OmanDev » Technology

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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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:

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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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!

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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SonyEricsson X2 vs HTC Touch Pro 2 (Fight of the Windows Mobile Slider Phones Giants)

Arkan Hadi — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Those high end devices are similar in features in almost every aspect, however the SE X2 is yet to be released, and the HTC Touch Pro (TP) 2 has been released since may, 2009 (yes, SonyEricsson is lagging way behind). In this article i am going to illustrate the differences in both devices, which might help decide on which one to take

The main obvious software advantage of the X2 over the TP2 is that X2 has Windows Mobile 6.5 while TP2 has Windows Mobile 6.1. however HTC TP2 can be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.5 either by a developer made frameware (Cooked ROM as HTC developers calls it) or an official upgrade from the HTC site.

X2 has Optical trackpad, stereo speakers, 3.5 mm audio jack while TP2 doesnt have those goodies.

Screen size of the TP2 is 3.6 inches while in X2 its 3.4 (2 more inches DO make a difference in the mobile phones world)

A big advantage of X2 over the TP2 is the camera, which is 8 MP while in TP2 its 3.15 MP (but the way i see it, if you are fond by cameras, get a good stand alone camera)

In terms of user interface experience, the X2 has its famous, well known XPERIA panels user interface, while the TP2 has its own (also famous in HTC world) TouchFLO 3D Interface.

Everything else in those two high end phones are almost identical, it finally comes down to you, wither you prefer XPERIA panels user interface or TouchFLO 3D Interface. and of course wither you prefer to have a relatively good camera in your phone or not, but bare in mind that the X2 is yet to be released (first months its price will be skyrocket “very high”) while the HTC Touch Pro 2 has been around since Last May (2009), with almost identical features as the SonyEricsson X2.

SonyEricsson now is ranked number 5 (believe it or not) in mobile market share in 2009, lagging behind Nokia, Samsung, LG, and even Motorola. SE now seems that it is trying to cut down manifacturing low end devices, and concentrate on high end, smart devices, i am not sure if its the right move in these economically difficult times, or is it?

Surface “A Rich Man’s Gadget”

version controling

Ali AL Lawati — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:42:00 +0000

Version Control Systems or Source Control Systems are very important tool for any developer even if s/he is working alone !!

it is sad that many developers around here do not understand the importance of source controling , mostly they will say ” I am working alone so why i need to add another overhead activity in my work” , or even worse some small teams will say “well we are working on different parts of the project and having a shared folder and that is more than enough for us” !!!!!!!! common !.

May be getting used to develop (during college and school days) without source controling makes it an alien concept which every one around here (oman) is trying to avoid , but the truth is once any one knows the reall benifits of source controling they will never do even the smallest script without using it.

for a starter how about having a time machine for your code that will allow you to go back in time to any place in the history of your project coding if you are using version controlling you will be able to go to any previews versions (comits) you have made in the system. so that is a greate backup /restore functionality.
Easily Compare any two points in the history, or history with the current version , this is better than the time machine you can very easily know what have changed in any two versions of your code
Synchronization : the code will be automatically shared between you and other team members with much better & easier control and access than shared folders
Tracking : the code share and synchronization is done with full tracking of who did what (no one can blame you on their mistakes). and that is a million time better than shared folders cause every thing is tracked and protected (to the code lines level )
Branching : do you have created a big project which is in production, and need to do small changes to make it usable on different environment , or on slightly different requirements? If yes most probably without version controlling you will do copy the whole project and create a new project and treat them as two different projects. But the fact is you will Need in some point of time to know what changes you have done in the first project two create the second one, or you will need change the new one back to the first one, or change the real system to have the extra features you have added in the second project, all these are possible in version controlling systems using branching feature.

these were some of the features of version controlling maybe in some of the coming posts i will do a comparision between different version controlling tools.

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Get Me The Geek

khalid.almamari — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:41:00 +0000

It is complicated life that we are living. There is new technology every day. New gadgets on our buckets, in our homes and cars. Most of us don’t know how to fix them when crash or freeze. So what do we do?
.. shout out load “Get Me The GEeeEEK”. See the video for more..

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Voip

khalid.almamari — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:19:00 +0000

تعرف على تقنية VOIP

ما هو VOIP ؟

- هي إختصار لـ Voice Over Internet Protocol .

والمرادف لها بالعربية هو( الصوت عبر بروتوكول الأنترنت ) ، وهي تقنية حديثة الغرض منها الأتصال سـواءً إجــراء أو إسـتقبال المكالمات الهاتفية عبـر الشــبكة الداخليــة او الانترنت عن طريق إســتخدام بروتوكـول الأنترنت.

كيف تعمل هذه التقنية :

- عند إجراء مكالمة هاتفية بإستخدام هذه التقينة يتم تحويل الإشارة التناظرية إلى إشارة رقمية ومن ثم تشفيرها وتقسيمها إلى حزم بيانات وإرسالها عبر الأنترنت وهنا يتم التعامل مع الصوت كأي نوع من أنواع البيانات (Data) وبطريقة عكسية يتم فك التشفير وتحويل الإشارة الصوتية إلى تناظرية مرة أخرى ويتم تسليم المكالمة إلى نهاية النقطة بكل وضوح .

