Oman Government Sign New Enterprise Agreemant with Microsoft

Posted by khalid.almamari on Dec 30, 2009 in English, News, Technology | 2 comments

The government have now license for Windows 7 Congratulations for all for the renewal of Oman-Microsoft agreement. It has been known that the actual signing was last week but it only showed up today on the ITA.Gov.OM . the greemant with microsoft has new proxy (Exceed) insted of the last agreemant (OHI).

Ok, here is the great news: in addition that we will have Exchange 2010, Windows 7, Office 2010, and all the other cool Microsoft products we will have 60 training opportunities (on Microsoft Products) for college graduates! The new (renewed) agreement has more focus on training and accountability on number of the actual used licenses unlike the previous garment. I will update this post as i have more details on the terms of the agreement. You can read the news on the ITA website: www.ita.gov.om .

As conclusion I would like to say:: YaaaaYYyyyy Windows 7  for my Laptop Wooohooo.

SQL Hacks , book review

Posted by Ali AL Lawati on Dec 25, 2009 in English, Review | 3 comments

Well i am not the kind that reads lots and lots of books (still i am trying to be like that), but one of the special books i have ever read is SQL Hacks

This book is really special , it can really change the way you write SQL. To clarify one thing first, if you are completely new to sql and have never worked with it before this book is not for you, to use this book you must have used sql at least very basic statments of it). Anyone with initial use of sql will find things that are hard to query or looks like imposible to do with sql if you are one of these people this book is best for you cause it will show you in very easy simple way that the thing you thought it is impossible is actually very easily done in sql!!

The book is devided into categories of sql uses (basic, search, web,…etc) which make all the information and tips & tricks easily accessable to the reader.

One of the most wonderful and helpful feature of the book that it is not specific to a signle DBMS solution, it provides the tips&tricks in all sql formats of the most used databases (Oracle, MYSQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Access) and explains the differances between the sql statment of the current tip in each DBMS.

The SQL Recipes provided in the book covers reall world database related problems’ best solutions. Many of theser recipes (hacks) will improve sql you write day to day (it did improve mine few years ago) few others explain very special cases that you may face in rarely, but knowing the best solution will keep you ready to tackle that problem once you are facing it.

although the book is published in 2006 (it isn’t a new book) and i wanted to write about here long time ago but never got to write about till now, but this book don’t have time span. it never gets old. since the industry uses Oracle,MYSQL ,MSSQL Server , etc the book will be very valuable asset to any developer.

Mind Control Machines

Posted by Ali AL Lawati on Dec 20, 2009 in English, Technology | 7 comments

Well in a previews posts  i talked  Mind Machine interface projects which are  a game controlled by mind (well that was in CSG magazine but you can have more info from here) where the user controls a character to walk on a thin thing without falling with his mind , and blind people can see through their tongue where a machine interface is attached to the users tongue and sends signal through the tongue to the mind so the blind user can visualize what is in front of him.

In this post I would like to talk more about this very interesting input output interface between human mind and the machine(computers).

The fascinating part of this is the power you gain and also the danger you put yourself into while using this technology. Just imagine as the power the whole world information and all the control you can get from any computer is not at the tip of your finger it just require you to think about it and it will happen!!!! , and the dangerous part is that may be the future viruses infecting and hackers will be hacking and controlling human minds through these mind machine interfaces !

note: I am not talking about science fiction, this is the real world and believe me the thin line between science and science fiction is becoming even thinner every day.

Well enough talk about the coming future lets just see the present. Where are we ,and how close are we from this (fascinating and scary future)

Human brain works like a complex computer with millions or billions of brain cells exchanging electrical signals into the neural network. Dr. John Donoghue is director of brain science department in the Brown University that  has created a technology to read human thoughts a brain wave sensor that can connect the brain to computer through a wire!! (just like connecting your i pod to the computer you can connect your brain instead).

This chip is attached to the surface of the brain and it can get signal from hundreds of brain cells and send it to the computer for analysis. Dr. John also created a software called Brain Gate that can actually understand and interpret the signals the computer getting from the brain!!! so the computer understand what the brain wants it to do. on one rare experiment that was shown on television Dr. John was using his system by connection his brain to the computer to move a hand image on the screen to touch  a ball by using his thoughts only !!

Another experiment done on monkeys is the connect monkeys brain with sensor chip to computer and the computer to a mechanical arm and offer the monkey a banana which the monkey cannot reach from where he is but he can use the mechanical arm to grab the banana. and it actually worked !!

Another great project is “the audio” which is a project done by a company to recognize what a person want to say by putting a sensor on the neck and all the user need to do is to try to talk without any need to actually talk , the sensor can litrally catch your words from the tip of your toungue which means it is a great tool for people who can’t speak to talk cause the sensor knows what they want to say so it could be send to a software which can genirate the voice. another application could be that a disablled on a specially made wheel chair has to only think of saying directions (left ,right ,front, back) and through the sensor a microcontroller can understand the command and make the wheel chair move that way !!
it also could be used to communicate with others without actually talking. also good way to communicate to computers!!.

well this is the half way of the technology until now we are talking about using the brain interface or brain gate as input device to the machine, we are just moving commands or data from brain to computers. But can we use it as other way around ; as output device can the machine (computers) change our toughts , force us to think about something or at least send information (data) to our brains!!!

i am very afraid to say yes that also is possible and this is the scary part of the future! an evidance of that being possible is an earlier post in omandev about blind people can see through their tounge which is simply a device attached to the toungue of the user the device will capture the image infront of it it and send the image (the data ) to the users mind !!

Another technology technology that can move data, commands to the mind is ELF waves , extreamly Low Frequancies these frequancies have similler range frequancies that human brain have and there are scientific data that shows if a preson is affected with 6.6 hertz of ELF wave it could cause deprission to the person while 7.83 hertz makes the person feel good. so here it is computer will soon be able to communicate data and commands bidirectional ways with the human brain.

Well still this technologies are under research but you can imagen what will happen once they are perfected; users will be able to control machines by using their thoughts only. to turn on TV , turn off the AC you just have to think about it and it happens. well more usefull way of thinking on it is to controle a battle tank or war aircraft just by sitting in safe place and thinking how should the machine move and attack the enemy. well after knowing about Dr. John Donoghue’s brain gate system and the audio project it don’t look like science fiction any more it is very much possible. Now how hard will it be to have a software that can read what the person next to you is thinking about, or what your boss is thinking about. thats brain hacking!

Blind people can see through their tongue

Posted by Ali AL Lawati on Dec 20, 2009 in English, Technology | 0 comments

Every now and then i find technology to be moving faster than fantasies.

This time while reading some book about how human brain can adapt itself to different situations, I found about a strange and very promising technology that is a chip when it is put on a blind user’s tongue it allows him to see!!

i am so amazed by the video of this technology that i cannot write more about it , i think watching the video will be amazing for omandev readers also. let me know what do you think about this

الإتصالات الموحدة

Posted by khalid.almamari on Dec 2, 2009 in تقنية, عربي | 3 comments