Mohammed Berdai's Personal Blog

Augmented Reality On The Rise

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:08:00 +0000

Each day we're getting closer to Augmented Reality. This field of research is so cool and very promising and which will shift the way we use and interact with computers and reality. Yeah! :)

Today's Quote

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:50:00 +0000

"We want to teach students who think creatively, work together, use the very latest technology, and dare to set their sights high. The most important thing is not always to reach the goal. If you aim for the stars, at least you'll reach the treetops or even the moon." by Lars Asplund

Vote Earth Today!

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:34:00 +0000

Participate in Vote Earth Hour today by switching off the lights for 60mins from 8:30PM to 9:30PM local. for more info visit http://www.earthhour.org/about/

Robots Today

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:50:00 +0000

Some students are doing really interesting stuff with robots which is real fun :) And though I wished I could contribute or get involved in robotics and AI (Artificial Intelligence), I do my best to catch up with what's going on today.

The first video is about an interactive hexapod robot. It's cool :)

Another shows a Spider Robot!

This one (I received todays) shows how robots can be made to interact with human gestures, laying the foundation to a more natural and human-like interaction in the future.

Finally, I leave you with this video from Ted.com envisioning how robots will invade our lives.

The Story of Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:41:00 +0000

The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

You can find more at StoryOfStufff.com

About Ext4 FileSystem

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:59:00 +0000

I've been toying with Ext4 a couple of months now, and though there are many noticeable improvements over Ext3, I would encourage everyone to stay with Ext3 at least for foreseeable future. (2 to 3 Kernel releases)

Ext4 is fairly stable now with Kernel 2.6.28.8, however not all software are updated to Ext4 behavior. You've probably read this article and I had the same issues with KDE 4.2.1. However, if you still want give it a try keep you Home partition with Ext3.

Update 1: detailed info here.

My Expectations for 2009 in I.T

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:20:00 +0000

I should have published this a bit earlier, but I'll do it now. My expectations for 2009 in IT (Information Technology) are:

* The year Microsoft technological weight no longer matters.

* More Atom based devices.

* More fierce competition on mobile devices offerings (Connectivity, Toolkits, Applications)

* The last year before GNU/Linux takes "Desktop" technological lead.

* More Cloud/Web Application offerings but no compelling toolkit for developers yet.

* Google showing the first glimpse of the Google Platform.

* Android will capture more developers interest before the end of 2009.

* The year of Developers 2.0, Developers 2.0, Developers 2.0! if you know what I mean :)

* Virtualization technologies will mature, more advanced features are on the way.

An Open Source Version of BitRock InstallBuilder Is What GNU/Linux Really Need As Installer

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:35:00 +0000

Today I came across a nice bit of software called BitRock Installer when I wanted to evaluate Qt Creator in its Preview Release. Actually, it's a software installer similar in appearance and easiness to the ones available on Windows.

Installing Qt Creator was so easy that I forgot about testing it and was pleased with this amazing installer. However, one question came to me instantly. If it's so easy to use and seems great Why I don't hear about BitRock Installer that much ?

I visited their website and found that they provide a range of packages for different needs (packages for Web stacks too). Digging a bit revealed to me the thing that I think prevents this wonderful packager from getting the attention it needs. Although BitRock InstallBuilder is a cross-platform installer available under three editions (Single Platform, Professional and Enterprise), none of them is open source. All they are providing is a full-featured evaluation version which you may use for your open source project after you get permission and comply with their license requirements.

And that what's preventing them, I think, to get huge developers attention. I really do think that BitRock InstallBuilder is what GNU/Linux really need as installer but they need to work on to be more forward and open source.

You give BitRock InstallBuilder a spin by downloading it directly from here.
More screenshots can be found here. or you can watch this demo video to see how it's easy to use.

Follow me on Twitter & Pownce

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:26:00 +0000

Don't forget to follow my tiwtts at http://twitter.com/stuntgp2000 and pownces at http://pownce.com/stuntgp2000/

You can find beautiful twitter logos here.

How to set Firefox to remember your history of visited pages to 365 days or more

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:41:00 +0000

As easy as it sounds, sometimes this option get overlooked. It just happened to me the other days and I wasn't happy with that, though I had already set it to 90 days. But it seems that it was the first time I kept the same operating system (GNU/Linux) for more than 90 days :)

If you are using Firefox on Windows go to Tools->Options Menu or if you are on GNU/Linux go to Edition->Preferences, then on Privacy tab set "Keep my history for at least" to 365 days or more.

