The Biggest Step

GPS (OziExplorer) map of Delhi, India

2010-03-19T23:16:00.002+03:30

Tired of searching for GPS map of Delhi and found nothing? It’s also happened to me and after long time searching and browsing several websites and forums to find a detailed map of New Delhi, the result was really disappointing, I even was not able to find a basic map of this piece of world. Indians always prefer to sell you things rather than to give free and this will become evident to you after seeing all search results on “India gps map” and similar are pointing to commercial products like mapmyindia and etc.

I have created a map for Delhi, covering all urban areas of Delhi and New Delhi. The map does not cover nearby areas like Gurgaon and Faridabad, because my photon+ wireless device which is currently the only internet link for me in Delhi, has a bandwidth limit and downloading maps consume so much bandwidth.
The map is originally based on “Yahoo! Maps India”, as I found them more detailed than Google Maps for cities of Inida. The map has created and optimized for OziExplorer and OziExplorer CE devices (.ozf2 and .map files) and so accurate.

To download the map, click here.

I will also create maps for other cities of India like Mumbai, Agra and Kolkata as I go there.

How to avoid time-wasting with computers

2008-06-02T11:49:00.005+04:30

Does it happen to you to sit in front of the computer without knowing what particularly you are intending to do and spoil your time for hours without doing something special?

Whether you are a computer geek or a user who just use the computer for work or leisure for a limited time, it’s a matter of fact that this damned invention of human has an unlimited potential of temptation in a way that it amuse you for long times and you don’t feel how the time passes. I used the word “damned invention” because it can be as destructive as it can be useful – like TV that raises couch potatoes (!), computers raise Mouse Potatoes.

The amount of time people waste along with computers every day, vary from less than an hour to all their available time. Maybe you could measure these times using the technique that I’m going to show you now as well as you defeating them. But before that, let’s have a look at the booster factors of time wasting with computers to have a better understanding on how computers waste your time.
The first thing that considers important is the difference between when you are online and offline. Your computer when it’s offline always have a limited factors of time wasting or at least you think that it doesn’t have something new; this is important because all of us tend to look for something new to fulfill ourselves when we feel tired or not enough busy. There may be some computer games, a bunch of unread articles you’ve saved, some movies and video clips and pieces of your favorite music along with some computer programs you like or want to test on your local computer; usually there aren’t much more than these stuff to spend time with but on the contrary when you are online there is a vast opportunity of time wasting. Thousand of websites to surf, Instant messaging programs (IM’s), emails, social networks and let’s say that the opened Google’s homepage would be enough to start a whole day gazing at the computer screen.
As you noticed there is a significant difference between an online computer with an offline one regarding to potential of time wasting. So as an important matter, if this is your case please really consider limiting your online activities. If you really do not need your internet connection at times, so disable your connection or at least you can disable the online programs that may take your time. Close your mail client if you are not waiting for an important email and alternatively close the IM, VOIP programs when you are not using them and avoid staying online unless you have a reason to do that.
The technique I’m going to show you now is really simple but so efficient. It’s just a simple rule that you need to bear in mind whenever you go toward a computer: “write up the exact time of when you start using the computer doing something unimportant on a place that you see it.”
That’s it, no need to pain, obligations and promises to manage your time. Just use this rule and you will be astonished on how efficient this simple rule could be to minimize time wasting with the computers. I use the border of front side of my monitor to write up the starting time of an unimportant activity because I found there the best place where catch sight while working with the computer. I use a whiteboard marker so that it can be easily cleaned or replaced with another time mark. I recommend using different large shapes and styles each time you write the time in order to prevent the time mark become something ordinary that you do not notice.
After you wrote the starting time, whenever you notice the time mark, you will then involuntarily look at your clock and ask yourself “how much time am I spending on this activity?” and then you surely quit the activity after a few times you observed the time mark. This is exactly like to hire someone that always pops up on you whenever you do something unimportant and tells you “How much time are spending on this? You have more important things to do”.
Just test it and see how efficient it can be on time saving, there is no cost and you only need to let it always remind you how much time you are spending on certain activities. After you’re quitted that activity you may calculate how much time did it take to cope that activity and for your personal records you may write it on a piece of paper or better enter it in a program like Excel which lets you make diagrams of your improvement over days.
Before applying this technique I used to spend more than 3 hours every day just reviewing my “Google Reader” page. I call applications like “Google Reader” seductive dangerous spots because they are the collection and center of someone’s favorite stuff from around the net and they always have something new to spend time with. But how seductive these spots are, this technique is enough powerful for me to close “Google Reader” window whenever it tells me “Come on, How much time are you spending on this?”

The Folk Story: "Shangool & Mangool"

2008-05-13T01:29:00.012+04:30

The story called “Shangool, Mangool and Habbe-ye angoor” is a popular folk story told to the children in Iran. It’s the story of a wolf that wants to enter to the home of a goat, which has three lambs, Shangool, Mangool and Habbe-ye angoor. The lambs are so delicious to the wolf, and once he tries to cheat the lambs to open the door while the absence of their mother. He knocks on their door and while imitating their mothers voice, he says, open the door, I’m your mother. He even makes his skin white, and show it from behind the door to cheat them.
The story is so popular in Iran and almost all the people have heard it once in their childhood. Many of today’s parents still keep telling this story to their children and because of the nature of folk stories there are many versions of it with minor or sometimes major changes in it. But all of them explain the one story, “Shangoul o Mangoulo o habeAngour”.

=======================

Looks like stupid lambs - you know, children today are different from us when we were child -- because of todays mass media, TV, Internet, children's magazine, they now so much about everything, maybe when they hear this story, they would say: "What stupid lambs, I would call police if I was in their shoes"!!!

Image is originally taken from a cartoon, exposed in a police exhibition in Iran.

Am I Little Joe? (Revision 2)

2008-01-08T02:38:00.000+03:30

With special thanks to Wes who helped me edit this story.
This is the revision 2 of the story, with the kind helps of Wes, I’ve corrected more than 25 language usage mistakes appeared in first edition so far and the story is now greatly improved; But I’m sure that it’s still different from one if a native English speaker wanted to write this story instead of me. I’d really love to see how it would be…
Thanks again Wes.

