A Jaywalker's Diary

How to clean C++ projects in VS 2010

2012-01-04T19:51:00.002Z

If you archive/ zip your C++ project, there are good chances that it will take a lot of time to send it via email; reason being the huge temporary files that are created with VS 2010. These temporary files shouldn't be committed to your configuration management systems (CVS, SVN and similar tools). Not only adding these temporaries to your versioning system increases the storage requirements, it

Being Part Time Self-Employed in the UK

2011-12-28T13:34:00.000Z

It's possible to work as a self-employed person while retaining your full-time employment in the UK. The combination is called as employed + self-employed. There is nothing complex about the arrangement and is perfectly acknowledged by HMRC [1]. Letting HMRC Know If you believe that you can work as a self-employed individual/ contractor in addition to your day job, you just need to let HMRC

Free SMS Reminders for You!

2011-12-10T07:30:00.001Z

Would you like Google Calendar to SMS you for events and appointments? If you live in the UK or the UAE, and you don't make use of this free service, you might be missing on something important. In fact, there is an entire list of supported countries and carriers here. In the UAE, only Etisalat is supported---bad luck du guys! Unfortunately, this feature is not available to users in Pakistan.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

2011-12-04T08:15:00.001Z

If you have ever been interested in motivating others, "Drive" by Daniel H. Pink is an important book to read. The main theme of the book is that the Carrot and Stick model of motivation is outdated. It has outlived its usefulness and doesn't apply to modern life, specially beyond algorithmic tasks. "Management isn't about walking around and seeing if people are in their offices," he told me.

6 Months!

2011-09-01T23:36:00.004+01:00

It's exactly 6 months since I came to England. A lot has changed for me, and a lot remains to be done before one can rise above the day-to-day issues of life and start thinking of something far-reaching---beyond the rat race. The first month was spent looking for a job. As luck would have it, I kept looking in London and found one in Leeds. The next month was spent looking for a place one could

The StackExchange Network of Sites

2011-08-08T00:08:00.010+01:00

If you have ever googled for a programming question, you must be familiar with Stack Overflow---the ultimate points based programming Q&A site. But do you know that there are sister Q&A sites in the Stack Exchange network, specific to other domains? Some of the ones I visit often are English Language and Usage Personal Finance and Money Web Applications The complete list of sites within the

Side by Side MS Word Document Comparison

2011-06-19T01:03:00.005+01:00

Many a times, one feels the need to compare the contents at the top of a document with another part within the same document. MS Word 2007 and later versions allow you to do that using the following ribbon options:Here are the steps to do that:View -> New Window: this will open a second copy of the same document in a new windowView -> Side by Side: this will align the view so that both windows

On Getting A "Special" Phone Package

2011-06-11T23:40:00.006+01:00

I picked up the phone today to get my Porting Authorisation Code (PAC) so that I could switch from Vodafone to 3. The contact centre guy asked which network I was switching to and what they were offering. He started talking of coverage and signal issues, which wasn't unexpected. Now, I am tried of such advice as I usually have already made up my mind when I ask for something. I tried to cut the

Most Useful UK Websites

2011-06-10T20:22:00.007+01:00

Once you land into this country, you realize that Internet is not just for keeping in touch with friends/ family, it's an indispensable part of life. A lot of real work gets done online.Some of the most useful sites that I have come to know are as follows. Anyone who has spent more than a couple of months would definitely be knowing these websites. The following is meant for new comers as well as

UK Bank Accounts

2011-06-04T21:54:00.006+01:00

Disclaimer: Below is my understanding/ experience of various types of bank accounts available, and is not meant to "advise" you on any kind of investment.Retail banking in the UK is a lot different from what I was used to in Pakistan. While I covered HSBC Passport account in one of my existing posts, HSBC Passport is a current account nevertheless and the charges are £8 per month. Now, if you are

Proof of -x * -y = x * y

2011-05-06T21:09:00.004+01:00

An inquisitive person posted a question on pakgrid: Why a negative number multiplied by a negative number gave a positive result? An example given by the poster wasWhile (-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6) = -24why (-6) * (-4) = 24?To help him, many people came forward with their examples and proofs. Here is one interesting proof by an assistant professor at NUST. Produced verbatim.The proof of -x * -y = x

