptop and run well.

I hope this helps.

Prallel Multi-Threaded Lock-Free Programming Session

2008-02-13T23:49:00.000+02:00

today we had a session by eng.Emad Ali - Software Design Engineer(SDE) at Microsoft Corp. PFX Team, where he first reviewed the multi-threading synchronization objects in C++ and C# and the thread execution model on single-core and multi-core systems,

he then introduced the new synchronization techniques intended to be added to the .Net libraries like SemaphoreLight, Event, Monitor and Parallel.for - which executes independent loop iterations in parallel instead of waiting for each iteration to complete first with support to load balancing between cores too - and showed the advantages of Lock-Free programming in implementing more efficient synchronized data structured like stacks and queue that operate far much better with multiple threads.

he also mentioned the introduction of parallel techniques to LINQ - the Language Integrated Query added to the .Net framework by the end of 2007 that enables you to query any IEnumerable-based information source (arrays, sets...) - which produced PLINQ, in addition to the TPL - Task Parallel Library - which makes it much easier to write managed code that can automatically use multiple processors like Parallel.for, as part of the PFX (Parallel Framework Extensions) development taking place right now.

if you found yourself interested in the subject you can continue with the following links:
Parallel Extensions to the .NET Framework
LINQ: .NET Language-Integrated Query
101 LINQ Samples
Task Parallel Library
Lock-Free Programming (Great)
PFX Team Blog

JavaScript Function Closure

2008-02-13T22:17:00.000+02:00

Coming from a C++/JAVA background, it was hard for me to assimilate the concept of Function Closure in JavaScript. Now that I understand it, I'd like to share it here with you. Seriously, it's best explained by example than description. Here's an example.


var thingsToDo = {};

function initializeThingsToDo() {
var food= {
    name: "Ramen",
    type: "Tokatsu"
};
thingsToDo.eat = function() {
    alert("I'm going to eat: " + food.name);
}
}

//Execute
initializeThingsToDo();
thingsToDo.eat();

Okay, what did I do here? First, I created an empty (global) Object called "thingsToDo", then I added a global function called "initializeThingsToDo". Inside this function I defined food object. I referenced the global object "thingsToDo" and attached a dynamic function called "eat" in the object.

After the code definitions, I ran the global function initializeThingsToDo, and called the method thingsToDo.eat().

I know you would say that this is crazy because when I ran thingsToDo.eat(), the method uses the food object but it's already out of scope.


//Execute
initializeThingsToDo();
thingsToDo.eat(); // When this is executed,
               // the food object is already out of scope!

Na ah?! Not in JavaScript. You see, when you run the code, JavaScript will create a closure to the food object. After that, it saves it in the memory. The interpreter knows that it will be used for later. (It doesn't deallocate the food object in the memory. )

The power of function closure is well executed when you use AJAX. When you define your AJAX callback function, it gets called asynchronously. It creates a closure and call the objects/functions when it's ready.

If you are not familiar with JavaScript Object and Functions, you can read these links:

Java vs. JavaScript object
JavaScript usign Prototype.js
JavaScript Function

Source:
http://liminescence.blogspot.com/2007/11/javascript-function-closure.html

Computers and Artificial Intelligence at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina with Dr. Ismail Serageldin

2008-02-13T00:17:00.000+02:00

yesterday a bunch of engineering students specially from our departement, attended the Computers and Artificial Intelligence three part series at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The department was kind enough to give the day off so all the students are able to attend this big event. It was long and rich with information, a lot of history too but i can say this helped to set the base for the thorough discussion introduced by Dr.Ismail.

The sessions outlined the development of computer systems along side the advancements in communications to the age of the internet and the ICT Revolution. A variety of visions were introduced from purely philosophical to purely technical to show the controversy about the definition of intelligence and the idea of creating intelligent machines and whether it's possible or not.

maybe it's suitable to mention the strongest of both sides of this controversy: the Chinese Room Argument that confines any machine intelligence to a set of predefined rules that can only be enlarged which is not real intelligence, opposed by Raymond Kurzweil who says that computers were able to break any borders that have been set before and predicted that computers will be able to defeat the world champion in chess by 1998 and it happened in 1997, 1 year earlier than predicted. there's more on that in the slides, but without the great presentation given by Dr.Ismail.