Joe was so tired, he just came back from the magazine office after several hours of hard work. It was the fifth day that he was coming back home like this; so tired, without smiling at his wife like he usually did. That’s why his wife popped in on him and asked “What’s wrong with you Joe? It's been days since you've been your normal self”. Joe said: “Everything is OK honey, don’t be worried about that, everything will be good as it used to be soon.”
They were living in Pandora, a very beautiful town in northern Canbera. The town had very beautiful natural scenes and panoramas. Joe was brought up in a big house in the suburb beside a lake that was adjacent to a forest. When he was a child he always had a habit of going to the lake, every afternoon, usually with his bicycle, holding his diary notebook and sitting there and writing a diary. He always wanted to become a big writer and author of the most fascinating books in the world and that was why he was always starting his diary with the words “Joe is sitting beside the lake and is writing another diary.” With the feeling of a big, famous Joe that is writing.
Several days passed and Joe was still coming home sad. One day he came back soon and went to the room slapping the door back without noticing his wife. After a few minutes he went out, looking happy with a sports cloth, like the days when he was a child. He went to his wife and said loudly: “We are so prosperous. We can travel all over the world visiting fabulous spots of the world, go on safaris and explore… because I don’t have a job anymore.” and went out with his bicycle.
His wife knew where he was going, because he still had the habit of going to his childhood spot beside the lake whenever he was sad and sometimes he even liked to write the articles for the magazine there. So she changed clothes and got on her bicycle drove to the lake. She noticed him from the back sitting at his place and thinking. She parked her bike next to his and sat close to him and asked: “Honey, are you thinking about the office?” He said nothing and they were quiet for several minutes. She tried again to open a conversation and said: “don’t worry, you can find another job, maybe you find the job that you always had dreamed of soon.” Joe said: “Yes, I’m so hopeful. Now that I think about it, the loss of my job was a gift to me. They never honored me, understood my abilities. I’m now happy that I don’t spend my time there anymore. I think it’s the time to start writing the story that I always wanted to write, the story that the little Joe wished to write, the story that the busy Joe never had time to put on it. Yes, this is where Joe always starts. I’m sure that my story will begin to sell Millions of copies worldwide as soon as I publish it. Big Joe is sitting beside the lake and …”
Joe is now finished his story and he is going to make a contract with a well-known publisher. He said to the publication manager to keep his first royalty payment check because he wants to buy their publication for 20% more than it’s worth. Will he successful? Can he sell millions of copies and reach his goals?

Am I Little Joe? (revised)

2007-12-15T01:28:00.000+03:30

This is the revised edition of the "Am I Little Joe" story.
To One who helped me correct this story.
Please read my comment

Joe was so tired, he just came back from the magazine office after several hours of hard work. It was the fifth day that he was coming back home like this; so tired, without smiling at his wife like ever. That’s why his wife popped in on him and asked “What’s wrong with you Joe? It's been days since you've been your usual self”. Joe said: “Everything is OK honey, don’t be worried about that, everything will be good as it used to be soon.”
They were living in Pandora, a very beautiful town in northern Canbera. The town had very beautiful natural scenes and panoramas. Joe was brought up in a big house in the suburb beside a lake that was adjaced to a forest. When he was a child he always had a habit to go next to the lake, every afternoon, usually with his bicycle, holding his diary notebook and sitting there and writing a diary. He always wanted to become a big writer and author of the most fascinating books in the world and that was why he was always starting his diary with the words “Joe is sitting beside the lake and is writing another diary.” With the feeling of a big, famous Joe that is writing.
Several days passed and Joe was still coming home sad. One day he came back soon and went to the room slapping the door back without noticing his wife. After a few minutes he went out, looking happy with a sports cloth, like the days when he was a child. He went to his wife and said loudly: “We are so prosperous. We can travel all over the world visiting fabulous spots of the world, be on safaris and explore… because I don’t have a job anymore.” and went out with his bicycle.
His wife knew where he was going, because he still had the habit to go to his childhood spot beside the lake whenever he was sad and even sometimes he liked to write the articles for the magazine there. So she dressed and get on her bicycle driving to the lake. She noticed him from the back sitting on his place and thinking. She parked her bike next to his and sat close to him and asked: “Honey, are you thinking about the office?” He said nothing and they were quiet for several minutes. She tried again to open a conversation and said: “don’t worry, you can find another job, maybe you find the job that you always had dreams for soon.” Joe said: “Yes, I’m so hopeful. The other way I’m thinking, the loss of my job was a gift to me. They never honored me, understood my abilities. I’m now happy that I don’t spend my time there anymore. I think it’s the time to start writing the story that I always wanted to write, the story that the little Joe wished to write, the story that the busy Joe never had time to put on it. Yes, this is where Joe always starts. I’m sure that my story begins to be sold Millions of copies worldwide as soon as I publish it. Big Joe is sitting beside the lake and …”
Joe is now finished his story and he is going to make a contract with a well-known publisher. He said to the publication manager to keep his first royalty payment check because he wants to buy their publication 20% more than it’s worth. Will he successful? Can he sell millions of copies and reach his goals?

Am I Little Joe?

2007-12-08T22:02:00.000+03:30

Notice: This story is written in bad English form, you may even notice hard mistakes in language usage while reading. Please keep in mind that I'm not a native and there is no one here to instruct, correct me. I just looked at this drawing (From the book "English Knowhow 3") and tried to make a story about it. If you enjoyed the story, please correct some mistakes. It's really appreciated.
Read the revised edition!