Comapring UK and UAE Cost (and Standard) of Living

2011-04-25T16:12:00.009+01:00

RationaleWell, you can skip this part if you are not interested in why I am doing this comparison.Having lived in the UAE as well as having recently moved to the UK, I can't live without making a comparison between the two. It's interesting to see how each place has something different to offer at a price significantly different from the other. Further, it's not just me; I have frequently seen

Some Guidance for Tier 1 Visa Holders

2011-04-07T15:47:00.006+01:00

There are still quite a number of people on Tier 1 visa who have just moved to the UK. The following might be helpful for them (and other intending to enter the country soon). This is known to be valid as of April 2011.Making use of your timeA lot of essential things that one has to do in life are tied to each other; specially so in the UK. Many of these are chicken-and-egg problems. For example,

Job Hunting in the UK: Career Aspirations and Soft Skills

2011-03-25T19:46:00.005Z

Once you have passed the "selection criteria of the recruiter", there would of course be technical evaluation. No IT company would recruit a technical person without having a thorough grilling on the technical part. While that is no different anywhere, there were a few surprises for me in the UK hiring process:Your career aspirations are really important!Back in Pakistan, we don't take career

Job Hunting in the UK: Exact Match Required

2011-03-23T22:35:00.008Z

Tip #2: Exact match is required by the recruiter!Not just the recruiter but the company where the vacancy exists is also looking for an exact match. But the recruiter is usually more selective than the company itself, perhaps because he/ she cannot judge the "ability" to do more than what's written on the CV. So, for example, if the advertised position lists 7 skills and one of them is

Job Hunting in the UK: The CV

2011-03-23T00:06:00.007Z

Before coming here, I knew a few things about job search in the UK: the most popular UK job listing sites for IT are Jobserve, Jobsite, cwjobs and monster.co.uk. Amongst these, the first one (Jobserve) is usually not accessible from outside the UK---it redirects to Jobserve India.Before starting with my job hunt, I also knew that most of the ads on these sites are placed by recruiters acting on

The jaywalker crosses the line, once again

2011-03-15T16:15:00.005Z

After spending quite a few years in Pakistan, I decided to move abroad. This has been a tough decision to make (specially when I had come back to Pakistan by choice) but I finally did take this big step. So, in the last 5 years, I have moved from Pakistan to Sweden, and then from Sweden to Dubai, and then from Dubai to Pakistan and from Pakistan to the UK.So, I'm in the UK now, looking for a job.

Least Known C++ Keywords

2011-01-09T09:40:00.004Z

This posts goes into the purpose and usage of some C++ keywords that rarely make it to the source code except of experienced programmers.explicitexplicit is a function-specifier; other function specifiers are inline and virtual. The keyword explicit is used with a constructor to mention that implicit type conversion for a class shouldn't be performed by the compiler. Consider the following class

Getting Your Child a Passport

2011-01-05T19:00:00.004Z

This is one of the series where a location and a process are explained for the common good.Pre-requisitesYou'll need the following:CNIC of both parentsPassports of both parents (even one would do but it's better if both have passports)Child Registration Certificate (CRC, formerly known as Form B) from NADRAPhotocopies of all the above documentsStep 0: Locating your nearest passport officeYou must

Difference Between POSIX and Standard C Library

2010-12-31T17:17:00.015Z

If everything you learn about Unix development using C/C++ is POSIX then what the hell does the standard C library do?First things first. POSIX stands for "Portable Operating System Interface (for UniX)." Now that's a fancy name but the requirement becomes very clear when you see the disparity amongst so many flavors of Unix. There was a need to unify the programming of these flavors of Unix (

Chip and PIN (aka EMV) Hacked by Omar Choudary

2010-12-27T13:20:00.005Z

A recent letter by Ross J. Anderson to the banking industry has occupied the front pages of various hacker news sites. It so happened that in October 2010, Omar Salim Choudary published source code and hardware specs of SmartCard Detective---a mechanism to subvert Chip and PIN transaction; the term Chip and PIN is used for EMV in the UK. While EMV is believed to be "the secure way of handling