Miro, SongBird and Last.fm : Three Social Media Softwares to Enrich your Web Browsing experience

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:01:00 +0000

You can choose to Youtube.com, Google Video, DailyMotion and the likes crawl every now then looking for media content or you can use Miro, SongBird and Last.fm to enjoy a world full of media and entertainment freely.

First, I'll start with Last.fm software and service because I've got addicted to it in matters of minutes.

Basically, Last.fm is an Internet radio and music community. The software has the same name and it uses a music recommendation system called "Audioscrobbler" to builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user's computer or some portable music devices. Last.fm service requires a one time registration to do that. Then you can download the software which is Free and Open Source and use it to listen to music and build your own playlist or radio station.

You can follow my music profile here.

Miro is an Internet TV software that allows to subscribe to more than 1.500 channel to get the latest videos or to download manually searched content from popular web sites such as Google Video, YouTube and so on.

Though it can be used for entertainment, It can be of great use if are the kind of person who learn from Video Tutorials. I was able download and watch many video tutorials for Inkscape, Gimp and Blender. It's really cool and useful.

SongBird is a media player and web browser able to play major audio formats like MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and WMA. And its Web Browsing capabilities allow it to visit and subscribe into on-line music services. You can see all its features here.

Actually, I use it most for listening to Internet radio stations which I find very rich and easy to use.

All the three are Free and Open Source Software and are Cross-platform which means they are available on GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac OS X.

GNU/Linux ought to be viewed as the platform of innovations by now!

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:04:00 +0000

I've just read that Google is preparing its GNU/Linux version of Chrome web browser. Well, I've hard time understanding why companies don't test their software on GNU/Linux first. GNU/Linux is full of opportunities to get massive attention and interest about any new concept or software.

It's not about releasing the software under an open source license, it's about thinking about GNU/Linux as a play-ground for new concepts and technologies. I think GNU/Linux should be viewed as the platform for innovation and bleeding edge technologies.

I'm not saying this because I'm a Pro GNU/Linux user, but it's the reality. I can't take Windows seriously. I mean one can argue that there are many things lacking in GNU/Linux today though the list is shrinking rapidly; However, it's way better than Windows. The whole thing is always crashing, always getting slower with time and there is no sign of improvements.

I'm not talking about Joe users here, but about IT Pros and Tech companies. It should be obvious to them that GNU/Linux is the platform of the future. They should develop and test their softwares on GNU/Linux first, then provide Windows and Mac OS X versions, not the way around.

Why? Because the open source world offers tremendous number of frameworks, tools and libraries. It's not about getting overwhelmed with choice, it's about choose the right tool for the right job.

Like it or not, GNU/Linux is the new home for geeks and creative people, don't miss the opportunity.

Update #1 (11/17/2008): Nearly an unbelievable announcement from Adobe today, they are testing/developing Adobe Flash Player 64bit edition for GNU/Linux first and will release Windows and Mac OS X edition after that. Cool!

Is ReactOS going to be ready to replace XP by 2014 ?

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:15:00 +0000

Although it has started around 1996, today few know about the existence of ReactOS project. It's an effort to create a Free Software replacement for Microsoft Windows that is compatible with existing hardware and software. In other words, a Free Windows.

ReactOS is a free and open source operating system designed from scratch based on Windows NT design architecture aiming to provide full support for existing Windows applications and drivers, and to be an alternative to consumer edition of Windows like XP, and Vista and to server edition like Windows server 2003.

By now, some of you may ask why implement such as thing? I say why not? but if you insist on knowing why then read this!

Actually, ReactOS is still in Alpha stage and a Beta version may appear next year offering a more stable version for day to day use. It's available for download as an ISO file and as preloaded virtual machine for QEMU and VMWare. But if you are not so adventures you can have a look at the screenshots.

Personally, I tested it in Sun xVM VirtualBox and found it to be very promising though many things are still lacking like Audio and Network Sharing support.

It worth noting that there is also a project named FreeDOS aiming to replace the old MS-DOS. It has already implemented a better DOS. Yes, I hear you saying "Wake up! DOS days are over man!". Well, I already know that. But wait, have you ever bought a new PC without an operating system? Chances are you would either receive a FreeDOS CD or it has already been installed by default.