Joe was so tired, he just came back from the magazine office after several hours of hard work. It was the fifth day that he was coming back home like this; so tired, without smiling on his wife like ever. That’s why his wife popped on him suddenly and asked “What’s wrong with you Joe? It’s days that you are not like always”. Joe said: “Everything is OK honey, don’t be worried about that, everything will be good as it used to be soon.”
They were living in Pandora, a very beautiful town in northern Canbera. The town had very beautiful natural scenes and panoramas. Joe was grown in a big house in the suburb beside a lake that was adjaced to a forest. When he was a child he always had a habit to go next to the lake, everyday afternoon with his diary beholding usually with his bicycle and sitting there and writing a diary. He always wanted to become a big writer and author of the most fascinating books in the world and that was why he was always starting his diary with the words “Joe is sitting beside the lake and is writing another diary.” With the feeling of a big, famous Joe that is writing.
Several days passed and Joe was still coming home sad. One day he came back soon and went to the room slapping the door back without noticing his wife. After a few minutes he went out, looking happy with a sports cloth, like the days when he was a child. He went to his wife and said loudly: “We are so prosperous. We can travel all over the world visiting fabulous spots of the world, be on safaris and explore… because I don’t have a job anymore.” and went out with his bicycle.
His wife was knowing where he was going, because he still had the habit to go to his childhood spot beside the lake whenever he was sad and even sometimes he liked to write the articles for the magazine there. So she slipped on and get on her bicycle driving to the lake. She noticed him from the back sitting on his place and thinking. She parked his bicycle next to his and sat close to him and asked: “Honey, are you thinking about the office?” He said nothing and they were quiet for several minutes. She tried again to open a conversation and said: “don’t worry, you can find another job, maybe you find the job that you always had dreams for soon.” Joe said: “Yes, I’m so hopeful. The another way I’m thinking, losing of my job was a gift to me. They never honored me, understood my abilities. I’m now happy that I don’t spend my time there anymore. I think it’s the time to start writing the story that I always wanted to write, the story that the little Joe wished to write, the story that the busy Joe never had time to put on it. Yes, this is where Joe always starts. I’m sure that my story begin to be sold Millions of copies worldwide as soon as I publish it. Big Joe is sitting beside the lake and …”
Joe is now finished his story and he is going to make a contract with a well-known publisher. He said to the publication manager to keep his first cheque, he wants to buy their publication 20% upper than it’s worth. Will he successful? Can he sell millions of copies?

Things To Always Remember

2007-10-29T22:06:00.000+03:30

Today I found some beautiful words while surfing the net, I don’t know where they are originally from, but they really worth reading at least once and think about them. By the way my feelings are changing rapidly nowadays. I don't know how to express my feelings but I think "as crazy as a mad cow" really works!

1-To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world.
2-Your presence is a present to the world.
3-You are unique and one of a kind.
4-Your life can be what you want it to be.
5-Take the days just one at a time.
6-Count your blessings, not your troubles.
7- Decisions are too important to leave to chance.
8-Nothing wastes more energy than worrying.
9-The longer one carries a problem the heavier it gets.
10-Do not take things too seriously.
11-Live a life of serenity, not a life of regrets.
12-Remember that a little love goes a long way. Remember that a lot … goes forever.
13-Remember that friendship is a wise investment.
14-Realize that it is never too late.
15-Do ordinary things in an extraordinary way.
16-Life is 10% of what happens to you, and 90% of how you respond to it.
17-Don't be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.
18-Words are windows to the heart.
19-You are richer today if you have laughed, given or forgiven.
20-I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
21-Life is like an onion; you peel off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep.
22-Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.
23-No one is easier to deceive than oneself.
24-The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
25-The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power within us.
26-Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one so that when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.
27-When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.
28-It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives.
29-Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do.
30-Always put yourself in others' shoes. If you feel that it hurts you, it probably hurts the other person, too.
31-The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
32-When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.
33-Live your life so that when you die, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.
34-Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the mind.
35-You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying over the future.
36-Love ......and you shall be loved.
37-All people smile in the same language.
38-A hug is a great gift. One size fits all. It can be given for any occasion and it's easy to exchange.
39-Everyone needs to be loved...especially when they do not deserve it.
40-Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.
41-It's important for parents to live the same things they teach.
42-If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.
43-Happy memories never wear out.... relive them as often as you want.
44-Home is the place where we grumble the most, but are often treated the best.
45-The choice you make today will usually affect tomorrow.
46-Take time to laugh for it is the music of the soul.
47-If anyone speaks badly of you, live so none will believe it.
48-Love is strengthened by working through conflicts together.
49-The best thing parents can do for their children is to love each other.
50-Harsh words break no bones but they do break hearts.
51-To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it.
52-We take for granted the things that we should be giving thanks for.
53-Love is the only thing that can be divided without being diminished.
54-Happiness is enhanced by others but does not depend upon others.
55-For every minute you are angry with someone, you lose 60 seconds of happiness that you can never get back.
56-Do what you can, for who you can, with what you have, and where you are.
57-AND DO NOT EVER FORGET …. FOR EVEN A DAY HOW VERY SPECIAL YOU ARE!

Got rank 5 on the google

2007-10-28T02:48:00.000+03:30

The biggest step blog have recently got pagerank 5 out of 10 on the google. The Pagerank™ is the Google’s measure of the importance of a webpage on the internet. The pagerank 5 shows that this weblog stands at the upper spot than more than 70% of the weblogs worldwide. And it seems to be a good spot. Also the referral logs from the search engines show that this weblog has been a good source for people who were looking for information for their researches and studies as follow:
Helped hundreds of people from Middle East countries to connect to Paltalk.
Helped hundreds of people who were researching for marriage traditions in Iran.
Helped people who were looking for information about Iranian traditions like Yalda.
Helped many people who were looking for Mnemonics on the net.
Helped people who were researching about the leaning tower of Pisa and the biography of popular singer Enrique Iglesias.
And much more as like “Friends Forever” short story and etc.
These are all motivate me more than ever to dedicate more time at this blog and to try to do better posts. My main problem on this is the language problem and unfortunately there is no one to guide me and correct my mistakes. The language classes weren’t the cure and I haven’t improved even a bit since last year. Since one year ago, I’ve passed three language courses, the first one which was the starting point of this blog was really wonderful but in the second and third courses I forgot my previous knowledge rather than learning! With regards to that guy who instructed me perfectly on these courses, after that I looked for another language institutes. But there wasn’t any better place in the sucking city Arak. Today I took part in a class in the Kish language institute and it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Maybe I show up at this class if they change the days of the class to odd days because I’m going to another language class at my old institute. This class is a good one with the last year’s teacher miss hajilou, although she is a good teacher but I think the classes are not as functional as it was previously, she spend most of the time explaining grammatical points, playing listening tapes and we don’t have opportunity to talk and practice English. I don’t know what’s the problem with me that I feel down nowadays. Maybe it’s because of the very bad days I had in last six months and I often feel depressed during these bad days.