الإشارة التناظرية

الإشارةالرقمية

ماذا أحتاج لأستفيد من هذه التقنية :

1 – أنترنت السريع – Broadband Modem

2 – هاتف تقليدي + محو ل ( ATA )

( ATA ) Analog Telephone Adapter

جهاز يستخدم لتوصيل الهاتف التقليدي بالمودم DSL لإجراء المكالمات عن طريق إستخدام شبكة الأنترنت وميزة هذا الجهاز أنه أرخص من الهواتف التي تدعم تقنية VOIP والتي توصل مباشرة إلى الحاسوب عن طريق منفذ USB .

3 – هاتف يعمل بتقنية VOIP

نوع من الهواتف التي تدعم تقنية VOIP ويتصل مباشرة عبر منفذ USB للحاسوب

4- برنامج للإتصال مبنية على بروتوكول (SIP ) مثل : ) Skype )

مثال من البرامج المجانية التي تستخدم للإتصال عبر الحاسوب بإستخدام سماعات الرأس وكارت الصوت وهناك برامج عديدة مجانية وبرامج يمكن شراؤها .

رسم توضيحي مبسط للأجهزة الموصلة :

شكل 1

تحويل الصوت إلى إشـارة رقمية يعني تحولها إلى نوع من أنواع البيانات (Data ) المرسلة عبر الشبكة أو الأنترنت ومن هنا جاءت فكرت إندماج الشبكيتن المختلفتين تماماً شبكة الحاسب الآلي وشبكة الهاتف بحيث تصبح شبكة واحدة وتسـمى هذه العملية ( Convergence ) والتي أحدثت تقنية IP Telephony

رسم توضيحي لإندماج شبكتي الهاتف والحاسوب

تقنية IP Telephony :

هي تقنية إرسال الإتصال الصوتي عبر الشبكة عن طريق إستخدام بروتوكول الانترنت .
هي تقنية توفر خدمة الإتصال والوصول إلى جميع الموظفين سواءً في أماكن عملهم في مكاتب المبنى الرئيسي أو الفروع أو الذين يعملون عن بعد او الذين ينتقلون .

هناك أربع طرق مختلفة تتيح لك الاتصال بإستخدام تقنية VOIP :

حاسوب إلى حاسوب :

أسهل الطرق وأكثرها شيوعاً لا تحتاج إلى دفع مبلغ إضافي للاتصال حتى لو كان الاتصال دولياً كل ما عليك هو إستخدام برنامج اتصال مجاني ويشترط ان يكون نفس البرنامج مع الطرف المراد الاتصال به إضافة إلى سماعات الرأس وكارت الصوت وخط الانترنت السريع DSL .

حاسوب إلى هاتف :

هذه الخاصية تتيح لك الاتصال من الحاسوب بأي هاتف وهي تشبه طريقة الاتصال من حاسوب إلى حاسوب ويلزم برنامج مجاني للاتصال وربما هناك نسبة ضئيلة لتسعيرة المكالمة بالدقيقة حسب موفر الخدمة .

هاتف إلى حاسوب :

بعض شركات الاتصال توفر أرقام خاصة وميزة هذه الأرقام انها تسمح بإجراء المكالمات والإتصال بالحواسيب شرط أن تستخدم نوع معين من البرامج لتبادل الاتصال بين الهاتف والحاسوب .

هاتف إلى هاتف :

عن طريق بوابة (VOIP Gateway ) يمكنك الاتصال مباشرة بأي هاتف في العالم .

ماهي إيجابيات هذه التقنية :

1 - الاتصال الدولي المجاني بأي طرف حول العالم

2- التحدث بأكثر من طرف واحد وفي نفس الوقت

3- التكامل والتوافق بمعنى إمكانك المحادثة عبر الحاسوب والعمل في نفس الوقت مثلاً تصفح الانترنت والبريد الالكتروني أو العمل مع البرامج المختلفة .

4- المرونة والسهولة في أجراء المكالمات الهاتفية وهذه الخاصية مفيدة وعملية للموظفين الكثيري السفر كل ما هو مطلوب جهاز حاسوب وتوفر خدمة الانترنت النطاق العريض.

5- مميزات أخرى لا حصر لها (مثل البريد الصوتي-توجيه مكالمة –مكالمة في الإنتظار-إظهار بيانات المتصل-حظر الإتصال-خدمة عدم الإزعاج…. )

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أتمنى أني وفقت ولو بشئ يسير في توصيل المعلومة….

شكرا لصديقي خليل الزدجالي الذي كتب هذه المقالة

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google reader

Ali AL Lawati — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:02:00 +0000

اطلقت جوجل الشكل الجديد و المحسن جدا لخدمتها الرائعة google reader

الشكل الجديد أكثر بساطة و يساعد على التركيز على المحتوى بشكل أفضل من السابق