I added the links for you here, you can get that and more from Dr. Ismail's website.

Computers and Artificial Intelligence, A three part series - Part 1: Where did our computers come from?

Computers and Artificial Intelligence, A three part series - Part 2: The Search for Artificial Intelligence

Computers and Artificial Intelligence, A three part series - Part 3: Humans, Robots And The Future

RTMP: Unrelaible Service on the top of Reliable Service

2008-02-12T23:53:00.000+02:00

After completing the networks course in the previous semester; And while working in my the graduation project, I read about RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol); a proprietary protocol developed by Adobe Systems for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet, between a flash player and a server (Usually, Adobe's Flash Media Server).

As you see from the title; RTMP provides Unreliable service by working on the top of a Reliable service. The difference between reliable and unreliable service is the reliable one grantees transferring all sent data correctly and in order to the destination; while the unreliable don't make these grantees.

A reliable service can be built on the top of unreliable service, by the use of ACKs "Acknowledgments" and retransmissions. We already implemented this during the semester to build a file transfer -which is reliable- service on the top of UDP -which is unreliable protocol.

Usually multimedia or interactive real-time application requires an unreliable service, because reliable services adds more overhead due to the use of ACKs and retransmissions. Real-Time multimedia applications can tolerate some data loss and will continue to operate correctly (e.g. while streaming a video over the internet, some video frames can be lost and you still can see the video without sensing any mess).

RTMP approach:

So, Real-Time Multimedia applications usually built on the top of UDP. However, the RTMP which is used for multimedia streaming is built on the top of TCP. TCP is a reliable protocol and ensures that all data are sent correctly and in order. TCP adds overhead and consumes more bandwidth and can cause packets to be sent late, which is unacceptable for real-time multimedia application. So, RTMP requires to implement unreliability for being used with real-time multimedia application.

As we can build a reliable service on the top of unreliable service, RTMP came with the inverse idea. It built its unreliable service on the top of the reliable service provided by the TCP. To support the streaming of media data over TCP, the amount of data being sent must be dynamically adjusted in response to network bandwidth and congestion. RTMP is designed to adjust the amount of video and audio being transmitted by dropping audio messages and video frames in response to inadequate network bandwidth.

RTMP uses buffers to buffer streams for transmission. Data streams are never dropped, because they may contain some control information and dropping them can cause the application to work improperly. Audio and video streams are buffered separately on the server. Audio streams are allowed to accumulate in the buffer until a predefined threshold; when this threshold is reached, the buffer is freed and audio streams are allowed to start accumulating again. For the video streams, only one frame is buffered. If another frame reached before sending the buffered one, the old frame is dropped and the new one is buffered till sending it. This ensures that clients won’t receive partial frames.

Semantic Web, will the dream become true?

2008-02-07T22:07:00.000+02:00

“ I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize. ”
—Tim Berners-Lee, 1999

Imagine the day, when you get a single customized answer to a certain question (e.g. What is the cheapest car in Europe?), when you ask the internet for a suitable clinic by entering the symptoms and your location and the internet responds with the predicted disease, clinic name and reservation times, and when every clinic and hospital all over the world share their data forming a large set of data through the internet, by using some software agents, imagine what can come out of billions of records. This is called the Semantic Web or Web 3.0.

According to Wikipedia, Semantic web is an extension of the World Wide Web in which web content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a format that can be read and used by software agents. In other words, Data from different sources should be represented in a common format that is readable by machines to easily integrate and combine them, also using natural languages to describe how data relates to real world objects. Today's WWW is said to be web of documents, that is data is controlled by applications and each application keeps it to itself, those applications interchange documents. Semantic Web is said to be web of data, because using common formats to represent data eases integrating it, and using natural language to relate it data to real world, allows data to be shared and reused across applications, enterprise and community boundaries. The Semantic Web is based on Resource Description Framework (RDF).

RDF is a family of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifications originally designed as a metadata model but which has come to be used as a general method of modeling information, through a variety of syntax formats and notations. These syntax formats includes Notation 3 (N3), RDF/XML and N-Triples, while notations include RDF Schema (RDFS) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL).

Watch this video in which Tim Berners-Lee explains what is the Semantic Web.

Sources