How to use Paltalk in restricted countries

2007-07-13T14:10:00.000+03:30

I love Paltalk. It’s the best voice chat and virtual live community I’ve ever seen. It’s a really living community across the world and there are many people who cannot live without Paltalk as it’s their only place to really socialize and interact with friends.
Unfortunately the Paltalk’s policy is not as good as its community and maybe they are way out. I previously mentioned [In 2005] some instruction in how to remove annoying, forced ads from Paltalk. But todays, the free access to Paltalk rooms is a subject of trouble for people who are from Middle East countries especially Iran. They’ve recently in an ungently discriminating action, forced users from these countries to get premium accounts to access Paltalk rooms. Maybe they’ve forgotten that these people are a part of Paltalk’s virtual community and they shouldn’t be sorted out from the rest of community because they are only from specific countries.
So let’s look at in how to cope this limitation if you are affected by that:
(Here is only the method I came up with and you may use other methods such as using VPN connections.)

Instructions:

Download, install and run a program that lets you connect through a proxy server or connect directly to a proxy server. I recommend to use GPass.
Download, install and run SocksCap.
In SocksCap, click on the “New” button, and browse to the Paltalk’s installation path and select Paltalk.exe.
From the file menu in SocksCap, point to Settings and set its Socks server to 127.0.0.1 and port to 8000. Select Socks version 5 as in the following picture:
Now if everything has done well, you only need to open and connect to Paltalk. Enjoy!

Disclaimer:

I’m not responsible or care of for any issues that use of this method may cause for you. I just shared the way in how to connect freely to Paltalk. Please do not use this method if you think that it’s not your definitive right.

Goodbye old office!

2007-07-11T15:09:00.000+03:30

Today I’m evacuating my old office. It was a pretty nice place which I have much good memoirs there. It was a promotion place for me and my business with good income there.
I’ll be working for a company for a few months and after that I’m arranging to get a new office here in Arak or possibly in Tehran.

Goodbye old office, miss you!

How did I find 100 good friends in just one day!?

2007-06-01T22:12:00.000+03:30

There is no tips, no tricks on how to attract people or make friends!

The story started when I decided to find a new way to advertise people. Yesterday, after spending about two weeks of a retail website, I felt that the rate of sales is too low at my site and people need to become acquainted with my website. As I always hated email advertising and spamming, I thought of a friendlier way of sending emails and since the best way of communicating to people is to talk about their interests and as people are always interested in to others read what they are writing at their websites and weblogs, and as … and as … and as I’ve never thought about some of these “As ases”… I started programming.
I wrote a spider program which its job is to crawl people’s webs. The program which has been written in PHP language, crawls targeted people’s websites or weblogs and collect their address, email and a bit of text about what they are writing about.
After running the program for about 2 hrs, the program has been collected about 1200 records in the database. At that time, writing of mailer program was almost finished, this program is intended to send mails to the people using the database records. Since it was late at that time, I left the programs runnig together, one collecting and one mailing and I went home.
Today morning, when I came to the office I really shocked! My mailbox was stuffed with messages from people saying: “Thank you for reading my web, you are so kind offering me accommodations. I also visited your entire website and it was wonderful…”

After I opened my IM program, shortly people started to send me messages, mostly friendly and thanksgiving messages. Some guys putted my link on their web and one designed a few banners for my site. There were also some troublesome situations when they were asking for example: “How did you see my web?” It wasn’t actually a serious problem with my search tool which helps to locate their addresses in a few seconds by searching their name or mail address.The Search Console

In comparison with yesterday I think the quantity of orders increased about 40% even though today was a holiday.
I don’t know this kind of marketing is right or not but I always tried to obey all moral things. I’ve never lied or wrote something wrong in my emails( for example I wrote I like your weblog as I actually like all people’s weblogs and I never wrote I’ve read your weblog) and I’ve always honored to people.
Morals are always the most important concepts to me.

Educate your mind into believing certain goals

2007-05-19T13:28:00.000+03:30

Today I found a nifty program that can be useful for people who work regularly with their computer. Brain Bullet is a program which displays selected messages called "affirmations" onto your computer display repeatedly and quickly. Researches show that this affect your unconscious mind to believe things and is very effective.

So what is Brain Bullet?

Brain Bullet! is an application designed for Microsoft Windows, that sits in the "system tray" and flashes pre-selected "affirmations" at defined intervals on the screen, to "re-educate" your mind into believing it has the ability to achieve certain goals and ambitions.
Based upon research into subliminal programming, the application delivers affirmations to you faster than your conscious mind is aware of them. This enables the instructions to be sent directly to your subconscious mind (the part of your mind that holds its core beliefs, and "processes" information from the outside world automatically), and act upon them - without any conscious awareness.
The result is the ability to reshape your mind, your abilities, your beliefs and your skill-set... Without the need to consciously practice them, meditate, think positively, or subscribe to any other self-development philosophy that may demand years of your life before any tangible results surface.
Instead, this software makes use of the time you already spend using your computer and turns every minute into an opportunity to drive you toward achieving your goals... fast, realistically and effortlessly. Just hit a few buttons, and let the software work its magic!

If you want to try out this free program(worths), I've uploaded it here!

