Make use of technology, but takecare of your culture

Launched nearly "Google ta3reeb" which converts efficiently the "franco-arab" (a fancy name of Arabic pronounced language written in Latin alphanumeric letters) to real Arabic.


Worth mentioning that the idea is not new, it was previously applied by the Yamli editor, The process is know as "Transliteration".

I'm not saying it is an evil or bad technology, in the contrary the idea appeals to me and helps "franco-arabians" a lot, that's why I wrote about it, but in the occation, I'm advicing those "franco-arabians" -including me :D- to be careful about their culture represented in such a simple thing as catching up with their laguage's keyboard layout.

HP Magic Giveaway contest

According to Wikipedia

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, at the end of the harvest season, is an annual American Federal holiday to express thanks for one's material and spiritual possessions.

In accordance with the American Thanksgiving 2009 HP distributes a package of prizes of a 50 of the famous bloggers in what is named by "The HP Magic Giveaway".



In-turn each of the 50 famous bloggers will distribute a "proper" subset of this package on people worldwide (who exactly, simply I and you).

Each blogger will open registration an close it within this month.
Once registration is opened, you have to register, regarding blogger's rules, check your email withing the following 3 days, you may be the winner.

Blogger's rules vary widely from one to another
For example
This was one of the rules of "Thoughts on poetics and techs":

Tell me what you think of what I wrote.

I'm impressed if you are smart, engaged, un-boring, and being real! Make me laugh! Make me think!

It was a very unique rule which I liked, I don't say that as a hypocrisy but the uniqueness of the word "make me laugh and make think" made it more funny and broke the ice of "heavy technical contests".

Another example:
the Gear live blog requires just a twitter account and sending them the link to a tweet containing a certain word (after registering in gear live if not already registered).

Check subscription beginning and deadlines

The most important thing: Prizes:

1. HP TouchSmart IQ816 PC
2. HP HDX 18 series Premium Notebook PC
3. HP MediaSmart Connect
4. HP Pavilion dv4 series Entertainment Notebook PC with Windows Live
5. HP Mini 1000 with XP
6. HP Photosmart C6380 Wireless AIO multifunction printer
7. HP 564 Photo Value Pak.

In addition to software packages.

Get your own supercomputer

It is something like having a Dinosaur as a pet, or spending my vacation on the moon, Regardless that you have to be rich to do .. the point here is that it is possible to do.
I was excited when I heard of it, it worth mentioning.
Nvidia has launched a "personal supercomputer".
The company already produces supercomputers, but for researches and technology research centers, the new point is that it is available for personal use.
About the Tesla personal supercomputer:

• Processing power is 250 times normal PCs and workstations.
• Speed is 4 tera-flops (executes 4 trillion floating point operation per one second).
• Processors: 3 or 4 "Tesla C1060 GPU" each 1.29 GHz in clock speed.
• Memory of each processor: 4GHz, speed: 800 MHz.
• Supported operating systems include Windows XP, Red Hat and SUSE
  
  

The Tesla personal supercomputer seems to be designed for PC gaming, and highly computational research and professional work.
According to Nvidia: several institutes already uses a GPU based personal computer (ex the Max Planck Institute, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Cambridge University).
Last thing: its price, it is expected to reach $10,000 very cheap :D
For more information, http://www.nvidia.com/object/personal_supercomputing.html

Prepare to run a "p-threaded" c project

here is a good quick reference to learning pthreads, but normal building and running won't work as the gcc must be explicitly directed to load the runtime library pthread upon running, for the line "#include " to work. How will we do it?

1. From command line:
   Instead of normal compiling way:

   gcc sourc_file.c

   
   , you are supposed to use:

   gcc -lpthread sourc_file.c

   
   directing the linker to link the runtime library "pthread".
   
