Ahmed Bhaila - Chronicles

Dig a hole through earth

2008-06-24T14:20:00.004-05:00

So if you dig a hole in America you would end up in China right? Wrong. well atleast if you dig from the midwest(chicago to be exact) you would end up in the middle of the Indian Ocean. No kidding. Check this website. So say you are a Pakistani and you just want to get outa here(enuff with this democracy, the long marches, the rising inflation, the ata crisis etc etc) and digging is the only option you have then my friend you are out of luck guess where you will end up? South Pacific Ocean :) so good luck swimming who knows you might end up reaching a beautiful exotic island. Oh and I stumbled upon this website while browsing on Lost Forums

Wake up call

2008-06-24T14:01:00.003-05:00

Its 25th June 2008. My last blog post was posted on 18th Febuary 2008 after which I lost my touch and havent written since and then just a couple of days back I noticed a comment by Unaiza Nasim on my last post which made me giggle a bit. In my last post I had written that i was back from hibernation and will write real soon well guess what that didnt happen until now. Her comment was "How soon. Its been months" so all I wanna say is Thanks Unaiza, thanks for the wakeup call while I have been away from writing I have been regularly reading blogs from Pakistan courtesy of bloggers.pk but not commenting a lot. Heres to hoping that I wont stop now and will resume writing and now heres Maroon 5 with their hit "Wake up call". Enjoy...

Hibernation over

2008-02-18T04:23:00.003-06:00

Hello World. I am back from my hibernating period which started early November last year a lot has happened during this period and I plan on writing quite a few posts on that. I moved out of Chicago and am in Karachi for about 3 months now so expect some detail posts real soon.

"The News" website hacked

2007-10-13T22:16:00.000-05:00

Stewie says Hi

2007-10-01T23:54:00.000-05:00

I am not a big of this show "family guy" Personally, I find it too offensive but theres one hell of a character in this and thats the spoiled baby brat called Stewie and the clip below is a classic

Stewie - mami, mama ...
Uploaded by AbDeLiNe9

Free iPhone unlocking

2007-09-24T23:46:00.001-05:00

Nope not just another way of unlocking your iPhones. Two guys thought they would just do it for free and that too infront of an ATT store :)

Nope not just another way of unlocking your iPhones. Two guys thought they would just do it for free and that too infront of an ATT store :)

Original Source: Techeblog

EOV - End Of Vacation

2007-09-12T22:50:00.000-05:00

Vacation ended today. Boarded the flight from Orlando to Chicago everything went quite smooth and this is one vacation I will remember forever had tonnes of fun at Disney all subsequent posts will cover my vacation yawn!! I am so tired and have to get work tomorrow

Out on Vacation

2007-09-03T15:48:00.000-05:00

So finally my vacation is all set I will be out of chicago for a week which means no work and all play. I am going down south to Orlando, FL and the weather there seems very much karachi-ish if I am not wrong its tropical and temperature will be in the 90s so that means no full sleeves just your usual T-shirts would do. This is going to be my first trip to Orlando so I want to make the most of it. I plan on visiting on Disneyworld since its mighty huge if time permits then I might pay a visit to Universal Studios/Sea World but thats not the plan. I would be visiting the 4 major Disney Parks (no water parks). Last week I got a nice package deal at Bookit so my air,hotel and tickets have been taken care of what a relief. I got a nice hotel too which is just across Downtown Disney. I bought a Nikon S50 a few weeks back so expect a lot pics in a week or two which reminds me that I have to get a tripod before I go. Cant wait to get out :)

View Larger Map

Frogs now in blue and yellow

2007-08-29T01:05:00.000-05:00

Here are some frogs you might not have seen such vibrant colored frogs before.

Trivia: Are these real?

Chicago: Foggy Nights

2007-08-21T00:46:00.001-05:00

Squirrel Photo Shoot

2007-08-19T23:57:00.000-05:00

You have got to watch this trailer

2007-08-17T01:51:00.000-05:00

So this is going to be an absolute treat for JJ Abrams fans out there. His new movie "Cloverfield" is going to hit theaters early next year and this spoiler here is simply one of the best trailers I have ever seen everybodys talking abt it. The first time I saw this was at Transformers movie and I came home and found it on youtube:

JJ Abrams 101: The man behind Felicity, Alias, LOST and MI:3

Chocolates, Raisins and SQL

2007-08-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

Chocolates and Raisins now have a new ingredient and its called SQL :)

Original Source here

Raja Musharraf

2007-08-09T00:21:00.000-05:00

So if you are reading this post thinking that I am going to talk about Pervez Musharraf here then you are so so wrong. Dont be confused by imitations there is only One Raja Musharraf :) ok enough goofing around heres what it is. CW Network is starting a new sitcom this Fall called "Aliens in America" Its about this American family in WI who volunteer for an exchange student from Pakistan whose name is Raja Musharraf (America loves the name Musharaff). So the story is about this Pakistani student who stays with this American family. Heres a preview from the series:

So after watching this you will be like what the heck is this. Atleast I am not aware of Pakistani wearing shalwar kameez when arriving at an American airport and that too wearing a skull cap and then raising his hands to thank Allah it seems like they are trying to show that how a devout muslim from Pakistan can come in and settle down with the American customs but ofcourse in a satirical way. We lets see how long the show will last looking forward to it.

Relax to the sound of this...

2007-08-09T00:06:00.000-05:00

Sit back relax, take a deep breath and listen to the music (earphones recommended) and no this is not your yoga instructor asking you, so try listening to it you may like it. Cheers

Artist: Zero 7
Song: Destiny
From eimearoconnor
PS This is not the original video. See the original here
The song was initially discovered on the lacoste website.

Seriously how old is she?

2007-08-08T01:33:00.000-05:00

Image from Warner Music Japan

A Graduation Story

2007-07-25T23:29:00.000-05:00

I am a graduate now. Three Cheers for me :) Took me 2 years precisely 23 months. I feel quite relaxed now feels like as if someone lifted a really healthy book over my head. Had one bad experience with a particular course last year but that really gave me the motivation to go on and all the results after that have been straight As proves that good things can come out of bad experiences. On the other hand though, I think I have a sleep disorder and I hope it isnt insomnia. For the last 2 years my sleep average is around 4-5 hours so it will take me some time to get back to normal yes right now I am a Zombie.Coming back to the good things I think I am more confident in what I am doing some courses during my grad studies have been really really helpful. One such course was Structured Document Interchange which covered technologies around XML like XML Schemas, XSLT, XPATH and Webservices. I think this is the best course that DePaul is currently offering. Everything was so perfect about this course and the instructor Dr. Corin Pitcher was the best teacher I ever had for a course(and not to mention the British accent .. ah lovely) I wished I had taken him again for some other course but I was graduating in Summer. I absolutely loved the final project it was a fun ride. Thats all folks more stories from my two year experience in later posts to follow.

The new slim PSP

2007-07-14T02:01:00.000-05:00

Sony at E3 announced a re-vamped version of PSP that will be 33% lighter and 19% slimmer with support for HDTV, brighter display, improved battery life, faster game startup and will retail for the same price as the current one $169.95. Its expected to launch in sept/oct '07. I am not yet a owner of PSP but now I am thinking of getting myself one :)

Image by Image comparison at GamePro

AGT: Kashif Memon moves to the finals

2007-07-13T01:19:00.001-05:00

Kashif Memon: Americas Got Talent - Update

2007-06-20T15:06:00.000-05:00

More updates on our very own Napolean Dynamite :). His geeky style impressed the audience and earned him a second round. Ricky blogs about his performance with video here

Thanks to Kashif for the link

For my previous post on his first performance read here

update: heres a video of the performance I found on youtube

Credits: GWrocks09

Pakistani debuts on Americas Got Talent

2007-06-19T22:30:00.000-05:00

Aanchal made her debut on Americas Top Model
Sanjaya rose to fame on American Idol

So today when I saw the promo clip for "Americas Got Talent" showing a South Asian dancing on "Ik Pal Ka Jeena" orignially done by Hritik Roshan in his debut movie I was like there we go one more indian makes it to the screen. So I waited for the show tonite and for a split second I had this thought it my mind could this guy be from Pakistan and guess what he is from Pakistan. He introduced himself as Muhammad Kashif Memon 23 years and from Skokie, IL and I was like wow a Pakistani on Americas Got Talent thats cool

Kashif was asked by the judge Piers "Do you think you can win the competition" and he replied that if the audience likes my dance. And when he started dancing the audience went completely wild in the end the song itself was inaudible the judges said they had never seen anything like it and I am guessing they have not seen a Bollywood flick before. They voted in the positive and he will now proceed to the next round. The bottom line is a Pakistani making it to NBC thats a WOW. Bravo. NBC hasnt posted a video on youtube but I am sure someone will post it soon. Some people are already talking about his performance on the forums here:
http://boards.nbc.com/nbc/index.php?s=e5e1a1f2537f9beb97e34af55cac94c1&showtopic=755789