Alone night trip to mountain

2007-04-29T20:50:00.000+03:30

It's sharp 9 in the pm. I'm going to do something different from routines. Going to calm mountains in the night alone without anything, just with my cellphone(to take some photos) and a pocket of cigarettes. Anything may happen to me, maybe I didn't come back because there are lots of threats at this time on the dark mountains, bad guys or maybe I became a greasy bit of a wolf or crazy wild dog. That's also thunder storming, maybe one of that lightnings killed me. BUT this is not the passion of a depressed one who is thinking on to commit a suicide. I just want to challenge myself, maybe I found what's I'm looking for on my life in the dark mountain.
I'm going to come back at 12, and then I will write what's happened to me with the photos.
Until that...
---------------------

An awkward silence in the mountain

I’m back at 11:30, everything was well and actually there was no threat. I’m just feeling fresh with a lot of energy and also a stuffed head! because of the climate. The only bad thing was the heavy storm, especially at the peak.
On the way of mountain, there are two railways and after that there is a hill which leads to the city ring road. Near the hill I noticed that some junkies are in action along a flame. I just passed them and arrived the mountain. On the mount I followed the blind roads, passed one mount after another. Finally I reached the sixth peak, where it was the highest spot in the area and there was no higher mount in the radius of one kilometer. At first, I expected to see guys especially junkies on the way, but after climbing two months, I was sure that there is no one on the month but me, actually there was no one as crazy as me to do that! And there was amazing bits of time there, an awkward silence in the mount with the only sound of wind reverberating through the stones and the beautiful view of the city at night from the mountain.
I really enjoyed sitting for some moments there on rocks below the moonlight which was shining faintly behind the clouds and thinking lonely for myself.
On the way back I lost the blind road for a while and I had to go through the rocks and stones in darkness, and the bad point to me was that I didn’t have sneakers to run easily on slopes. I need to buy new shoes tomorrow.

Photographs:

A view of the city from the mountain

My flag at the highest point of the mount peak!

A view of the city ring road on the way back.

Feeds for practicing mnemonics

2007-04-14T18:13:00.000+03:30

If you are new to the term “mnemonics”, in shorthand, mnemonic is a device, such as a formula or rhyme, used as an aid in remembering. You may have used this many times in school or college without even hearing the term, but the fact is that mnemonics is a good and reliable memory aid, people who have super-power memories they all have use of a kind of mnemonics. According to wikipedia “Mnemonics rely not only on repetition to remember facts, but also on associations between easy-to-remember information and to be remembered lists of data, based on the principle that the human mind much more easily remembers data attached to spatial, personal, or otherwise meaningful information than that occurring in meaningless sequences.”
If you are a newbie in mnemonics (like me) you need a lot of feeds everyday to get through. The best feed for practicing mnemonics in first levels is the random list of items. I searched on the net for these lists and navigated through several websites, but I was unable to find a becoming source; so I came up with a new way using Google Sets and Shuffler tool to generate unlimited lists of different items. Suppose that you want to generate a list, containing names of animals, vehicles, foods, clothes, countries, shapes and music instruments. First you need to go to Google Sets and create sets of items from animals, vehicles, foods, clothes, countries and shapes. Then just copy and paste sets from your browser window to shuffler tool and click the “Shuffle Items”. That’s it! You have the long list in less than two minutes. I strongly recommend that you do not try to make the lists just using your mind, because words coming from your mind are usually words that your mind considers several times everyday and they are very common words including objects around you and this is not a good challenge. That’s why it’s strongly recommended to always use an external source to make lists of items for practicing mnemonics.
Mnemonics are brain boosters, consider memorizing list of items as exercises to your brain and a good challenge. While physical exercises develop muscular strength and agility, mental exercises develop your brain performance. Don’t let neurons being idle! Strength and use up these workhorses in right way and continue smoking!
By the way, I’ve memorized two lists of fifty items today, who wants to challenge me?

What’s up with me? I love more bandwidth!

2007-03-10T20:07:00.000+03:30

Downloader loves more bandwidth!

OK guys! My new job is downloading. I’ve called my new office “My Download Center”! Cause I usually keep trying to make the computers do better downloading from the net. Optimizing TCP/IP and network settings to reach the best performance of downloading, prioritize and scheduling downloads are needed to use up 100% of total 24x7 network bandwidth. I’m not a download greedy but it’s a part of my business to have need to large amount of data from the world’s most recent academic publishers. I’m going to feed Iranian people(especially higher education students) with worthful information and it seems to be a very profitable business as I see they are thirst of new information. To do the best in business, my co-workers will join me in two months.

An screenshot of my computer desktop while downloading

Back to English Classes at Pishro
I’m back to English classes at Pishro language academy after near two months. The classes are good and funny and I learn a lot every session though my level of English seems to be much better than the rest of class. The good point is that the teachers (Mrs. Ehsanzadeh / Mr. Moosazadeh) let me more to talk.
The English classes are very considerable in this blog and even in my life since they were as my starting point to write in English and this blogging. When my previous term teacher miss Hadjilou asked us to bring a writing each session, it gave me more confidence to do that in a broader area and publish my writings on internet. She was a very good, honorable teacher, thanks to him.
Please excuse my bad English, I’m still learning.

Nokia N72 was supposed to bring new life!
After getting rid of that tiny SE k310, I arranged to get a new Nokia N72 to more digitalize my life. But after just a few days, it turned to be the most amazing portable game console I’ve ever had. There are hundreds of games on my phone and I’m still involved to make better records and discover new levels. LOL.

At the end of this post, I'd like to appreciate Blogs by Iranians and Jerusalem Post newspaper for linking my weblog.

Homecast radio broadcasts world radio stations

2007-01-04T19:34:00.000+03:30

Experts say that if you want to improve yourself in a matter in a short time, it’s better to surround yourself with that stuff. English is one of those matters to me nowadays, so I try to surround myself with English as much as possible in any way from air, earth, environment, radio waves and etc.
Yesterday when I was relaxing in my spare time listening to local radio with my small mp3 player, I found that there isn’t any reason to restrict myself to that boring radio stations or a few song tracks in my player memory. Then I thought about thousands of radio stations through world wide currently streaming on the internet.
With a few small changes to an old 10$ portable-sound headphone, I converted it to a short range FM radio transmitter, just setting its frequency to standard FM radio range and connecting it to my PCs audio output. . The results are wonderful; I have world radio stations broadcasting to my home with the range of near 100 meters, I can tune my player or home stereo to listen to favorite English stations in the home range. In this way my ADSL connection will be used to access the world radio stations and will not idle while I’m not working with the computer.
Although most of the radio stations are devoted to music, there are too many great English news and talk show stations that I haven’t discovered them yet; but currently my favorite ones are V.O.A, Air America, NPR and a little CNN.
My next step is to share the internet connection with mobile devices via Bluetooth, but unfortunately my damned K310i cell phone doesn’t have Bluetooth!