In other words, think about the possibility of shipping ReactOS instead of Windows by 2014, when Microsoft will end XP support leaving a huge PC base stuck with XP for one reason or the other.

More realistically, though by 2014 the IT landscape will be different from now, we will have this idea stuck in our mind that when companies leave their old products, open source will always take care of that. And in one way or another that will always be of a positive impact on the Free and Open Source Movement.

Convert your blog entry rom text-to-Speech with iSpeech

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:14:00 +0000

iSpeech is service available freely to convert text, documents and web pages to speech almost instantly. It can be an easy way to offer podcasts to your readers. iSpeech does not require any software download or installation, just provide them with the text, URL, or the document you want to be converted to speech; and the converted content can be embedded directly into your blog (flash based)

Actually, the service is still in Beta and offers free sign up although it's not required in order to convert your content.

iSpeech can be very handy and offers a quick and easy way to do podcast and increase your blog audience.

Java JRE and JDK v6.10 Released

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:40:00 +0000

Released yesterday, the new version of Java 6.10 sport many additions and enhancements like the new next generation Java plug-in offering robust applets and plug-ins deployment, hardware accelerated 3D graphics using DirectX 9.0c, video playback and spatialized audio.

On the performance side, the installer is slightly speedier than the previous and this new JRE version should offer some performance boosts too. And from now on, Java Quick Starter will run as a system service. Also, this version fixed more than 700 bugs and issues.

However, 3D accelerated graphics using DirectX 9.0c demands some hardware requirements and has some limitation such as 3D acceleration is enabled only for applications and not for applets within the browser, and some graphic operations many perform slower.

Also, for Java developers using Windows XP 64-bit it's recommended to install JRE before Installing JDK to avoid an installation error.

Personally, all I can say about version 6.10 is an incremental update in right direction and it's clear that Sun is preparing to do some catching-up with RIA (Rich Internet Applications) trends with the near to be introduced JavaFX.

To download the new version visit Java SE Downloads. To read more about the release notes visit here.

How to Allow Google AdSense Text Ads Passing Through Adblock Plus Filter While Blocking Image-based Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:01:00 +0000

Placing a lot of advertisements on a web site can be annoying and distracting, which pushes many to use an ad-blocker to get rid of them. However, these advertisements can be the only way for a web site to cover hosting and bandwidth costs or can be as a way to support the web site for providing the content free of charge.

I don't mind seeing text based ads but image or video ads can be annoying, CPU time and bandwidth consuming.

So, I decided to look for a way to allow Google Adsense text ads passing through AdBlock Plus extension for Mozilla Firefox and block image based ads.

All we need to do is add a few filters to Adblock Plus. First, click on Adblock drop-down button and select preferences. A window will appear containing all the filters. Then click on "Add Filter" button and add these four filters to allow text ads:

@@|http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js

@@|*.googlesyndication.com/*&ad_type=text&*

@@|*.googlesyndication.com/*&output=html&correlator*

@@|http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/abglogo/*

Then add this to block image ads:

*.googlesyndication.com/*&ad_type=text_image&*

That's all. From now on you'll support web site by allowing text based while blocking bandwidth and CPU consuming ads.

Update #1: Today, I noticed that the "Ads by Google" notice don't show up, so I added a filter to allow to appear.

What's coming up in the next few weeks from the Open Source folks

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:10:00 +0000

In the coming weeks we'll see a bunch of new releases. The next stable version of Debian code-named Lenny will probably hit the download mirrors in 6-8 weeks (it's a guessed date, since the final release was estimated for September 2008). In comparison with the previous releases, this one will have fresh packages. Debian developers have already done a good job by reducing the release cycle, yet it will bring some new features like NFS4 (No! this has nothing to do with the game Need For Speed), Full IPv6 support and better internationalization. This version will be available probably in LiveCD too.

The next version of the Debian-derived Ubuntu will be released on 30th of this month sporting the new X.org 7.4, Samba 3.2, Gnome 2.24 for Ubuntu users and KDE 4.1.2 for Kubuntu users, plus many enhancements.

Fedora 10 will come a little bit later, re-scheduled for 25 November. And upon reading its goals and features, I think it's going to be a great version. I'll probably give it a try once released.

Finally, OpenOffice.org 3.0, actually in Release Candidate 4, will hit the download mirrors soon. This one will have many usability enhancements, and some new cool features in addition to some performance improvements. You can be sure of yourself recommending this new version.