Also, as usual our friends from across the border can be found criticizing him but yeah I am not surprised. Again, very excited to see a Pakistani on national tv. ciao

Graduating Soon

2007-06-10T21:37:00.000-05:00

Finally, what I started a couple of years back (Fall 05) is coming to end. This summer July '07 I am graduating with a masters degree in computer science. During this time I made friends, acquaintances, had my good and bad days. Overall I am very excited for I have reached one more milestone in life. Now, people ask me what next a PhD, a new job and I am like no way no PhD atleast not anytime soon. After doing a full time job and studying like crazy completing those assignments and projects meeting those deadlines I must say that grad school sure has been really tough for me and there was no way I was going to study full time without doing a job I could have never managed to bring in those greens unless I was a Illinois State Lottery winner or something and all this by the grace of Allah who made me financially strong with the will to go on and never give up. And in the end a big "Thank You" to my family and friends both here and back home for the support and everything else. You guys "ROCK" :)

Zombies: Pakistani Style

2007-05-27T11:44:00.000-05:00

These days I am trying to kill some time by playing resident evil 4, a zombie game series. I am not a big zombie fan but then 28 weeks later compelled me to search on zombie movies out there thats when my google search directed me to this page http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117951886.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. Apparently, there is a pakistani effort for a zombie movie its called "Hells Ground" with a urdu title "Zibakhana". Heres a clip that I found on youtube

why leo why?

2007-05-20T23:55:00.000-05:00

Of all the movies that I have seen featuring Leonardo Di Caprio he dies in the end. why??

1. Titanic - freezes to death
2. Departed - gets killed by matt damon
3. Blood Diamond - is bleeding badly at the end and presumbly dies

Not sure whether he lives in "Gangs of New York".
The Beach is the only movie I remember where he lives. any other movies where he
doesnt die?

btw I didnt know Zimbabwe has its own version of English In Blood Diamond, Leo could be heard repeatedly saying huh after every 2 sentences or so

A .net webservice story

2007-05-10T23:15:00.000-05:00

What a week this has been. Monday I was asked to write a zip code proximity calculator for one of our products we agreed on using an existing web service to do the calculations and store them in our local database then our application would just query the database for that and would never have to call the webservice again neat eh well so since we wanted to do this quick I decided to make the call from perl. Perl has a soap package called SOAP::Lite so after googling a bit I went on to create a client that consumed this webservice and got no results hmm something is wrong here after looking at the SOAP request/response messages I found out that the web service doesnt like the SOAP envelope and complained about soap version mismatch cant do much tried searching on the forums groups nothing thats when I decided ok lets switch to python so wrote a 3 line client :) to test against some other webservice and guess what it worked so theres hope so then I queried the webservice that I wanted to use and it failed damn pythons SOAPpy package failed to create proxies for the webservice and died something is very wrong either its me or the webservice. So let me reveal to you the webservice if you still havent guessed this was a webservice written in ASP.NET so much for interoperability all lies!!!. SOAP an xml based technology that the Redmond folks have been trying to push so hard and I have no problems I like the idea of transporting xml programs talking to each other independent of architecture or language but if two client libraries cant communicate with a webservice then its just bad I had one other option go for PHP and try NuSOAP but all my hopes were down when both Perl and python failed but since I had to show some result to my supervisors I wrote a small client program in what else... C# yes giving the ASP.net webservice a taste of its own medicine this should work otherwise this whole SOAP thing with Microsoft would be laughable. And it worked woo hoo finally I got a response but wait this doesnt end here what the heck is the webservice returning a DataSet according to the wsdl schema it should return rows of data with columns containing the info but what the heck is a DataSet. DataSet is an ADO.NET class that you can use to automatically render it to a grid view neat but what if I wanted plain results just a class containing the properties but the designer of the webservice had other plans since my idea was to just put this data on the database I had no interest in rendering it but now I have a DataSet so I had to live it. Mind you I am not really familiar with C# or the net framework these days the last C# code I wrote was in early 2005 I am sure things must have changed. On further research I found out how to retrieve the values from the DataSet. Heres are the algorithmic steps.

1. Iterate through table objects present in DataSet
2. On each table iterate through all rows
3. For each row determine the column info
4. Pass column name to row to retrieve value

Simple aint it. This is overkill too much object orientation is a dangerous thing and this is precisely what the developer of this webservice had in mind. However, we ended up not using this webservice at all since the server this webservice is hosted is not so good and at times would return null responses something that we really wouldnt want I had to search for 38,000 zip codes and I was only able to get data for 3 zip codes within a span of 1 hour just poor.

Sorry for being too anti .net but this is what I have observed I have used .net webservices before and always had problems with it maybe its luck other webservices from other platform seem to do quite well. You cant have interoperability with this Both perl and python failed.

Oh and btw REST is another emerging framework for web services they are trying to correct the things where SOAP messed up.

finally, after a couple of bad days with SOAP I ended up writing a proximity algorithm on my own.

Java fx - Java's take on AJAX

2007-05-09T00:28:00.000-05:00

AJAX has a new competitor - Java FX. The name sounds kinda cool so I had a brief look of what it is really. Basically its another scripting language but its java style and wont be stupid link javascript as one article pointed out I dont know what that means so I had a look at the syntax and a sample launch pad program. Basically the syntax used by this particular scripting language is declarative and it reminds me of ML - a function programming language rather I would say its very to close to the Relax NG/DTD syntax. The application LaunchPad is a good demonstration and the changes I made to the script were instantaneous so I enjoyed that bit this also means that interested developers would go on to learn this but whether its an AJAX killer or not we will have to wait and see. For the curious ones checkout
http://java.sun.com/javafx/
and an interesting article here http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3676226

Joost - First Impressions

2007-05-08T01:05:00.000-05:00

By now you might have heard about Joost. Joost is a peer to peer video software that allows you to watch tv shows right on your PC yep thats true and no its not another youtube. First its in beta and right now signing up to this service is by invitation only I got my invitation from a pk blogger http://www.salambazar.com/ thanks buddy. So you install this software and then you can view content from vh1, mtv, natgeo among others. The video quality is not what you get on your tv but its not bad and its free to watch on demand tv what more can you ask :)

Mac and PC: Vista Upgrade

2007-05-01T01:47:00.000-05:00

Apple has been running these mac and PC ads for quite sometime now ofcourse its pc bashing more specifically windows bashing but this one is my personal favorite enjoy!!!

The love of lacoste

2007-04-21T13:12:00.000-05:00

Last friday I went to Macys to do some window shopping not much has changed at Macys after they took over Marshall Fields you will still find all the designer brands Ralph Lauren, BOSS, Lacoste and others. So I went to the lacoste section where I spotted some nice looking polo shirts the blue one with a price tag of $85 wow now thats a lot of money for a cotton polo but then it was Lacoste designed in france made in peru the other colors were good too but I wasnt in the mood of spending that much so later that day I went to ebay and searched for lacoste polos and found many sellers selling them while I was browsing through all this I also has suspicions like what if the seller sends me the wrong color shirt or worst what if the shirt is a fake so after googling a bit I did find out that there were fake shirts around anyways I found this seller selling a lot of 3 shirts and the images provided looked good thats when I decided I gotta have those at all cost and the price of 3 shirts $60 which means $20 per shirt not too bad eh!!! I placed the order and got the shirts via priority mail within 2 days and the shirts were exactly as described and they look good I compared them with the ones available at macys and nordstorm and they are strikingly similar so even if they are fake they are darn good fakes... love it

Arey, I am 43% Pakistani!

2007-04-21T12:54:00.000-05:00

Arey, you are 43% Pakistani!

Not bad, but not good enough to call yourself a real Pakistani either! You seem more London than Lahore, so why not try wearing a shalwar kameez for a week and maybe that'll bump up your rating...

How Pakistani are you? (first class number one!)
Create a Quiz

Oh no!!! I am a 43% Pakistani thats too bad how will I return to Pakistan with a score like this the questions were bad well not all but a few were stupid. There should have been choices

From: http://islamabad.metblogs.com/

Blizzard, Hectic Day and Lost

2007-04-12T00:04:00.000-05:00

So I was standing there waiting for the bus to take me to the blue line at Jefferson Park and the weather in chicago truly amazing 32 degrees and a blizzard in progress pulpy ice and I stood there waiting for the bus it took a good 25 minutes!!!! thank you CTA oh I so miss karachi even though buses dont have any fixed timings but yet the frequency of them showing up is much better than chicago hectic day at work I hate switching from one module to another this is happening too often now and it gives me a headache. The weather has been really annoying its supposed to be spring here it april but we have snow and rain and blizzards but at the end of day I watched Lost loved todays episode and really disappointed at Juliet though why is she helping the others!!!!