Beautiful Yalda is falling out my time

2006-12-22T00:19:00.000+03:30

Tonight is a special one because of a special guest; Yalda night has brought joy and happiness to Iranian homes. Yalda is the longest night of the year that Iranian people celebrates it together with happiness and traditional customs from ancient. However I’m not going to write about Yalda (Shabe Chelle in casual language) as you can find much about that by just a googling on it, but in addition, just know that Yalda is also a girl’s name in Persian. I don’t know who made all the beautiful things feminine or putted all the beautiful names to girls. [They were instinctively right!]
At 7 pm in Yalda night, my sister called me:
Sister: We are in grandpa’s home, come here, we are waiting for you.
Me: I’m in short of time, you know, I’ve already told you that I don’t go anywhere.
Sister: Grandpa and Grandma are asking about you, they’re gonna to be unhappy if you don’t come. Come for dinner and go back early.
Me: Give my deep apologizes to them and explain my situation. I would lose in my exams if I miss these hours.
Sister: How can you tell this while you were asleep all the morning!?
Me: I was asleep all the morning because I stayed up all the night studying. Now I’m in the mood of studying and I want to keep it. I’ll go home when I was tired, maybe at midnight. So, tell me, do you know what is the limit of an n-gon when n approaches infinity?
Sister: I USED TO KNOW, BE HERE IN 30 MINUTES OR….
Me: YES MUM.
Customs are very good, but sometimes they come in awkwardly, especially when you can not avoid them. Some customs are very strong here, like Yalda and holiday of Nowrooz. I have never could benefit these times to do something productive because if you try to do you have to swim against the river flow.
Lets come back again to Yalda, one of the customs is to eat some watermelons in this night, it’s used to believe that if you eat watermelon in Yalda, you don’t get thirsty in next summer, so still people buy and eat Yaldamelons. Look what message one of my friends sent me: “You are so handsome, you are so attractive. This is your watermelon for Yalda!!”
If you havn’t got it, just consider the old Persian proverb “Putting watermelon to somebody’s armpit (Hendevane zire baghale kasi gozashtan)”. You put watermelon to somebody’s armpit when you cheat or lie him.
The oldest Yalda I can remember comes back to when I was 5 years old. I remember when my mother told me it’s the time to go to bed, I replied: “Mother, tonight is the longest one, we have too much time tonight enough to stay up more.” I used to believe that the night is as long as a week or maybe a month! And when my mother told me that it may be longer just for a minute, I thought foolish.
It would be great if the Yalda could be the night that I could study same as I study in a week or month if it cannot be as long as a week or month!

Independent Ahmad: Under Pressure

2006-12-05T00:18:00.000+03:30

What I am feeling like these days can be best described by this picture:

Yes, that’s me. But of course there are much more burden on me. It is killing me. It is hard to me to stand this massive burden any more. But I think I should keep them on me or lose all of them. I don’t want to lose all of them because they are too worthful to me and are the only things I have got in my life.

Also this picture is very descriptive about me.

I have to read all of these papers bud I don’t know how and from which one should I start.

I sometimes have to do something similar to this:

These days I feel stressed out, full of anxiety and worry. Especially when thinking about future in nights when I’m not doing something. But I’m funny, hopeful and do not take things so hard. I do my best(worst) everyday.
Something else: kill you Araki guys. If I don’t leave this hell city shortly, I’m going to kill myself.

Independent Ahmad: Life is changing

2006-11-28T23:24:00.000+03:30

I do not like to write too much about myself, as I think you do not like read such things too much. But I feel I need to write somewhat about what is going on with me. It makes me peaceful.
I’m going on to make a big difference in my life and leaving my father’s house in two months after 21 years living with them. Hmmm… really amazing, total independence by living by myself. I’m really looking forward for that day.
From now on I’ll keep myself busy with studying. I have some important and vital examinations in January. I’m looking at them as barriers because they always been as impediments in my mind and life whenever I had to make up my mind for an important change in life. I just decided to face the problems and dominate them. So I have to study at least 12 hours each day in two coming months. I’ll also have a little time everyday to spend on the net as I used to have. And the same for my English learning, because the time is limited and I’m doubtful about participating to the class for the next term but I’ll probably do it in spite of the fact that I’ll don’t have to work in home for that.
Beside the fact that studying hard like this for examinations causes missing of very things but I think it saves the time, because you have to restrict yourself in a specific template and give up some awkward habits such as spending much for leisure and unnecessary activities. It also makes you more productive as you discover the worthfulness of time. In other hands I really enjoy studying materials such as mathematics, geometry and logics as they really cause your mind working and thinking deeply and take you to challenges.
That’s why I would like to have exams everyday to stay productive.

Independent Ahmad: feeling sad is not a sin

2006-11-22T23:27:00.000+03:30

Tonight is a cold one, really cold. Frosty and blue at 10:45. I brought myself home as fast as possible after language class finished at 7:30. today my cell phone rung more than everyday. It was showing 15 missed calls since I haven’t like to answer a call today. As I stepped home, it rung once more and I decided to answer; Mrs. Khalaj, are you still looking for an office? I replied: thank you, but I’m not on a budget right now.
I hated being busy, being busy is seductive. It grabs you most of the fun. That’s why I always was being tried to be independent in my life. I sacrificed everything for being independent, my work, my school, my time, my future and even my life. I didn’t get anything major, but I can make up my mind to travel to north or south of the country at the moment.
I’m really feeling sad, something is killing me. Duality, I always was being wrestling with dualities in my life, duality in everything, beliefs, chores, choosing people, jobs, ways and etc but I always used to try missing nothing.
I’m a sad one, because I have tasted the flavor of a deep failure once more in my life. Several failures in things which are tied to your being, one after another, in years; you feel the paradise as a hell, maybe Tartarus.
Yesterday I was in Tehran. Showing up in a friendly meeting with my friends who mostly been website owners. The meeting was holden on to talk about problems and issues about Iranian websites and to take a unique approach to handle hard situations. After the meeting, I stayed behind with some of my colleague friends and had some chats. I resigned from all of my positions and affairs. I told them that I’ll be very busy in coming year and my life is changed as I applied for some abroad universities.
But there isn’t so much chance for a man like me who lives on a shoestring to do something major in short time but I have hopes.
It is crystal clear to me for what to do. But I’m doing nothing or at least the right thing and this is what annoying me.