Update #1:
10-10-2008: Now, It's rumored that Debian Lenny may come a bit late than expected. Nothing for sure yet!

Update #2:
10-11-2008: OpenOffice.org v3.0 hit the download mirrors today.

Opera just got better with v9.6

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:45:00 +0000

Today, the new version 9.6 of Opera web browser got released sporting improvements in every direction.

Upon simple comparison in memory consumption, the new version consumes less memory than version 9.51. It's noticeably faster and more responsive in loading web pages.

With the updated Opera Link feature, it's even more easier to keep your Bookmarks, Speed Dial, Custom Searches, History and Notes in sync across your different computers.

Another great thing is the Quick Find feature which not only search in your history for Titles or addresses, but in the actual content of the Web pages you visited.

A new feature is the Feed Preview which gives a clean and efficient two-columns layout to see the feeds of web site before bookmarking it.

Plus, many enhancements in Tab management, zooming and security.

However, this release passed only 85% of the ACID3.

You can get it from Opera web site.

Update 1:
Upon getting the new Opera version on ArchLinux today, I have found that this new version is compiled using Qt 4.2.2 instead Qt 3.3 which is great!. Maybe it's the case for GNU/Linux distributions.

Transform your daily web browsing into a 3D experience with Cooliris add-on for Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:19:00 +0000

It's remarkable how Web 2.0 trends and technologies are making our daily web browsing experience more social, richer in content and enjoyable at the same time.Yet, there are efforts to bring the same evolution to the way we can find and interact with the content of these web sites. That's what the people behind Cooliris add-on for Firefox are trying to do.

What Cooliris does is it transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for browsing the web in photos and videos presented like a 3D Wall.

Once installed, a button will be added to Firefox navigation toolbar serving as a Cooliris launcher and as a notifier turning in green and blue for Cooliris-enabled web sites.

When launched, Cooliris shows a full-screen window with the menu Discover at the left, search at the top right, wall scrolling functionality at the bottom and the content shown in the center.

The Discover menu contains the main categories of search like Business, Technology and Entertainment which when clicked on, it grabs the latest news and present them either in photos or videos.

The search button is used to do custom search on major search engines like Google and Yahoo, or to search for videos and photos in specialized web sites like Youtube or Flickr.

The 3D wall at the bottom serves as a navigation button which you can drag to move quickly through the results in a nice 3D fashion.

The result is shown in thumbnails of photos and videos which you can zoom in or zoom out using the wheel mouse button. A simple click will bring in the photo in a higher resolution, and a double-click will switch the view to full-screen view with a slider at the bottom, which is more convenient for high-res photos.

Also, you can go directly to the source site of the photo or video by clicking on the arrow button, or if you want to share it with a friend, click on mail button to send it as an email via Cooliris services which requires a free registration first.

To go back to normal Firefox browsing mode you can either click on close or minimize button found at the top right conner of Cooliris. When minimized a button will show up at bottom right of Firefox window allowing you to quickly return to Cooliris results.

Cooliris really does give a refreshing and amazing new experience for daily web browsing; unfortunately, Cooliris is not available for Firefox in GNU/Linux or Mac OS X and there no word from its team if it's ever going to be available on these platforms.

However, a less attractive but convenient way to browse through the links of a web site is CoolPreviews, another add-on made by the same team behind Cooliris, which shows a small magnifier whenever the mouse comes over a link, which when clicked, shows the content of the linked page in a small window without leaving the page your are visiting.

Another feature is that you can search for a word or phrase without leaving the page just by selecting and right-clicking the text, then by moving the mouse over Cooliris Search menu elements, you will see the results in a small CoolPreviews window. It's a handy feature if you want to lookup something quickly.

But unlike Cooliris, CoolPreviews is available on GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS X and offers further options for customized search.

Finally, things are not just evolving at Firefox add-ons level, but also Mozilla has some interesting and ambitious ideas and concepts for the Aurora Concept which aims to bring the whole browser and web browsing experience into a rich 3D environment with a compelling user interaction with content and information.

Linux Kernel Turns 17 Today

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:55:00 +0000

Today Linux Kernel turns 17 years old. Initially developed by Linus Torvalds, today Linux Kernel enjoys a fast paced development cycle and benefits from both the contribution of leading Tech companies like Red Hat, IBM and Intel, and from contributions of thousands of individual programmers

Happy birthday Linux!!