Python: First Impressions

2007-04-08T13:59:00.000-05:00

Its been around 3 months now since I started working with python scripts although it would be too undermining to call it a scripting language as its a very powerful language which covers the object oriented concepts. Everything in python is a simple var or a list or a dictionary(Maps in java and C++). If you have worked with C++ or Java the learning curve for python is short. Python is usually compared with Java and benchmarks show that its faster than java bytecode. But the language has some quirks that if not mastered can create disasters like for code blocks instead of {} python used indentation (tabs, whitespace) to determine if a line is part of some function or class and when you are working with a team you need to need to set the indentations so if you are using 4 spaces for your part while your teammate is using a tab character for indentation now if you want to change something from your teammates module and you use your indentation level the python interpreter wont like it and will give you errors which will result in you pulling your hairs so beware of the indentations that you set. Other thing that you should watch out for is python vars are initialized to "None" and surprisingly this None is not equivalent to null or NULL infact its a string so while you are expecting integers or other data types other than string watch out for the string content None.

Personally, I am not a big of using indentations for code blocks the idea is neat but I would still prefer Java and C++ because of their code organization

Weather Rants

2007-04-08T13:45:00.000-05:00

A week back I wrote how the weather in chicago got so much better and the arrival of spring well it appears I spoke too soon this whole week the tempreature took a 360 turn and today (Sunday) light snow is expected on friday morning it was like 24 degrees in the morning and this is april and its supposed to be spring!!!! ... and while I was watching this movie "Lake House" they talked abt 60 degrees on valentines day and the so called global warming is here oh so now someone can please explain why we have tempreatures in the upper 20s in april to be honest now I really cant make any meaning of this global warming is it here was here will it be here ha only time will tell but whatever this daylight saving is still here and the sun doesnt set until its 7:30pm in chicago btw I was telling my trainer how we can get tempreatures around 140 F in Karachi he was shocked!! :) I told him it was like Phoenix, AZ and I have seen people cant stand the heat here when its 100F here. Hopefully, this will be the last wave of winter in chicago sorry cant help it I am an optimist

lol ... Google's April fool

2007-04-01T11:18:00.000-05:00

Breakthrough Broadband technology from Google. All you need is a commode and the free starter kit more details here :) http://www.google.com/tisp/index.html

... and dont forget to wash your hands before surfing as google recommends :)

This is for the nerd in the class

2007-03-31T13:04:00.000-05:00

This post is dedicated to the NERD in class. Never in my path of education I have ever met a nerd like this before... call him a super nerd or whatever. I am taking an xml related course this spring quarter and this guy has been spamming our course mailing lists posting what he is doing making destructive suggestions sending his work email to the whole list starting pointless discussions and after the lecture on wednesday he started sending his work emails with all his details including phone numbers and emails after that he started working on the first assignment while he was at work which was ok as long his boss allows him to do that but please we do not want to hear from you whether you completed the homework or not his next chain of emails were about how he changed the ant scripts to do something fancy oh puhleeze keep your knowledge to yourself nobody asked you neither the teacher nor the student. Listen nerd, if you are reading this since you are a nerd stop showing off!!! you are pissing me and the other students too so stop acting like a jerk and get a life!!

The Spring of Chicago

2007-03-26T23:45:00.000-05:00

Its here chicago's getting its taste of spring the temperature has been awesome outside and the smell of tree barks the grass in my neighborhood is turning green again doves and all other birds are coming yes its so lovely out there after a well a little rough winter it snowed more than last year i remember standing waiting for the bus when it was -9 Farenheit (-27 Centigrade) but the wait is over it feels so good.

Went for a walk on Sunday, all the district parks are now open, swimming pools, trekking, jogging everything is so lively daylight saving time has its own advantage people can stay up late on the streets in t-shirts on their bikes downtowns flooded with people and a very good time for retail business ... so what I am gonna do welcome the spring of 2007 buy myself an dunkin donuts coolata and enjoy the weather while its here :)

John Locke Painting WOW

2007-03-03T14:53:00.000-06:00

The Nu PEPSI

2007-02-03T01:46:00.000-06:00

In Karachi i was all pepsi in chicago i am all coke somehow Pepsi here doesnt taste so good but those creative people at Pepsi they always come with cool new looks all the time while coke chooses to remain classic. Heres what a the Nu Pepsi Can looks like:

Naach ... aur to kuch nahee hae karnae kae liyae

2007-02-01T21:05:00.000-06:00

So today I feel like theres nothing for me to do so ... dance
thats jamiroquai enjoy!!!!

btw checkout my fav videos on orkut

j

Must See: Extremely Funny

2007-01-25T21:31:00.000-06:00

A friend sends this image whoever did this is quite a character very creative i think its a unique answer the grader must have been very surprised!!! would you do it in your physics exam?

Credits: Atef

The United States of America and the Rest of the World: Interesting Maps

2007-01-20T14:44:00.000-06:00

This from chicago metblogs (http://chicago.metblogs.com)
A norwegian blogger maps the economy of the US with the rest of the world.

As seen Pakistan = Arkansas
Turkey = Washington
Indonesia = Louisiana
Saudi Arabia = Tennessee
Iran = Alabama
France = California
Canada = Texas (!!!!)

Pretty interesting eh !!!

thoughts

2007-01-15T01:24:00.000-06:00

theres so much to write yet I cant write call it laziness or call it unwillingness todays one of those days....

New Year Resolution 1: Go Gym

2007-01-07T13:00:00.000-06:00

So here it is 2007 made some silent resolutions which I might just reveal here as I move towards implementing them first resolution is to be very very active yes and that means killing my laziness I am very lazy by nature and waste a lot of time doing stuff which is irrelevant and the whole laziness thing has taken over me and I need to get rid of it so to be physically active I decided to give some serious time and 'go gym' yes I joined a gym last week and this saturday was my first day and seriously I am a disaster at gym there are so many thing to work out my whole body was shaking I had a good orientation session and then I decided to have a personal trainer right now I am feeling a bit guilty about it whether its the right move or not but the thing is that I am total dummy when it comes to workout so I really need that motivation and I believe that having a personal trainer would give me that motivation to achieve the goal I will be paying a huge amount monthly but its for 5 months. So was this a wise a decision? tell me. My goal is to lose 10lbs and some people who know will laugh out as I look normal and losing 10lbs would make me thinner but thats what the trainer told me according to him I need to lose body fat as right now its above normal I am 26 but body fat age is 29 makes me three years older :) seriously if I was in pakistan I would have never invested so much money on health please please tell me that I did the right thing....

Holiday Blog

2006-12-25T13:56:00.000-06:00

Wow the last 3 weeks have been so busy at work there was a deadline on the 15th of december so I along with my other team mates had to come up with a demo application with limited functionality. We did that and after the 15th started doing the integration testing and minor bug fixes finally last last week before the christmas holidays we called it a day and we had the application running (yay!!!). End of the year I had the appraisal process too I think i did fairly good the last year learned a ton of things (which you can see if you browse through my delicious links) and this week I decided to take a time off well because the last week december nobody makes it to work everybody tries taking the week off and lots of people travel some have visitors so yes its a joyful season for me well I am gonna go out yesterday i again did some shopping grabbed a few items good bargains i would say and got some starburst candy cane too (yummy) looking forward for a wonderful holiday week

Desi Connection: Devon Ave, Chicago

2006-12-19T22:58:00.000-06:00

This past weekend me and my friend from Pakistan finally decided to do a get together and hangout a bit and what place would we care to go ... Devon Ave - the desi destination of Chicago or should I say US. For me it was a different and enjoyable experience as I live on the north west side of chicago, close to the O'Hare Intl Airport. Devon Ave is a street or avenue that runs east-west and the portion of the area that has the desi flavor is roughly between Kedzie and Clark which run north-south anyways this may be a bit hard to understand but anyways I reached that part of devon and we decided to go to this place "Usmania Restaurant" Karachi people might be familiar with the name though this place has no connection with the restaurant in Karachi its quite famous in chicago for Pakistani cusine so I asked my friend to make a first choice from the menu since he lives near that place and frequently visits the restaurant so he ordered "qeema seekh fry" (yes I think thats what they call it) and I asked for Chicken Karhai we ordered nans and chatted while the food was served so starting with "qeema seekh fry" which let me tell you is the first time I have heard such a name. Wierd name and by the looks it looked something like "where qeema fry meets seekh kabab" so I decided to start with that dish and actually it didnt taste really good I mean all that fried up oil and it was too spicy actually I do love spicy food but this hmm not my type anyways after that I attacked chicken karhi which was good but I felt quite bloated after eating that "qeema seekh fry" Most of the people I saw were south asians I spotted a couple of indonesians and an uncle with an african american lady and a young girl and a guy who had a heavy american accent oh well so much for the people around so we then decided to leave and my friend suggested that he knew a nice chai place so we went to this place called "Tahooras" as I was told the place is owned by indian muslims from gujarat and chai is not just the only item on their menu they have loads of mithais and other food stuff and mango shake and ... well thats all that I could remember so we got 2 cups of chai and went out walking on the streets while I was acting as the tourist my friend told me about the places, the shops the business it was around 9:30pm and stores were still open it looked really different from the rest of chicago lots of desi people on the streets there was some stagnant water lying around left by the snow we had two weeks ago and I was surprised it was still there. There were people crossing the streets without caring about the traffic passing it felt like Pakistan seriously :) then we went for a little drive on the same street and saw the burned down building of "Sabri Nihari" (another similar name again nothing to with the restaurant in Karachi). A few weeks ago a fire broke at this restaurant during the night and the building burned causing damage to the property my friend told me that the owner has found a temporary spot for his business so that he doesnt lose customers well good for him and the nihari lovers and so our trip ended. Overall the visit was good it felt close to home and I liked it and would love to do it again sometime probably summer I have to see the 14th August parade they have there but seriously that "qeema seekh fry" really gave me an upset stomach next day. I would never order that dish ever again