This blog is not just belonged to class activities as it did. The language classes are almost finished and we are approaching to the end of the term. It was my second term studying English at Pishro Language Academy and also the best one. I feel massive improvements in my English but not still content with it at all. After this term I don’t like to stay in my home city Arak any more and loving to go abroad.
From now on, the posts titled with “Independent Ahmad” are about myself. I call my new personality and attitude “Independent Ahmad” which is the third Ahmad. The first Ahmad died after 18 years living and the second one died after 2 years at age 21. Now the third Ahmad is formed since three months ago and still improving.

The leaning tower of Pisa

2006-11-10T23:10:00.000+03:30

Language Class Activity 5

I chose the leaning tower of Pisa to write about. What a good choice, since it caused me to know everything about Pisa, Italy. I wish someday to be there.

The leaning tower of Pisa is one of the glittering masterworks of Romanesque style architecture in Europe. The tower is originally a campanile adjacent to three buildings, but its bell never rung. During the construction of the structure an unexpected problem caused it to stretch for more than 200 years with some long-term interruptions/halts. It started to sink into the soft soil from one side and the tower began to tilt more and more every year. It is said that the lean to be increasing at a rate of about 1mm per year and at its summit it was about 5 meters tilts from the vertical.
Although the structure is glorious, but it is mostly renowned for its marked tilt. It is known to the most of the people in the world as a leaning tower and maybe it’s tended to be obscure the fact that it is also a magnificent Romanesque style architecture. In the past it was widely believed that the inclination of the Tower was part of the project ever since it’s beginning, but now we know that it is not so.
The eight story round tower is 55 meters tall consisting of a ground floor and six additional stairs with open galleries with round arches supported on columns. At the top of the tower there is the bell chamber which is somewhat smaller in diameter to other stories. 294 spiral staircases are leading to the bell chamber. The famous physicist Galileo did his experiments about gravity and relative speed of falling objects from this chamber. The exterior is adorned by fine marbles and excellent carved work. The doorway which is especially ornate, featured with grotesque carving of animals.
In a process of conservation in 1992 the tower closed to the public. City officials have initiated a bold plan to attempt to counter the lean of the structure and prevent the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling with very advanced methodologies.

List of resources:
Encarta Encyclopedia
CNN Travel
Pisa.it

Friends forever

2006-11-06T22:51:00.000+03:30

Language Class Activity 4

Today class activity is a short story. Writing this story took me more than 4 hours. I hadn't ever to write a story and this is the first one. I have tried my best, hope you enjoy it.

It was the dawn of the fall, the first day of school at the most beautiful school of the city. The first year students were coming to school with their parents, some were happy, some were amazed and some were crying while trying to not separate from their parents. But between the mass of the students there were three students which later, this day became their first day of their life-long friendship relation. Majid, Said and Ashkan were the students of class C grade one.
One day Majid noticed that Said and Ashkan are contesting outside of the school, because Ashkan was thinking that Said inkied his notebook. Majid tried to make peace between them and this adventure was as a starting point of their deep friendship.
After finishing the years in elementary school, they went to the talent’s school, where they were the most successful students and also the closest students in the school. Finally, the years of high school were elapsed and it was the day of graduation. They were feeling astonished, one side there were feeling happy because of their graduation ceremony and on the other side, they were feeling grief when recalling the happy days they had been spent together in the school which were finished.
After ceremony finished, they decided to have their last walk in the beautiful, green campus of the school. But this time unlike always, they had a feel of amazement. Said was telling nothing, and just had to stare everywhere his eyes turn, resembling if the point by point of the corpus is familiar to him. Majid broke the silence and said: I’m thinking to the future like you, a future which everything can be possible to happen. It may be each one of us has to choose a different way, completely different from the others. It may be each one of us has to go to a far off point in the world and couldn’t have chance to meet each other for the years.
Ashkan suddenly interrupted Majid and said: Let’s have a pledge in this beautiful corpus filled with lots of unforgettable memories to stay friends forever. Said continued: good idea, ever it is worthy if we set aside a specific day of year to our friendship, so all ever at anywhere, at that day we would have an appointment to meet each other.
Ashkan warmly pleased with this proposal and said: wonderful, this way we never forget each other.
Said suddenly noticed to Majid, which was staring at a point, thinking hardly. “What do you think of that Majid?” asked Said.
Majid suddenly shocked, looks like waking up from a heavy profound sleep. He mumbled: you know…, good idea…, that’s right but…, but you know… in my viewpoint it’s not necessary to meet each other every year, we can stay friends from afar. Even it is not at all related to being far or not. Saying “being far, being close”. Just our hearts should be close to. Tell me, how many years do you think we can stay friends from afar?
Said said: as deeper of our friendship as longer we stay friends. Forever, I’m sure, Ashkan shouted.
Three friends fell into thinking for a few moments, after a while Majid broke into unexpectedly and said: “How do you think if we give it a try?” after gazing for some moments, Majid and Said shook their hands as a sign of confirmation.
Majid continued: “How about 20 years?”
“20 years later, at this day, at this time and at this place.” Ashkan confirmed.
*****
Twenty years spent and three friends as they were vowed, kept afar from each other on their own way. It was the appointment day; they were keeping counting seconds to that moment from months ago, when they first looked each other, teardrops were pouring from their eyes. It was a wonderful, indescribable feeling that was dominating them. They were not able to believe that they are the same friends as 20 years ago. They were feeling full of pride and delighting.
Now Majid was one of the best university professors at Harvard, Said was a co-founder and manager of a big communication company and Ashkan was an outstanding chemist.
Three friends were in the campus, resting on the trees which were reminders of their years at school.
Ashkan said: we were not away from each other over these years, I hadn’t a feel of missing you even for a moment, but I always had keeping a passion to meet you again.
Said continued: I beholden all of my prosperities to this friendship. Over these years, everything that I was achieving and each stair I was gaining, you unexpectedly were resembling to me and it always was giving me motivations.
Majid said: we are friends forever; an experience of these years showed us that while our hearts are close, nothing can make us divided. We each other went to a separate way and maybe if we were just three strangers who incidentally came together, we couldn’t find any similar points to keep us together. But our hearts are close and we will stay together forever.

