OmanDev » English

This Months Video: Metaweb

khalid.almamari — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:50:19 +0000

Maybe you already saw this video from a company has bean just bean acquired by Google.

both video and acquisition happen yesterday. interesting work this company is doing: “maintains an open database of things in the world”.
see the video

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/deeper-understanding-with-metaweb.html

http://www.metaweb.com/

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This Month Video: The marshmallow Challenge

khalid.almamari — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:24:54 +0000

lool interesting observations about team building and project management..
…or simply about spaghetti and marshmallow

Marshmallow Challenge

This Months Video: Metaweb

Exchange 2010 DAG problem?

khalid.almamari — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:30:37 +0000

Hay,

So I was working on Exchange 20210 and I thought of sharing this with you. As you all know Exchang 2010 comes with new database availability feature called “Database Availability Group” or DAG.This Clustering feature allow creating database copies across servers, data centers, or even across countries. DAG works as replication boundary for databases and it works per membership . if a server is member of a DAG it can create and get copies of databases in the DAG when needed (you can specify which database or databases).

If you are working with Exchange 2010 and try to create Database Availability Group (DAG), then u may have come across this weird error message that does not tell you anything when you try to join the first node in the DAG. Ok, let’s recap a lab scenario:

You installed 2 exchange servers.
You already successful on creating the DAG.
When u try to add the first node this error come up:

” A server-side database availability group administrator operation failed. Error: The operation failed with message: Error 0×6f7 (The stub received bad data) from cli_RpccCreateCluster

Error 0×6f7 (The stub received bad data) from cli_RpccCreateCluster

Warning:

The operation wasn’t successful because an error was encountered. You may find more details in log file

“C:\ExchangeSetupLogs\DagTasks\dagtask_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_add-databaseavailabilitygroupserver.log”

The solution: it is a small thing you missed actually. Just adding the default gateway on NIC will solve it. The second server I added was smooth I didn’t have to add the gateway!

The reason is that it seems the DAG creation is not complete (specifically the cluster related resources and configuration) until the first node is created.

I hope that was informative for you.

More Resources:

The First Symposium on Free Source in Oman

khalid.almamari — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:30:14 +0000

open source logos

“

We are pleased to announce that ITA will held the first symposium on free software on the 9th of March 2010, the main objectives of the symposium is to shed the light on ITA national initiative to promote

This initiative comes as part of Information Technology Authority (ITA) strategic directions to play a neutral role towards promoting different technologies.

The symposium shall raise the awareness about the importance of free software because of its potential and competitive characteristics comparing with the commercial software.

The symposium will host a number of key speakers from different countries who will present different topics on issues related to free software movement and philosophy, Arab world initiatives towards promoting the use of free software at different levels and also the symposium will address the local needs to develop such industry in the Sultanate.

During the opening ceremony of the symposium ITA will sign a number of memorandums of understanding with Sultan Qaboos University, Nizwa University and Muscat Higher College of Technology to support the national initiative implementation.

“

The previous is an internal circulation coming to you (after taking permission) directly from ITA internal website.

As many of you know this is the first symposium on free source , in fact this the first Government organized free source related event ever (as far as I know ). It is a great that the young Information Technology Authority (ITA) already exploring the Free Software as a way to implement eOman initiative. For me I will be eagerly waiting to meet Richard Stallman the founder of Free Software Foundation.

My second most exciting thing is ITA signing memorandums of understanding with the educational institutes. It seems that it will be the start of free source movement in Oman. If true, this will make the educational institutes into active and direct contributors to eOman vision through free software.

Check the event website : http://www.ita.gov.om/fss

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O’Reilly, Developing Android Applications

Arkan Hadi — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:11:38 +0000

android

Last week, O’Reilly started a free training Android course, I had the chance to attend it, all of it, unlike some of my friends who couldn’t stay up till late night

I also had the chance to take notes, .. I will post the notes of the first lecture at the end of this post (its my notes, do not expect to understand everything from it because you did not write it )

the lecture started with the basic principles on how Android works, … you know .. the “useless things that is good to know” sort of things, than some tips on installations and some basic “flash light” program, .. and during that whole thing a lot of questions were made by the people watching the course, .. some questions are really irrelevant and useless, while others were interesting.