Kuwaits MTC interested in Paktel

2006-12-16T18:27:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago Paktel's parent company Millicom announced that its shutting down operations in Pakistan. Paktel was I think the first company to offer cellular phone services in Pakistan at that time it was part of Cable and Wireless and they have been around for 16 years the first question that comes to the mind is whats going to happen with the consumers? Well seems like theres some hope and Paktel might just live Kuwait's Mobile Telcommunications (MTC) has shown interest in bidding for Paktel according to this news item: http://www.gulfnews.com/business/Telecom/10090316.html

gmail down!!!!

2006-12-13T23:17:00.000-06:00

I have been waiting for a couple of hours now I think gmail is down yeah wonder whats going I can log in to google talk but all my contacts are offline!!! maybe i am over reacting but this one is taking too long .....

Friday Diary

2006-12-09T00:40:00.000-06:00

So today was friday last day of the week the month is december what a week this was at work have a deadline to meet: 15th december first cut of a new application at work so far so good actually all this new work has been a great learning experience I am working on Java these days well I did that before what makes this time special is that its J2EE and more specifically its using the Spring framework. So yes I am enjoying it though I couldnt browse Karachi Metblogs, Skyscraper city forums and search karachi news on news.google.com hmm I think theres never been a day when I dont visit these websites but as soon as I get home I make sure that I visit them for the love of karachi :) Today was the annual holiday party too but I didnt go not in the mood to watch too many drunk people this year people lose it dancing drinking like crazy. The Appraisal process begins this month at work. By the end of this month I would know where I stand so far the whole experience has been exciting it was announced in the all hands meeting today that we are going to get 2 more days off from next year usually at work we observed 7 national holidays next year it will be 9 nice actually I do miss karachi for the strikes lots of holidays in the calendar. Here I have to wait for the holidays usually I take my days off for exams other than that yes I like to spend all my earned time offs and I learned from our Canadian office that they have more national holidays than us in canada but then they dont get that many time offs also over there you can get a parental leave for about 4 months and the company still pays you well a certain percentage wow aint that great i think its the law there lucky Canadians. In France they get around 2 months of paid time offs yeah I am not complaining :)

USPS Eid Stamps

2006-12-08T23:34:00.000-06:00

While reading some random articles on wikipedia I came across this. The United States Postal Service or USPS has issued holiday celebration stamps for the muslim festival Eid. The stamps were first issued in August 2001. The stamps have arabic calligraphic text that says "Eid Mubarak". The stamps have been designed by an American convert Zakaria. The stamps are in circulation and you can buy them at the USPS store. While there has been so much negativity about islam this kind of gesture gives a positive perspective about Islam, muslims and muslim festivals in general. For the stamp release news visit http://www.usps.com/news/2001/philatelic/sr01_054.htm

Image Source: USPS

Damn you protected

2006-12-06T20:22:00.000-06:00

Today my day was going pretty good at work I figured out how to use Jakarta Tiles with the Spring framework, had thai for lunch then resumed work again I had to present a short demo on using Jakarta tiles with the spring framework which I did but there was one problem not related with the demo but I spent a good 3 hours on it until I figured out it was a method that was using the "protected" modifier when it should have used "public" damn and 3 hours to figure that out I cant believe how I made that mistake there were no compiler error thanks to the spring framework which uses xml configs so you really have no clue abt whats going on and there were no exceptions messages. I knew it was a tiny one I tried everything made changes to the code, looked under the tomcat logs still I was getting those 404 errors when deploying the page and this was driving me nuts curses to the framework too which was giving me no feedback or clue just that stupid 404 error and the resource cannot be found very very hard to debug but it sure was a stupid error I should be careful with those access modifiers but 3 hours ..... :(

Ubuntu: Hello World

2006-12-06T00:44:00.000-06:00

After looking at so many flavors of linux (redhat, fedora, debian, ubuntu), freeBSD and Solaris in my 2 years of experience today I installed ubuntu which is supposed to be a linux desktop alternate and I like it the installation was a breeze all I did was downloaded this iso from the ubuntu website burned a dvd and ran it basically it runs the OS first on the DVD so u can explore it a bit then choose to install it. First looks i think it is very good alternate to windows you have the base applications installs mozilla firefox and open office, a media player and hey it detected my ipod too very clean looking interface nice theme i can carry on talking abt it the whole day :) well so much for windows. Ubuntu was forked from debian so it does inherit from debian and worth mentioning is the debian package mgmt system apt-get and believe me they are so convenient to work with. So for all those out there who want to get their hands on linux even for newbies (be CAREFUL with the harddrive partitioning though) you will like it and if you dont you can always remove it for me I think I am going to stay. Hello Ubuntu and heres a screenshot

No ebay for me

2006-12-02T14:16:00.001-06:00

Yes no ebay for me no sir not again. Online shopping has worked for me well usually amazon, google store never had problems pretty satisfied then recently I saw these nice earbuds from sony and they were cheap around $13 usually the market price is $30 so I said okay this seems like a nice deal and with shipping it was a little less than $30. Ebay is different from other shopping sites you either have to bid for items or you can "buy it now" which was the option I chose. So I made the payment through PayPal by the way the seller at ebay is a power seller and has a reputation percentage of 99.8 A power seller means that the seller has sold many items and the reputation score tells me that the seller can be trusted. The payment was received by the seller on monday so I was expecting my item to arrive that week and it did arrive on friday and when I opened the package instead of the earphones I was shipped iTrip Dock which is an FM radio transmitter for iPod and this did not please me at all I looked online for iTrip and found out that the value for this tranmitter is $49.99 for a moment I thought ok lets keep it but then do I really want it nah so I decided to contact the seller asking to send in my original item and I am in no mood to ship the item back at my expense since its the sellers mistake and they should be paying for it so far no replies I will wait for a while after which I would have to communicate with paypal and ebay about this but I am upset about it i really needed those earbuds imagine if I had ordered something expensive. So first ebay experience and a bad one so ebay for me is strictly a no no.

Chicago: First Snow of the season

2006-12-01T01:08:00.000-06:00

Its 1:09 am here and the streets are now covered with a white blanket yes its snowing a bit flurries to be exact this is the first snow of the season yes i am excited will take pictures according to met news its going to snow quite hard later a snowstorm is expected brace yourselves chicago and we might have around 7-14 feet of snow wow and I have work tommorow argh but hey thats chicago.

Whoa Nelly

2006-11-29T02:04:00.000-06:00

So when I first heard "I am like a bird" by Nelly Furtado I was like what is this song she had a unique voice and the first album "Whoa Nelly" was quite a hit. Nelly's third album "Loose" is out featuring collaborations from Timbaland. These Timbaland contributions seem to be quite successfull Justin Timberlakes new album FutureSex/LoveSounds is doing well. Anyways, heres a performance from Nelly from the american music awards i think it was very nice the performance and the song too is nice Enjoy

Thanksgiving Happenings

2006-11-24T22:12:00.000-06:00

So here I am ... last week exams ended and now I am on 6 week break from studies WOW so rest of the time I would just be working and nothing else. Heres how my thanksgiving week is coming along.

Wednesday kicked off with the american music awards well I am never a big fan of AMA but I watched the full show this time and it was good overall some amazing live performances especially from Nelly Furtado. Nellys back with a big bang her third album "Loose" is a top seller and 3 songs are in the top spot. Gwen Stefani performed her new song from her upcoming which was ok but I am sure will be a hit though I must say Jamie Foxx bored me with singing a song that he wrote for his grandparents.