The first taste of smokes

2006-10-31T23:47:00.000+03:30

Language Class Activity 3

The third language class activity is about a childhood memory. I have chosen my first experience of smoking to write about. Hope you enjoy it.

During my childhood I always had been curious about smoking. Looking people who smokes anywhere and anytime, it was always been a question for me that how people smoke and why they like inhale such smelly smoke? Is there any hidden pleasure in it that I don’t know? Smoking was always forbidden in our home.
During those days, I usually had to stay over at my cousin’s home; we were really close and have same age. One day after talking a bit about smoking we decided to give it a try, so we went to the roof stealthily and got prepared for smoking. Since we didn’t have any cigarettes, we decided to build them ourselves. We rolled up some pieces of newspaper in place of cigarettes and as an imitation from smokers we putted them through our lips and lighted the tip of rolls. You don’t believe, but we were really surprised, because the rolls had a lot of smokes more than any cigarettes. We started to inhale the smokes as smokers inhale. But unlike the smokers, as soon as the smoke came to my throat, it made me coughing. We were very serious experiencing smokes, so we kept going, inhaling and coughing, inhaling and coughing… after a while we were really feeling bad, Even without smokes coughing was keeping on strongly with the feel of vomiting. We coughed all the day and suffered the throat ache but HATED SMOKING FOR YEARS.

Enrique Iglesias

2006-10-29T23:42:00.000+03:30

Class Activity 2

This is the second class activity which is a research about popular singer Enrique Iglesias. Doing this research was a great experience to me.
The words in bold form are described at the end of the research.

Enrique Iglesias is a very popular pop music singer. At the dawn of new millennium, Enrique was the best-selling Latin recording artist in the world.
Enrique is the son of a multimillion-selling music performer Julio Iglesias. He has followed in his father's footsteps with even larger footsteps of his own. At the first point everyone considers that Enrique has used his father to gain acceptance as a musician, but simply when you refer to his biography, you'll see in the counter point he never used his father's popularity or had his supports. In Enrique's childhood he never had been close to his father because Julio was mostly away from home busy with his own music career. When Enrique was in middle-school, he was keeping his musical aspirations a secret, saying "I never wanted to tell my parents".
Enrique was born in Spain, but he moved to Miami when he was only 7, mostly because of terrorism threats in his home country. While there, Enrique was exposed to three different cultures and musical influences; Hispanic, European, and American.
The young Enrique always had aspirations to become a famous musician, as after a year studying business at the University of Miami, he decided to follow his passion for music and released his first album at age 20. The album which was recorded in Spanish, sold more than a million copies in three months and to date has sold more than 6 millions worldwide. The second album "Vivir" (1997) enjoyed global sales of more than 5 million disks and launched his first world tour, backed by sideman for Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Joel. In a mere three years, Iglesias has sold more than 17 million Spanish-language albums, more than anyone else during that period. He also won the 1996 Grammy for best Latin performer, 1996's Billboard artist of the year, in addition to other magnificent awards and countless accolades around the world.
With 1998's album, Cosas del Amor, Enrique moved to more mature content; He released his first Interscope and first in English, which achieved gold or platinum status in more than 30 countries and brought his global album sales to more than 23 millions.
Now Enrique Iglesias moves on to the next chapter. And though the secret to any artist's success is constant growth, Enrique says there is one thing that will never change: his striving for that next great song and next great album. "That's the challenge, that's the fun," he says. "That's what will always drive me. I keep having to prove myself."

Resources:
The official website of Enrique Iglesias
Yahoo! Music
sing365.com

New Words:
dawn: begin, start.
aspiration: ambition, goal, dream .
passion: desire, love, heat.
to date: until the present time.
backed by: supported by.
sideman: musician who plays music to support a solo performance.
mere: only, just.
Grammy: any of a number of golden statuettes awarded by the American National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in the recording industry .
Billboard: weekly American magazine devoted to music and the recording industry (includes the weekly charts for top songs and albums) .
strive: endeavor, try hard.

A traditional wedding in Iran

2006-10-23T22:03:00.000+03:30

Language Class Activity 1

"Before going to the heart of the matter, It is mentionable that this writing is originally written as a language class activity. My teacher Miss Hajilou at pishro language institute asked us to write a brief essay about marriage to practice new words and expressions we just learned at the class. This is my essay, I know there may be too much errors in my essay, but I hope she correct me!"

Iran is a large and multiracial country which includes too many different races within the country. So it is common to have different traditions in the country including wedding traditions.
Arabs, Lores, kurds, torks and fars people which make up the most population of the country, has their own wedding customs, but in this brief writing I’ll try to explain a typical wedding in Iran that I think it is mixed of the customs of the different country races.
In a typical Iranian family, the groom’s family which probably including matchmakers (maybe groom’s uncle, aunt …) goes to the brides home and formally asks for her hand in marriage. In ask for hand feast, usually the bride offers the tea to grooms family. When the bride’s family agrees, two families talk about the other arrangements. They talk about the amount of marriage portion, marriage lines and set a date to get marry (Aghd) and the marriage ceremony.
Before of the marriage day, usually there is a feat of ‘hanabandan’ which the families put some hennas on the new couple’s hands. It is a traditional custom.
The next day, the couple take each other in marriage in presence of a priest, who should record the marriage with the signs of witnesses.
After that the period of engagement begins which may take from a few days to a few years, depends on the couple’s view.
After this period if everything goes well, they will take a formal wedding ceremony, inviting all of the friends and relatives of two families and usually serves a dinner or lunch with candy.
The day after the reception is the shower day, which the ceremony attendants should donate their presents.