Before i post my notes i would like to mention my opinion about the course from the first lecture (this opinion is merely my personal opinion). It is my first time coding Android, .. but it is NOTmy first time coding

My opinion on Tony the lecturer

He seems to know somethings on Android, more than most of us obviously, but i am afraid that I expected the lecture to be more professional, I mean during the lecture, Tony was exploring the code and how things work, i did not find him mastering the language, … but in my opinion as long as he is ahead of us at least one step, than praise him

My humble opinion about the Android programming language

Android relies heavily on user-defined XML tags (or that is what i saw from the first lecture). its not a good or bad thing, .. it is just … different i guess.

It is a very interesting course and i would like to encourage anyone who has the slightest interest in developing mobile applications to attend this course

Anyways .. without further dues, … here are my notes

————————-
linux>Native Libraries > Run time + Dalvik VM > andriod framework (activity manager, content Provider, Location manager, Notification manager,..) > System apps (contacts, Phone Dialer, Email, Web Browser)

app: code + R resources (movie, xml, pic)

Activity: single screen. app have many activities

intent: code to accomplish a verb (call number, open contacts)


developer.andriod.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html
package name > unique

min SDK Version, "API LEVEL", Andriod 1.5 > 3
manifest (Like in J2ME, configuration file)
main.XML have app configuration (like orientation, gravity position of the test")
String.XML

"@String/Hello" > Macros, u can use it for localization
"@String/Red" >> you can set Red= "Red hat" in String.XML
Color.XML
#FFFF0000
android:background="@color/red"
activity > screen > .java
R class generated automatically, each new resource will be added automaticallyin the R class
you can add new elements in main.xml like "button" and you can set its attributes (via XML Tags)

the @+id adds unique ID by default
in JAVA (RefFlashActivity.Java)

Button greenButton = (Button)findViewById(R.id.green_button);

greenButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener(){...})
Intent intent = new intent(activ.this, act2.class);

startActivity(intent);
the above will change from one screen to another.
Here is answer to right to left: Google tracks issues and feature requests at Google Code's site. As of January 2010[update], the most requested ("starred") feature is the support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Hebrew.[90][91]
http://developer.android.com/reference/java/text/Bidi.html

——————-

China shuts down Major training website for hackers

szakwani — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:26:53 +0000

China has closed down what is believed to be the country’s biggest training website for hackers, state media has reported.

They say the site, Black Hawk Safety Net, gave lessons in hacking and sold downloads of malicious software.

The reports say three people suspected of running the site were arrested.

Hacking is a sensitive topic for China, especially since the internet giant Google recently threatened to pull out of the country.

Google said China-based hackers had attacked its operations but the Chinese government denied any involvement.

The hacker training operation openly recruited thousands of members online and provided them with cyber attack lessons and Trojan software, the China Daily and the Wuhan Evening News said.

Trojans, which can allow outside access to a computer when implanted, are used by hackers to illegally control computers.

Black Hawk Safety Net recruited more than 12,000 paying subscribers and collected more than seven million yuan ($1m: £650,000) in membership fees, while another 170,000 people had signed up for free membership, the paper said.

The Hubei government refused to comment on the reports.

It was unclear when the shutdown had taken place but the Black Hawk Safety Net site was unavailable on Monday.

Cyber attacks

In January Google threatened to pull out of China unless the government relented on censorship.

It said it had uncovered a computer attack that tried to plunder its software coding and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists protesting against Chinese policies.

Government officials have defended China’s online censorship and said the country is the biggest victim of web attacks.

China has some 350 million internet users – more than any other country – and provides a lucrative search-engine market worth an estimated $1bn last year.

Google holds about a third of the country’s search market, with Chinese rival Baidu having more than 60%.

The BBC’s Damian Grammaticas in Beijing says that the reports made no link between the hacking site and Google’s allegations.

But the case will help authorities show that China is taking action against those who hack into computers, says our correspondent.

BBC Reports

Life without google

Oman Government Sign New Enterprise Agreemant with Microsoft

khalid.almamari — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:15:52 +0000

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.

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SQL Hacks , book review

Ali AL Lawati — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:05:07 +0000

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.

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Mind Control Machines

Ali AL Lawati — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:53:19 +0000

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!

Artificial Idiots???

Blind people can see through their tongue

Ali AL Lawati — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:26:19 +0000

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

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