Thursday -> Started playing "gods Of War" on my ps2 its a good game it was rated as the best game of 2005 but I only started playing it now its very violent though lots of blood and gore and some nudity is involved the game features Greek gods athena, oracle, zeus, aries, medusa thats all the names i could remember for now so spent most of the day doing just that

Friday -> So Friday was shopping day. I went out to lincolnwood which is a suburb quite close to chicago. I am feeling all tired now though i did rest for a while after reaching home. Blockbuster Online sent "Mission Impossible: III" last week and I havent had a chace to see the movie yet!! yeah thats me mr. lazy bones well actually i might just watch it tonite hmm maybe

Chicagos weather has been quite lovely well its november and no snow yet well I like snow but its unbearable as the snow starts to melt and it gets all slippery and you really dont want to go out atleast on foot so so far the weather has been good so you can go out hang out and have a good time reminds me of an argument that I had with a friend who lived in london for a while and I told him that London has a foggy weather and it rains all the time Dont people get sick of seeing that kind of weather and his reply was NO people get sick of chicago because of the snow well what can i say some people like it and some dont

So what next for two days well more gods of war and I have to meet a friend from Pakistan I promised to meet him after my exams and I think I will do that tommorow.

Listening to: Nelly Furtado - Say it Right
Cassie - Long way to go

Free Free Weeeeee

2006-11-20T23:37:00.000-06:00

So finally .... today was my final paper for "Theory Of Automata" and I think really good on the exam ofcourse this also concludes the Fall quarter and now I am on a big break roughly 6 weeks WOW thanksgiving around the corner two more days of work and ah ... the long weekend america waits for every year and this is also the start of the holiday season christmas would be here soon well 25th is a bit far but festivity is in the air perfect time to enjoy these moments frankly no plans yet but I will have something an old classmate asked for some help implementing 3DES - an encryption algorithm, then I am going out to this sushi place wednesday nite hmm and what else yeah some winter shopping over the weekend whew thats the plan. Ok signing off now expect lots of posts in the coming days. Happy Holidays

Life - 11/14/06

2006-11-14T22:13:00.000-06:00

Feeling real tired today this is the last week after which I have exams I have decided to take a couple of days off from work so I can study a subject that I always HATED as an undergrad however still managed to get an A thanks to the genorisity of the teacher + this extra special mess that I was involved in Spring Quarter 2006 doesnt seem to go away and still lingering over my head ouch no my head hurts. Weather in chicago is moderate its raining all the time not that hard but yeah but still daylight saving times are in effect well its been more than 2 weeks and 4:30pm looks like 8:00 for a guy who lived 23 years of his life near the equator this sort of transformation is hard to digest but i am not complaining. Getting bored with my iPod these days after this new software update its acting wierd it sometimes restarts while i am listening or shuffling songs well i guess i have to reset it but i am too lazy to do that right now also read this interesting news bit that apple has struck a deal with major airline companies including KLM and Emirates that will allow passenger seats to be iPod enabled well what this means that you can get the inflight entertainment right on your ipod and listen to music and yeah while you are doing all that your ipod gets charged as well neat. Zune - the so called iPod killer hit the markets today not much enthusiasm among people as one news item said but we will figure out christmas is near and lets see how many parents buy their kids a zune or how many like me add zune in their gadget list only time will tell, all this fall season i have been thinking of some interesting ideas to put on my blog, well first i plan to give it a new look mind you i am not an HTML guy so I will use one of those freeware templates plus I am going to put some different type of posts here but i dont see that happening anytime this week this week is study week with the weekend included next week expect some posts and btw I have volunteered all my privacy to these google people my orkut gmail and now blogspot are all under one account so it will so easy to trace me now One of my classmates in a summer course suggested that we should read the EULA and Terms of Conditions and all that yada yada stuff (he did a course specifically in EULA) carefully for privacy and other concerns I still havent done that maybe i will read it someday yeah someday. Thats all for now watch this blog for more later. bye for now

Britney Spears Divorce Reactions

2006-11-08T22:28:00.000-06:00

So finally Britney Spears has filed for a divorce. Reactions
Coworker says: "Thank God she will finally get rid of that white trash"

Classmate says: "Like I care ... she doesnt pay my bills"

Ahmed says: "Oh Britney!! You poor thing"

Friend from Pakistan: "bas afsos howa k yaar ye celebirities ki life bhi kya hoti hay". He further says "wasay main nay ye bhi socha k yaar seat khali ho gaye hay try karna chaiye :)"
Loose translation in English: "Its sad what kind of life these celebrities have". He further says "By the way I am thinking that now theres an empty spot. I think I should try"

Have your say.....

Blogger T showoff

2006-11-05T21:56:00.000-06:00

A few months ago I bought this blogger T shirt. Time to do some show off

Stories from the past: Bomb Hoax at St Pauls High School Karachi

2006-11-04T12:49:00.000-06:00

I decided to write about this incident that took place at St. Pauls High School Karachi. I was a kid then I think if I recall I was in class 6 then. Just a typical day reached school at around 8:00am this day we were going to have "Naat Competition" which happened at St. Pauls every year - a great gesture from the administration there and I hope the tradition is still going on. Well so coming back to the story all students were very excited as some would be taking part in the competition and some excited that because of the fact that it was going to be a half day as the other half would be dedicated for the competition. So in the third period of the class someone from the administration barged inside the class whispered something to the teacher and then the teacher asked us to form a queue and move towards the school ground. We as students were surprised some thought maybe it was because of the naat competition anyways we all moved out and found out that everyone was out all the students were standing in groups. Thats when I heard from some student who said that there was bomb in the school and I turned pale my legs started to weaken and my friends they started staring at me they were scared but they were like ahmed you are so pale dont worry everythings gonna be fine and I wasnt able to speak I had never been so shocked in my life at that point I felt that there was no ground on which i was standing then I spotted my Sindhi teacher (forgot her name) I asked her whats going on and she told me the wierdest story she said in the finance building which was quite near where we were standing there was a bomb in that office and if the door opens the bomb will be triggered and everything will be blown away well this is not the kind of story you would expect from a teacher to a student who was already so scared but I wouldnt blame the teacher i think it was their first experience too but it didnt help me at all and thats when i decided to run with some friends towards the school gate I was like I dont want to die too young and I gotta run towards the gate and save myself now here I faced another situation the school gate was closed and school guards were standing and they wouldnt let us go and I wasnt the only one there other kids too were there they were crying shouting begging the guards to open the door as nobody wanted to die that day not that day but the guards kept on insisting they wouldnt let anyone go I was thinking Do they want all these kids to die? they cant be serious while all this was happening some parents started coming they were somehow informed of the situation there and came away and took their crying kids. At that point I also saw other kids asking other kids parents to take them away but no parent was willing to do that now I had all hopes on my parents that somehow my parents would come pick me up too that was the only way for me to get out of that place alive this was the mid 90s or early 90s and cell phones were not commonplace so we kids didnt have cellphones or atleast the classmates i had didnt have cellphones so we were going to rely on our good karma that somehow our parents would come and pick us up. While all these thoughts were going I noticed a Bomb disposal squad vehicle entering the school building this was somehow a relief I know knew that they were going to fix the situation and something will turn up I cant say how relieved I was but the tension was not yet over there was a scare all around kids were still crying parents trying to comfort their kids it was a bad bad day after a while I saw the bomb disposal squad vehicle leaving the school and there was this guy who was waving and smiling at the kids we waved back too thinking they found the bomb thank God we are safe after a while my father came in to pick me up then the school authorities announced that everything was under control and everything will go as planned since half of the school day was gone we were now going to have the Naat Competition as planned. So we had the competition and everything went quite normal. I dont know whether there was any news on Tv or paper about this incident but sure was a frightening experience for me. After that I learned that the whole bomb thing was a hoax and someone had called in and said that there was a bomb in the school. The whole head rush was still very much alive in my mind for about a week but I may never forget the scare.

and yeah by the way I was in the 97 morning batch of St Pauls Karachi anyone reading drop me a line would love to hear from you.

Listening to Royksopp

The Apple Ka'aba emails

2006-11-02T23:54:00.000-06:00

These days I have been getting these emails with subjects like Apple Ka'aba Mecca. The email has arabic/urdu/english text along with pictures that shows a cube shaped building resembling the Ka'aba. Some emails claim that its called "Apple Mecca" and it will be open 24 hours serving alcohol and other beverages. Well First of all I never knew Apple Computers was in the alcohol business I dont know whose idea was that.Apple is supposed to be designing Macs and iPods and other computer and entertainment hardware this alcohol equation doesnt fit here at all. Secondly the pictures that resemble Ka'aba are the pictures that were taken when the cube building was underconstruction its NOT a black cube anymore its a white crystaline cube. Thirdly, this is not the first time that apple has used a cube shaped design they have G4 cubes and cube is part of their design so please lets not associate them with islam and not take everything that happens here in the west as an attack on islam ofcourse i do consider those danish cartoons to be very offensive but not this is a completely different case. If anyone thinks any different hey I would love to hear from you.

The Fifth avenue store

W-11 Karachi to Melbourne - again

2006-10-30T00:54:00.000-06:00

W-11 Karachi to Melbourne
Originally uploaded by m6neb.