   
2. Using eclipse IDE:
   It is fairly easy too, we will do the same something but from configuration of this project, steps:
   
   • Create a new project copy-paste any pthread-using code, (for example: use the above link)
   • Right click your project and select properties (alternatively hit alt+enter)
   • Expand C/C++, and click Settings, you should see something like:
   • Expand the GCC linker and click libraries, you should see something like:
   • At the text are "libraries (-l)", click add, as figured in the above snapshot.
   • Type the name of the run time library you want to add (in out case: "pthread") without the preceding "-l"
   • Now build and run your project .. enjoy pthreads

Change famous sites templates with foxReplace

It seems that I've signed my contract with Google
and have started designing their pages .. or I'm a VIP that popular sites are writing about me, actually the story is quite different.
The trick is in the fire fox add-on: foxReplace.
After installing it:

• Press file "Edit", then "Replace" (instead press Alt + F2).
• Write in the left box the phrase you'd like to replace, and in the right one the replacement.

cool trick isn't it?

Javaize your Ubuntu

Installing Java



1. Type
   

   sudo apt-get install sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jre sun-java6-jdk

   .


2. Read and accept lisece of Sun.


3. Now we should tell Ubuntu to regard the installed JVM as the default one:


1. You need to edit a file called /etc/jvm. This file defines the default system JVM search order.


2. The default system JVM is the first one available from top to bottom.


3. Type

   $ gksudo gedit /etc/jvm

   so as to open it as root.


4. The file contains:
   

   /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj
   /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-1.5.0-sun
   /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun
   /usr



5. Add

   /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun

   such that the file's contents become:
   

   /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
   /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj
   /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-1.5.0-sun
   /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun
   /usr



6. Save and close the file.



Testing Java

1. Type

   java -version

   output should be something like:
   

   java version "1.6.0_06"
   Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_06-b02)
   Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 10.0-b22, mixed mode, sharing)



2. Create a HelloWorld.java and save it in [certain_directory]


3. Type

   javac [certain_directory/HelloWorld.java]



• Nothing should be output.
• In the the file "HelloWorld.class" must be generated.
• Move the HelloWorld.class to [another_or_same_dir]


4. Type

   java -classpath [another_or_same_dir] HelloWorld

5. Note that that we have set the environmental variable: classpath to avoid the ClassNotFoudException
6. The HelloWorld.class must be executed (run) and

   Hello World

   is to be printed.
   

Next step .. Eclipse

We have two options:

Version	Option 1	Option 2
Eclipse version	Installing Eclipse Callisto (3.2)	Installing Eclipse Ganymede (3.4)
Advantage	Enjoying the benefits of eclipse as a universe Ubuntu software package	Making use of eclipse latest version and its new features.
Procedures	System -> Adminstration -> Synaptic Package Manager and enter Password Highlight the list-item "All" in the left list. Search for "eclipse". After it is found -> right click -> mark -> agree -> apply. Wait till finishing download and installation.	Download eclipse for linux Copy paste the downloaded .gz file to your home folder Right click it -> Extract here Open the extracted folder (eclipse) and here is present the executable eclipse ganymede Note that the link I provided was to classic eclipse if you want to use the enterprise one or any other version check this

Next step .. The standard widget toolkit (SWT)

Remember that -after migration to Ubuntu- you need to find a replacement to any platform dependent component like JDk, JRE, Eclipse and SWT (which is not the case of either any of nebula widgets as they are based upon SWT, nor Swing GUI library as it is based on JDK and JRE nor Java ribbon which based upon SWT).
I mean that all of those components will work fine on Ubuntu as well as any OS as long as the proper version of Java (JRE, JDK, JVM, SWT) is installed on the entire OS.

1. From SWT home download SWT for linux
2. Keep the downloaded zipped file in a known safe directory.
3. Unzip it and copy the SWT.jar from it and paste in the directory of ur java project
4. Refresh the project from eclipse and enjoy..

Compiz, what, why and how

Understanding Linux, Ubuntu, Compiz
We all know that Linux is an OSS (Open Source Software) OS (Operating System) but a user friendly OS is a huge product to be free ..