System V Semaphores: How not to design an API

2010-12-24T14:08:00.015Z

I recently read the chapter on Inter Process Communication from Advanced Linux Programming book. To my horror, the semaphore way of interprocess communication was unnecessarily complicated. Though the ALP book doesn't mention anything about alternates, after some search on the Internet, I found that one can have POSIX named semaphores instead for synchronization between processes on a Linux

Linux Shared Memory Cheat Sheet

2010-12-23T13:49:00.007Z

A quick cheat sheet of how to create, access, detach and destroy shared memory in Linux using C language is provided below. There is another way of accessing shared memory, i.e., by using POSIX functions for the same; that is not discussed here.Header Files for Shared MemoryYou need to include the following header filessys/shm.h and sys/stat.hAllocate shared memoryint segmentId = shmat (

Crowdsourcing Ready for Prime Time?

2010-12-21T17:36:00.004Z

The idea behind crowd sourcing is to utilize collective efforts of the crowd to solve a relatively simple but huge problem. Since labor from the developing world is cheap, and tasks that are somewhat mechanical yet require human intelligence could be outsourced to multiple people from developing countries, crowd sourcing has practically been used in the same scenario.As opposed to freelancing,

CNIC Marital Status, Watan Card and NADRA

2010-11-28T07:23:00.006Z

Watan Card has hit me in the most unexpected way. While trying to get Form "Bay" for my child, I faced rejection from NADRA Islamabad. The reason quoted was that my wife's marital status is unmarried. This is absurd because of two reasons:My status is married in NADRA's records, and my records have the CNIC of my wife, and yet her status is unmarried. In more logical terms, X is married to Y but

Free Personal Finance Software for the Rest of Us

2010-11-15T19:47:00.000Z

I've been maintaining Excel sheets for my personal finance for quite some time. It's simple but leaves me with some manual maintenance here and there. Having learnt about mint.com, I thought that I should give online free finance tools a try. So, let me first clarify who the "rest of us" are. The segment I am referring to do not live in the US and can't afford Microsoft Money or Quicken, and

Top Google Adsense Earners in Pakistan

2010-11-06T02:08:00.002Z

Saad Hamid, a guy around 22, is dubbed as the Mogul of Adsense Empire in Pakistan. He earns more than $2000 a month using ads from his technology blog. Some time back, count of one month's unique visitors to his blog was around 700,000, whereby he earned $8,500 in a single month. Here is an interview of Saad Hamid. Below is a list of top Google Adsense Earners in Pakistan: Name Annual Income

One reason Google will never fail!

2010-11-03T02:27:00.000Z

What Google came up with in 1998 didn't make sense to a lot of people. It was a hard sell; hard enough that the co-founders thought they would hit a jackpot by selling the company for $1 million to Excite in early 1999. They had solved a problem which everyone thought didn't exist in the first place. "Search Engine? Who needs that?" In fact, the Adwords money machine (revenue model of putting in

Getting B-Form in Pakistan

2010-10-31T01:04:00.000Z

This is one of the series where a location and a process are explained for the common good. If you want to register your child on Form-B, the first and foremost is to get a birth certificate from your respective Union council. Form-B is a pre-requisite to so many things that you should get it done as early as possible. Documents Required for Form-BNIC of both parents Original Union Council

What is Debit and Credit in Accounting?

2010-10-24T14:32:00.000+01:00

Confusion arises because of the way the two terms, debit and credit are used in everyday life. One assumes that if a bank has given me credit in the form of a credit card, the money at my disposal increases, and hence the conclusion that credit means "increase." This is awfully mistaken. Similarly, people think that when a bank debits their accounts, the money in the account decreases, and hence

Getting Birth Certificate in Pakistan

2010-10-21T20:26:00.000+01:00

This is one of the series where a location and a process are explained for the common good. If your child is born in Liaquat National Hospital or Agha Khan University Hospital (AKUH), following is the precise detail you need to follow to get a birth certificate from your local city district government. If you had commissioned a different hospital then the general outline is still applicable.

Google Adsense: 5 Months Summary

2010-10-17T16:39:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, I completed 5 months of adsense ads on this blog. The revenue finally crossed $10. Despite averaging at less than one post a week, and the number of readers whom these posts would appeal being very low, I have learnt quite a few things by tinkering with adsense. I'll share the details but first let me give you a vague idea as to how much one can make using adsense in Pakistan [1].