A while back in the Commonwealth games held in Melbourne featured this special tram called the "Karachi Tram" whose artwork resembled the W11 mini buses in karachi. People seemed to enjoy the ride and requested the transport authorities to make it permanent finally it seems like the authorities have made a decision they will running these specially decorated Karachi trams in melbourne as report here http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1060954
This, is a great step for bringing in the positive image of Karachi and Pakistani culture abroad

Karachi W11 Melbourne Tram

2006-10-30T00:46:00.000-06:00

[LIFE - 10/27/06]

2006-10-27T00:45:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone (echoes and crows chanting in distance)

So its almost the end of Oktober which means that first very soon the daylight saving time will end so get ready to turn your clocks one hour back I remember in Pakistan the govt wanted to implement DST I was an undergrad back then in my last year probably and the sun would set at 8:00 it was fun I am always a big fan of daylight (sometimes I wish there was no darkness and only brightness I live in my own fantasy world :) ) but many people refused to accept it so if you happen to ask someone the time you wouldnt get the correct time according to DST very sorry situation but it remained in effect for that year next year the govt reverted back to whatever time we followed before: GMT+500. Anyways here in the US and many countries as my friend pointed out in egypt too has DST so yeah it works for many but it doesnt work for Pakistan. I was so enthusiastic that I emailed CNN Asia since their asian feed was showing Islamabad timings without the DST change after a couple of months they started relaying the DST effective time little did they know that decisions in Pakistan can change so quickly. They will never listen to their feedback from Pakistan well atleast from Ahmed.

Ocktober also means Boo Halloween. This time at work they are putting me on a special assignment over the weekend: Decorate a Potato and bring it back next week my job depends on it :) not really so I am thinking of ways I can decorate a potato. My next post may contains some graphic images so watch out.

Also I am nearing towards the end of my fall quarter which means exams and project and assignments and what not well yeah this is life this quarter is special as I am involved in some extra special mess which I have to clear before the finals so I will do that and then exams lets see how things turn out. Thats all bye for now. Thank you and come again

- I am listening to Alcazar right now

Toybox - Blast from the past

2006-10-26T02:09:00.000-05:00

So heres a blast from the past some while back an Aqua like band emerged from Denmark called Toybox. Found this video thought I would share. Interesting fact the girl Anila has parents from Pakistan and she is proficient in Urdu and the guy Amir is from Morocco.

Zidane Combo

2006-10-01T18:03:00.000-05:00

Probably its not too late to revive some memories from the Football World Cup Italy won the cup playing against France and Zidane's head butt. Not been following the case so I dont know what action FIFA is taking or has already taken. Apparently some came up with this animation showing Zidane doing his Head butt combo like they do it in mortal combat and other fighting games. enjoy :)

More Numa Numa

2006-09-09T21:26:00.000-05:00

Some time ago this guy "Gary Brolsma" came up with his imitation of a song called "Numa Numa" and the video got very popular Surpringly the guy felt really ashamed of himself he turned down an interview offer from a major american network. On the internet the video spread like wildfire and many people came up with their own version of "Numa Numa" and the rest was all history. Recently youtube.com featured the return of Gary Brolsma's new Numa Numa song.

Check the new Numa Numa

and the classic Numa Numa

Newsgrounds.com was the original website that featured Gary Broslmas first video. For this and other great shows visit http://www.newgrounds.com

A.I. anyone?

2006-09-07T23:43:00.000-05:00

So for my 2nd quarter in MS I was running out of choices to select a course. Usually I take two courses each quarter. I had already signed up for Database Design (its a pre req every MS student has to take :( ). So the second course was a difficult choice I could have taken a basic networking course but then I didnt want to read stuff about OSI and IPv4/IPv6 and these were theoritical classes with little or no practical use so thats when I decided to take AI now my friends AI may not be the best subject it is theoritical and describes techniques that may go over your head but then I had no choice at that time so I signed up for AI. I had already taken AI as an undergrad so I was confident that I would survive yet again. So when classes started and when we started talking abt all the various search techniques and proability and decision trees it really started to hit me hard on the head. Like this one question in my first assignment asked me to draw something like this

So can you think of a caption for this ... Ugliness at its best. The AI people call it a state space graph and you can decide whatever you wanna call it. Anyways this is just one ugly picture there were others too that might give the above one a bit more competition buts lets just forget about the other ones. Fortunately topics like predicates did justice to me and in the end the course instructor gave me an option to either take the exam or do a mini project and after drawing all these wierd diagrams in the assignments I decided not to take the exam as there was no way in this world that I was going to draw them in the 3 hour exam and I thanked God in the end I was able to get a good grade just because I did well on the project( I will take abt that soon) those who took the exam were heard complaining but I survived.

Karachi: KPT fountain jet

2006-09-02T14:49:00.000-05:00

As reported here and here , the Karachi fountain Jet is back. For those of you who dont know what it is its a high rise foutain jet financed by KPT (Karachi Port Trust). I am not going to comment on whether it was worth it or not because of the high cost. It is considered the second largest fountain after the fountain in Jeddah. The fountain is located at Oyster Rocks a very small island near Kemari and can be seen from Sea View, clifton. From the KPT Website:

" The Port fountain is the worlds latest fountain and rises to height of 620 feet when operating at full force. The fountain is located next to the Northern rock of a series known as Oyster Rocks, off the Karachi harbour.
Ever since its inauguration by the President of Pakistan on 15th Jan 2006, the fountain has been attracting visitors from all over Pakistan.The fountain structure and platform of 135 sq meters (15m x 9m) is on 16 piles 18 meters deep. Two 835-horsepower turbine pumps deliver nearly 2000 liters of sea water per second at a velocity of 70 meter per second through specially designed 8 inch nozzles.
Because the fountain rises so high into the air, it is quite easily seen from many locations of the city. Many high rise apartments, buildings and surroundings overlook the fountain throughout the community at the beach. The column of water can be seen from miles at sea. The fountain is located 1.4 km away from the beach to avoid spraying neighborhood homes. Maximum vapours travel up to a radius of 500 feet around the fountain. Eighteen flood lights of 400 watts illuminate the fountain at night."

KPT is also offering boat rides from Kemari/Boat Basin to Oyster Rocks so you can take a boat taxi to get there. During the monsoon season due to high tide the fountain was closed but now its back as the monsoon season is over in Pakistan. I havent seen the fountain myself since I am not in Karachi but would love to see it. Here is a pic of the fountain jet. enjoy

Image from wikipedia

Its time to unite

2006-08-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

These are tough times for Pakistan. I really dont know if the killing of the Baloch nationalist leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti would help the situation in the region from the reports that are coming there has been some violence but things are settling down a bit. I hope it remains peaceful. Looking forward I wish to see Balochistan prosper and would like to see its people reap the benefits. PAKISTAN ZINDABAD

(Half) Million Dollar Man

2006-08-25T23:43:00.000-05:00

Hair's Half a million dollar deal :)
Picture from Pak Passion Forums: http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/showthread.php?t=27057

Powerpuff Girls: Anime Version

2006-08-24T23:55:00.000-05:00

The Japanese decided to have their own verison of Powerpuff girls. Cartoon Network worked with Japanese animation studios to bring an Anime version of the powerpuff girls called "Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z". There is no English version at this moment but there plans to dub the anime in english. I liked the concept of turning the powerpuff characters to anime and they look pretty good includes Mojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins and Miss Bellum too :) Check out wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demashita%21_Powerpuff_Girls_Z

Powerpuff Girls (the incarnation of PPG) with English subtitles

Jessica Simpson - Holiday : Rip Off or Inspiration

2006-08-23T21:18:00.000-05:00

Seems like Jessica badly needed a hit after that ugly divorce with Nick Lachey so she decided to pick Madonnas 80s hit "Holiday" tune and came up with her own song "A public affair". Initially she denied that it was a rip off but then finally she described on her website that 'Holiday' was her inspiration and she loves the song hence "a public affair". Actually the song aint that bad. Wonder if she will actually put any credits to Madonna on her album cover? Keeping my fingers crossed.

Watch the video :

The Umpire strikes back!!!

2006-08-23T20:59:00.000-05:00

Ok cricket followers heres another post. Pakistan vs England, the last test match of the series and what a disaster. Pakistan got upset because of umpire Darell Hairs decision and protested and went too far and in the end the game was awarded to England :( but as Inzi said "Its all about respect" so I couldnt agree more The umpire has a history I dont want to jump to conclusions and start calling him a racist but he could have handled it easily and with little diplomacy the issue could have been resolved for the love of God this is cricket and not politics there are laws but darell hair made Pakistan feel like criminals and now they will prosecuted by criminals. Surely there will be a ban on Inzi on not showing up with the team to play the rest of the game. As far as the ball tampering issue is concerned it sure is serious but the umpire should have given some evidence calling the team "cheats" without any evidence doesnt help the situation and acts like these can never help cricket prosper ICC should strictly look into that too not only the team but the umpire should be punished as well if found guilty.