The first component of Linux (Kernel) was finished in 1991 by Linus Trovalds the student of Helsinki University in Finland. While the second one (System software) were developed, maintained and re-distributed by GNU which is a glorious and a pioneer foundation in the field of the OSS.

After this "histo-technical" introduction lets mention some -system software programs- definitions.

Desktop environment

a style of graphical user interface (GUI) that is used to be the interactive and friendly interface to the user, instead of the old command line interface (CLI).

Window manager

The program that is responsible for drawing (rendering) windows, control their appearance and determine how they are displayed and interact with each other.

Now back to our Ubuntu Hardy ..
The default Desktop environment is "Gnome", wheres the default window manager is "Metacity".
I'm ready now to say what Compiz is:
It is an alternate for Metacity which uses 3D H/W (VGA) to create fast, efficient and advanced visual desktop effects. Here are some photos:








Now lets move to the "How" section of the post;

How to obtain Compiz Fusion (which is Compiz with some plug-ins):

1. First of all ensure that your VGA is not blacklisted from here .
2. Follow this tutorial
3. If it is still not working type

   mkdir -p ~/.config/compiz/ && echo SKIP_CHECKS=yes >> ~/.config/compiz/compiz-manager

   to skip checks that compiz performs.
4. If it is still not working enable the compsite extension in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Reboot and enjoy..

Even after installing compiz you can alternate your Window manager between compiz and metacity by the commands

compiz --replace &

and

metacity --replace &

I prefer creating a couple of launchers in my panel instead of writing commands each time.

But why alternating between them?

Because applications which rely on VGA and performs heavy rendering conflicts with compiz and cause the monitor to continually blink, like Google Earth and any "medium/big" game.

Discovering Eclipse Ganymede

Although that Lee Nackman, the technology chief officer and Design vice president at IBM Software division announced at the EclipseCon 2005 conference that Eclipse was called so to "eclipse" Microsoft rather than Sun, the latter insists on not joining a foundation with such a name.
Regardless the real reason beyond Eclipse naming, IBM Design Software division seems to be affected by astronomy as deeply as they are affected by the GPL (general public license) rules which prevent the commercial names of any OSS (open source software) .. and it is their production which assume that; the last three eclipse annual releases: Callisto (3.2), Europa(3.3) and Ganymede(3.4) are all names of moons of our solar system.

But why eclipse is a platform rather than just an IDE? The answer to this question is quite easy:

Note that each program (of those running upon eclipse) runs independently of the other.

I'm going now to write a bit about my "interaction" with Ganymede which surely are very tiny compared to all of its other features as those interactions' age is about three weeks.

• JavaScript Development Tools(JSDL): amazing compared to aptana's JavaScript I used to use before, it can check errors, assume quick fixes and has a very complete code completion and documentation. and the comparison of aptana's JavaScript editor and Ganymede JSDT one is nearly the same as comparing RDT (Ruby Development Toolkit) which is ruby old plugin to Ganymede's DLT (Dynamic Language Toolkit) which includes Ruby.
• Thanks to the p2 provisioning project Ganymede comes with a very easy and much more smarter update center; It automatically resolves dependencies, and if download failed due to some reason and I started downloading later again, it starts from where it have ended.

• A very powerful UML editor; I can drag and drop and create my own shortcuts. I think I have found finally a replacement for Microsoft Visio.

• Finally It is something that did not come (for me) as a replacement to any other software but it came to satisfy a real and a bad need to it .. It is the database development which is a project to manipulate database either by developing sql statements or by presenting a reasonable UI of my database in the Database explorer (like Java's package explorer). You just have to download your favouraite database JDBC implementation, give it to eclipse and you are done.

Last two things:

• Take care of the eclipse contest. This year it is over but we should know about it that it is very simple inwhich any eclipse user can participate and there exists prizes.
• Learn more by a very simple and comprehensive presentations about eclipse Ganymede.