PyQt: The coolness and flexeblity of Python combined with the power and portability of Qt

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:40:00 +0000

I stopped programming for some time now as I became completely bored when Microsoft first introduced .Net and my last favorite IDE Delphi started to suffer from Microsoft ever growing dominance over software development market share.

And though C# 2.0 tried to catch my attention, Visual Studio .Net was an overkill and the free edition was and still lacking basic features especially for database connectivity.

Actually, I use GNU/Linux for 95% of my activities, except for developing some small applications for my clients. But I think that would end soon because I've finally found the killer duo, it's PyQt.

Qt is perhaps the best and most advanced high-level toolkit, and combined with the flexibility of Python they create a compelling solution for the smart Windows software developer who want to have fun and make a smart investment.

I was amazed with quality and quantity of available tutorials and guides about Python. But apart from Trolltech own maintained Qt Doc, there are fewer available tutorials in comparison with Python, and most of them don't follow the progress being made in Qt4.x

My favorite tutorials covering Python, Qt4 and PyQt4 written by Jan Bodnar are:

I highly recommend them as they are easy to follow and updated.

By the way Python 2.6 just got released today.

WebKit, Gecko and Opera Rendering Engines: Different Projects, One Cause

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:07:00 +0000

It's interesting to see Web Browsers racing to outperform each other in speed, web standard support and features. Competition is always good, monopoly is not. A few years ago, most web designers couldn't even dare to design their website for anything else but Internet Explorer.

Hopefully, things started to change after Mozilla Firefox was introduced with the goal to take back the web with its Gecko rendering engine. However, Opera, which is known for it support and compliance to web standards, could have gathered the same attention if it were released as open source software. In the meantime, KHTML developers were busy trying to improve the capabilities and compliance of this rendering engine. KHTML is used by Konqueror, which is one of the best web browsers available in GNU/Linux and Unix platforms.

And perhaps Microsoft decision to stop developing IE for Mac was beneficial for web standards down the road, since that pushed Apple to focus on developing their own web browser Safari, which uses WebKit as it rendering engine which is itself based on KHTML code.

On 2 September, Google introduced the 2nd Beta of its Web browser Chrome to the public. Like Safari, Chrome is based on WebKit but with a fast JavaScript engine. The project was released as an open source project.

Even the next version of Microsoft Web browser, IE8 will have better standards supports.

Today, the trend seems to be a race to deliver the best compliance with Web Standards at the highest speed. Web Designer and Web Developers couldn't be happier although there is always need for more.

The Sorry State of Windows Security

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:04:00 +0000

Last week I had two incidents that left me thinking about Windows security issues and how users still don't consider alternatives? But I already know the answer to that question.

The first incident was seeing a friends Windows XP SP2 PC completely overtaken by a spyware just by downloading a freeware. Everything was locked down, accessing Windows Registry and Task Manger was denied, the antivirus got broken (crashing and denied to update) and the PC became slow to a crawl. Nothing could help in his case apart from a fresh reinstall.

I've taken some screenshots as a souvenir :)

To me, what happened is logical since he installs whatever he finds labeled as freeware.

However, what was surprising to me is the second incident. I was helping a small school preparing their PCs for the new season. I was happy they considered installing both Windows XP SP3 and Mandriva Linux 2008. They are by far the first ones to do so.

After we finished everything, we sat talking while a PC was powered on and running Windows XP SP3 with an antivirus installed, and suddenly we saw a window appearing and disappearing, then something started being installed automatically, then some alerts showed up. I moved to see what was happening just to discover that it was infected with a spyware without the minimal user interaction.

I'm sorry but this is completely inacceptable, it's supposed to be an updated fresh Windows XP install. Happily, I was able to remove it using Windows Defender.

The screenshots again :)

I'm sorry Windows folks, but this is just a wast of effort, time and money. Either you should start considering GNU/Linux or getting a Mac.

First Post

noreply@blogger.com (Mohammed Berdai) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:57:00 +0000

This my new home and I'm happy that I moved to Blogger. It has some nice features, though I miss some of my old blog features hosted at wordpress.com

I can only see that Blogger services to grow and be more feature rich. It has the backing of Google which I think is going to change the way we deal with information in the future.

I stay on the same promise to write good quality content exactly as my old blog.

So, I wish all the best to all of us, and a happy blogging experience ;-)