VoipStunt - The Free Calls Company

2006-05-26T20:42:00.000-05:00

Free calls to the US and other countries

VoipStunt - The Free Calls Company
iCall - Changing the way you make phone calls
www.skype.com (only calls from US/Canada)

what i am listening to...

2006-05-13T19:58:00.000-05:00

listening to "Sunrise" by "Simply Red" the band from manchester came into the scene in 1985 when i was five years old and still very much there. Been listening to other songs by simply red too fairground and Your eyes from their album Love and the Russian winter anyways dont know how many people listen to Simply Red but their music is quite good

iCrappy iTunes

2006-03-25T01:46:00.000-06:00

So lets talk about my ipod a bit I bought it somewhere in january and been enjoying some great music ever since but I must say that iTunes is really a crapload of a software I dont want to say anything this software has made the ipod look dumb its slow its automatic and manual procedures of updating ipod is seriously crappy its not friendly if you have 2 computers and you use both to plug in your ipod for charging or transfer there are ipod alternative but they are commercial and from the features they seem to be much better than iTunes. iTunes has this feature that converts your video files to an format that is recognized by ipod and my what a conversion i synched my ipod with the converted video and guess what I could see the video but no audio hello apple people seriously need to look at this what the hell are they thinking people are stupid whats the use of feature that cannot do what is promises anyways I am really not satisfied with iTunes

On the other hand I used the podcasts features and subscribed to geo news like I was so not feeling ok and missing geo not really I think geo news is the only pakistani news channel to offer podcasts anyways so yeah I subscribed to it and now my ipods filled with geo news. Anyways so during this spring quarter break I came across some nice podcasts and thought I would share My next post would have details about those podcasts since I have dedicated this entry to crappy iTunes

Ajax Everywhere

2006-03-25T00:50:00.000-06:00

I am not into web programming/designing but recently I learned about this new framework called AJAX. AJAX stands for asynchronous javascript and XML Roughly its not even a framework its just a combination of Javascript,CSS with heavy emphasis on XML sockets and I didnt know that a lot of AJAX stuff is already there on the web like google maps,google suggest beta and even gmail. Well in simple terms what AJAX allows you to do is to make your page content more dynamic like gmail now offers chat support within the browser window and you will notice that only a portion of the page is updated this is where AJAX comes into play. Amazon A9 has this map utility that also makes use of AJAX not only it displays the maps but has complete satellite and street photos of map amazing stuff AJAX allows you to give you more control over your page and someday all webpages would have AJAX and whats more I also found this cool page that allows you to create /update your word doc files in just a browser and its free you can like create a new word document or open an existing and the look and feel looks good too all that in just a browser unbelievable and its all coming google recently bought an online word processor company Writely which basically is the same idea create you word processing documents over the web. This is a major shift from desktop applications although it would still take time for AJAX to completely dominate it looks very promising.

And here are some links to some AJAX stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX
http://www.ajaxian.com/ blog and PODCasts
http://www.ajaxmatters.com/r/welcome has links to webpages that use AJAX
and this word processor page that I found via slashdot
http://www.linspire.com/ajaxwrite.php this is a must see

Metlink - Your guide to public transport in metropolitan Melbourne

2006-03-21T01:31:00.000-06:00

Check this out W11 Karachi to Melbourne

Metlink - Your guide to public transport in metropolitan Melbourne

goodbye winter hello spring

2006-03-19T04:15:00.000-06:00

last week my winter quarter ended at depaul and how relieved i am. This quarter turned out to be a monster than the previous one this time i ended up having lots of stuff in my plate :

Winter Quarter Menu

Database Cuisine
1. Butter Database Design project (served with ORACLE)
2. Red Hot Paper (with no chilli peppers but papers)

AI Cuisine
1. Four Killer assignments ( a good source for losing those valuable points were presented as appetizers)
2. 8 Puzzle Simulation (served with Java)

and not to mention mini-appetizers for both cuisines and the 8 hours job that I have to do 5 days a week *sigh*

Things I missed :(
1. Trip to Cascade Mountains, Wisconsin
2. Dinner at Wong Thai Kitchen

so have a weeks break before I start with the spring quarter. It snowed quite a bit last week here but melted quite fast thanks to more warm weather i can see birds and animals coming back a couple of days ago i could hear the owl makes me feel as if i am in a jungle and the squirrel whos always wandering around no matter what

Plans for next week:
Discover the gaming lab at depaul
do some spring shopping
send emails to friends in khi :)
and well try to do some really creative work :)

ok folks bye for now will post later

and the visitors are....

2006-03-19T04:07:00.000-06:00

so now I can see where my visitors are from well with this cool new thing called cluster maps I put this thing on the blog and the person who makes a visit gets tracked by the geo graphical location you can see it at the lower right side of my blog its been a month now and I have viewers from the east coast the west coast ofcourse from the mid west hmm and nobody from arizona and yes people from karachi, isb and UK and south east asia and korea yae :)

History of computers

2006-02-19T00:04:00.000-06:00

Ok today I am going to talk a little bit about Charles Babbage and Difference engine and ENIAC and ... hey dont freak out I am just kidding while browsing at http://slashdot.org I found this article about "My first computer", so I thought I would put some entries on the earlier computers that I had starting from my very first.

My first computer was an XT machine it had 2 very noisy 5.25 inch floppy drives those big ugly things and they only accepted Single sided single drive. At that time double sided double drives were also available but well I didnt know much about computers back then whew. It had 512K of RAM nowadays 512MB is not even enough. I used to run DOS 4.0 and back in those days I was taking some computer classes too at this institute I was very impressed with edit - an editing tool for the DOS but that was only available on DOS 6.22 so I copied the whole OS on four floppies and transferred it on my XT machine I was able to run it but it was slow but acceptable. I used to write GW-BASIC program on that machine, I played dangerous dave, prince of persia and loads of other games that my cousin had (he had an XT too) so yeah some memories but things change and fast too within a year I got bored and started complaining about this computer to my parents and I was successful in convincing them to buy me a new computer. This time its was a 486 DX machine with 8MB RAM (wow what a transition from 512KB) and a huge huge hard disk 1.2GB :) people and friends used to tell me ahmed this is a huge hard disk you can store so much on this this will go on for years and I was like wow really. About a year later I upgraded my system and I had this extremly heavy LG Color monitor BW monitors dont have a huge body color monitors are gigantic. So now my life was full of colors from them. I also got my dad to buy me a Creative multimedia kit which had an 8x cd rom drive a 16-bit sound card a set of creative speakers and loads of cds too and now I had could hear my PC and play some cool games. This 486 allowed me to experience the OS of the time, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 which I installed after I got my multimedia kit

Later I bought a Pentium II with 32MB RAM (I used this computer for all my undergrad work) until it gave up on me and thats when I got a Pentium 4 with 128 MB RAM I kept my old drive and some of the other accessories from the old one until one day the creative cd rom died and I bought a Maze 52X cd drive. Within a year my motherboard died and I had to claim my warranty and thanks to a friend of mine(thanks ASIF) he helped me out to claim the warranty as in pakistan you buy something with a warranty and when you claim a warranty the sellers not always nice so I had ask for reinforcements and finally I had it fixed. I used it for sometime and then "Chicago calling", so I decided to give it to my bestest friend which he surprisingly refused like come on who wouldnt take a computer free it wasnt that bad and if you reading this friend I wished you had taken it he was in need of a computer and he was only willing to accept it I if sold it to him and since he needed so much at that at that time I had no choice but to sell it to him like we struck the deal on the day I left how fast is that ah memories.

and now in chicago I bought this dell laptop - inspiron 6000 with 512MB and 80 GB drive and CDR + DVD combo pretty much satisfied with it but I'll tell you a secret looking into the crystal ball I have my eyes on an IBM thinkpad ......

Cheering Up

2006-02-18T23:51:00.000-06:00

So the indian cricket fans have something to cheer up now as the indian cricket team can go back with pride after winning the ODI series. They still have to play one last match in karachi but they have won the ODI series. The test series was won by pakistan and now india has won the ODIs so theres something to cheer up for both sides. Hope that fans from both the sides are satisfied. The tournament arrangements went out well too and I am definately sure that tournaments and matches like these would happen again.

Karachi

2006-02-18T00:21:00.000-06:00

somehow I was trying to put this karachi video that I found on video.google.com but *sigh* I couldnt the video doesnt seem to actually run so I am posting a link here. The video was made by geo.tv The citys changing and some positives happening out there. The video highlights karachi and has shots from what I have heard is the 2nd highest water jet fountain in the world. So check it out.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2532617977453094313&q=karachi

java buzzwords

2006-02-12T13:25:00.000-06:00

some java buzzwords that recently got my attention

1. Spring Framework (http://www.springframework.org)
2. Hibernate (http://www.hibernate.org)
3. Struts (http://struts.apache.org)
4. JBoss (http://www.jboss.org)

ahmed returns

2006-02-11T00:38:00.000-06:00

hello folks

long time and no blog. well chicago had this flu outbreak and everyone was catching flu i would see sick people in the office and then envy myself aah i am safe i am safe then it was last week saturday my whole family got sick and i was like "I am safe I am safe" but then late saturday i started getting sick first the throat then the next morning it turned into fever and u know the flu its here. ouch and there goes my week a disasterous week coughing high tempreature really really bad tasting medicine and i wonder why cant they have sweet tasting medicine like calpol when i was kid i used to like that medicine unlike other medicine where my mom had to call reinforcements so that i would take the cruel cruel medicine. anyways it was terrible and the fever had no consistency at all going up and down well i didnt take any MS classes this week and stayed home took couple of days off from work too and ahh now here i am getting back to normal and writing this blog i am back.....

Best of Times

2006-02-03T01:00:00.000-06:00

These days karachi is going through the best of times I have seen. So much is happening in the city that its hard to describe that in one blog entry. Recent Events:
1. The 620ft high port foutain jet was inaugrated
2. Bryan Adams performed in karachi on the 29th first ever intl concert in pakistan
3. Pakistan team one the test series in karachi by 1-0
4. The Karachi Stock Exchange(KSE-100 index) went in excess of 10,000 points
5. The opening of a very beautiful beach park in the clifton area

So finally some change is happening. I would be posting more stuff on karachi real soon I have so much stuff stacked here at my place that really i would have to go through a series of blogs in order to publish that but will do that real soon.

blog by request

2006-02-03T00:53:00.000-06:00

and so one of my friend at depaul sends me an email which says "update ur blog man ...pakistan won the test series". well so here it is arvind I am putting it an entry. Pakistan won the test series 1-0 after the first two test matches had no results karachi the final fort was the decider. Now according to the updated ratings at www.iccratings.com india has dropped down to number 3 followed by pakistan which has gained some points after this win. One dayers start from monday they would certainly be exciting to watch and definately not going to see any more draws.

history of finland

2006-01-29T14:18:00.000-06:00

Conan O Brien describes history of finland. Believe me it aint that big. Here it is

let the games begin

2006-01-29T14:07:00.000-06:00

hello folks

recently while going through my first AI assignment, I had to go through these classical search problems which are basically games and fun to play and then I visited these websites which have interactive game demos. Check 'em out its fun seriously.

Towers of Hanoi -> http://www.mazeworks.com/hanoi/
Missionaries and Cannibal -> http://www.plastelina.net/games/game2.html

have fun...

my first video blog

2006-01-26T21:26:00.000-06:00

Hello Folks!

Here comes ..... my first video blog :) Cricketing season back in Pakistan well now I dont get to see cricket here in the US but you know alternatives and then theres google video. So heres a look at my first video blog. It shows Afridi hitting 4 consecutive sixes off Harbhajan Singh. Certainly something to watch after both test matches with India have drawn. So what next karachi lets see. Enjoy

Bart says

2006-01-24T23:10:00.000-06:00

Now this is what Bart has to say about his sister Lisa when she is nominated as a school representative:

"Lisa is nuts
She has a rubber butt
when she walks around
it goes putt putt"

Thats what I call really hillarious :)

desi flava

2006-01-19T23:54:00.000-06:00

So if madonna can say "mujhae maaf kardo"is that it? This desi flavors catching up a lot with western music. Already there is a flurry of british asian artists and then very recently I heard this song by anastacia "Sick and tired" and now this song has punjabi lines. The line goes like "Dil Laa liya be-parwa de naal Dil Laa liye be-parwa de naal" and I have some clue of what that means but hey blog readers give it a try what does it mean send me a comment the person best describing the line gets a prize ... so dont be a jerk if you are reading try translating it for me

the ipod story

2006-01-15T21:34:00.000-06:00

Music from the north

2005-12-27T21:38:00.000-06:00

Ok now I had really wanted to write this blog earlier but due to my laziness I wasnt able to jot down something so here goes. Pop music from pakistan generally comes from karachi or lahore or islamabad while we keep thinking that other areas are way too under developed to have their own music scene well that is not true anymore from a place you would have never expected ... peshawar - people can make jokes of the pathan folks there and criticize their beliefs but here comes sajid and zeeshan (www.sajidandzeeshan.com) these guys are not just making pop they are creating electronic music and that too in english they will be releasing their english album soon and if you still havent checked them out go the website and see what they have been doing. I am truly amazed with their music its simply out of this world and check out the videos too coz they are awesome especially "Freestyle Dive" (www.indus.tv in the Videos Section) the vdo won an award too at the IM Video awards (www.indusmusic.tv) held recently. Sajid and Zeeshan have put peshawar on the map and thats one reason I could go to peshawar for.

47 and still going

2005-12-17T23:06:00.000-06:00

just before everyone thought it was curtains down for madonna ... shes back with a new album and looks like this one would lift the curse from her previous albums which didnt do too well. "Confessions of a dance floor" as the name depicts is a dance album . The first single Hung Up is doing quite well and the other songs like Sorry are worth listening the album is full of dance tracks, Madonna goes on to the extent of saying sorry in different languages in the song "Sorry" including Urdu/Hindi and Hebrew the urdu phrase goes like "Mujhae maaf kardo" so hey everyone madonnas back and 47 and still going strong....

Holiday Shopping Wishlist

2005-11-23T23:25:00.000-06:00

1. Xbox 360
2. Ipod Nano
3. Ipod Video
4. PSP
5. HP Photo Printer
6. Motorola RAZR
7. Call of duty 2

The first 3 are in the $300 range. Xbox 360 was completely sold out when it first launched at Sears in chicago. Which one will are getting this holiday season?

Java -> UML

2005-11-21T20:38:00.000-06:00

Recently one of my projects required me to draw a class diagram. On googling I found some tools that actually reverse engineer java code and generate class diagrams. These included both commercial and freeware packages but the one tool worth mentioning here and which I used is Modelistic JME at http://www.modelistic.com/. This tool is avaialble as an eclipse plugin and gets installed and integrated in the eclipse environment. With a really simple interface and an amazing auto layout functionality it generated class diagram within seconds and has loads of layout functions which allow you to almost fully customize the look of your diagram and finally when you are done you can import the diagram to a JPEG image neat tool eh. The tool is available with a 30 day license but you can get a student license which doesnt cost you a buck so check it out.

Tech 101

2005-11-18T23:49:00.000-06:00

Here comes a tech blog . So I have transitioned myself from C++/OO programming to a more specific technology VoIP. My language of choice is still C++ but I have great appreciation for Java the way its evolving bringing in more concepts from C++ but improving it vastly. So heres the stuff I am working on these days include Asterisk - a robust open source PBX system written entirely in C. We are customizing and porting Asterisk on C++. VoIP protocols: SIP and IAX. Learned about the various VoIP hardware ATAs and the ever so cute IAXy an ATA that speaks the native asterisk protocol IAX. Brushing up skills on gSoap. Just discovered this toolkit called cgicc which allows you to write cgi programs in c++ cool haan works well when you have smaller tasks and arent worried about interoperability cgi is the way to go and thats not the only reason to use it there are other reasons too but... I am not going to discuss that why because I dont want to tell anyone ok its my blog and I decide what to write here okay I set the rules.. kidding I would write but not this blog entry okay. My MS courses have helped me understand the "under the hood" stuff about languages helped we apply design patterns hey they are cool once you put 'em in action.

Recently in my MS classes I discovered a whole new dimension of programming languages that we really dont hear of like ML, OCaml, Haskell, Pizza wow that last one originated from an experiment gone bad at Pizza Hut not really ... its a language believe it ok. A lot of portings are also happening around as well like theres a .NET port to Haskell out there. The evolutions of languages. You will be amazed to hear that modern languages like Java and C# have picked features from the ML language itself like anonymous functions and inner classes. For the curious mind check ML out at http://www.smlnj.org/ and now more web links to the stuff that I have been messing around with

Asterisk www.asterisk.org
IAXy www.digium.com
cgicc http://www.cgicc.org/
gSoap http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~engelen/soap.html

later folks

Stuck In my head

2005-11-17T01:10:00.000-06:00

ok now this is not a new concept someones already using it. I put in some of the music thats stuck in my head here in my post:

1. Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz
2. Dare - Gorillaz
3. Holiday - Maddona
4. Boyfriend - Ashlee Simpson
5. The lonely one - Alice Deejay
6. Holiday - Green Day
7. Hung Up - Maddona
8. La Tortura - Shakira
9. Since you been gone - Kelly Clarkson
10. The boxer - Chemican Brothers
11. Only this moment - Royksopp

Whats stuck in your head?