Chitika: Second to Google Adsense

2010-10-16T03:12:00.000+01:00

Google Adsense wins hands down when you need ads for the content you publish. However, it's not the only one out there. Amongst others, Adbrite and Chitika are quite popular. I have been trying Adbrite for quite some time but I guess the site's traffic is too low to generate any value at all. Chitika on the other hand had its registrations closed for some time, and just recently my application

Income Tax Return Forms 2010

2010-10-02T18:52:00.001+01:00

So, September came and went away. The time to file your Income Tax (IT) returns has been extended till 15th October. Traditionally, you download return forms (and wealth statement form as well, if applicable); fill them by hand and submit in person to IT office. However, eFiling has been made possible by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for the last few years. The FBR portal is not bad (

Adsense Statistics, Month 4

2010-09-16T20:46:00.002+01:00

Article edited, considering that sharing of adsense statistics could be a violation of adsense terms and conditions I made some progress in revenue this month. The page impressions reached close to 2000 but I am still within one digit adsense revenue range. TB test for UK and Sending Money via Western Union remain the most revenue generating pages. I have a lot to say as to what's happening

Salman Khan: Bill Gates' Favorite Teacher

2010-09-08T00:13:00.001+01:00

No, it's not the Khan you are thinking of. As the story goes, Bill Gates was told of Khan Academy [1], a digital video trove of educational lessons on topics such as Banking, Finance, Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics, by his friend. Each video is 10 to 15 minutes, recorded single handedly by Khan from the comfort of his home. As Khan Academy's FAQ explains, he tweaks each video over and over

Western Union Waives Off Fee For Money Transfers to Pakistan

2010-08-21T15:11:00.001+01:00

In the wake of current flood calamity, Western Union has waived off money transfer fee to Pakistan starting from 12th August 2010 till 12th September 2010. This waiver is applicable if you are sending money from the United Stated, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. Perhaps, a few more countries in the middle east might be eligible but most of the remittance in

Saleem Mirza: Techlogix

2010-08-19T01:27:00.000+01:00

Saleem Mirza, Director Professional Services at Techlogix and a graduate of FAST Lahore, demised in the US last week. Perhaps, he was in the US on a business trip. An email from Kewan (CEO Techlogix), dated 16th Aug 2010, to company's employees confirmed his death at West Palm Beach, Florida. He was a medal holder from the batch of 1991 (student id: 91-0052); joined Techlogix as his first

Adsense Statistics, Month 3

2010-08-15T20:07:00.003+01:00

Article edited, considering that sharing of adsense statistics could be a violation of adsense terms and conditions Making progress; reached close to 1500 page impressions this month. The black swan this month was a click which earned $0.50 (33% of the total revenue). This is much sane as compared to first month (where a single click earned $0.85) or second month (where a single click earned

TB Test for UK Visa: Finding IOM

2010-07-25T18:16:00.004+01:00

TB Test for UK Visa in Pakistan Since March 2007, an additional requirement for Pakistani applicants of UK visas (6 months or more duration) is to have a tuberculosis (TB) certificate. The certificate is issued by International Organization for Migration (IOM). Except for a phone number (which is 051-111 466 472) nothing is listed anywhere on the Internet. Below is an attempt to show you the

Adsense Statistics, Month 2

2010-07-17T10:49:00.001+01:00

Article edited, considering that sharing of adsense statistics could be a violation of adsense terms and conditions I still have under 1000 visitors a month. The revenue, of course, is above one dollar now. I had had another Black Swan this month generating $0.97! The least earning click got me $0.01---that's again a huge difference. What would I do without $1 visitors! First month statistics

Is Research For Me?

2010-07-12T21:18:00.000+01:00

“It was my dream to pursuit a career in research” is a typical reason I hear from software developers going abroad for higher education in computer science—a reason that I fail to understand. Why on earth a person interested in research joined a software services company, in the first place? My next question to the person leaving for studies is “Will you opt for a PhD, given a chance?” They

Google Command Line

2010-06-21T19:51:00.001+01:00

Words are powerful. A click is no comparison. Consider the recently released Google command line tool (requires Python to work). How easier it is to write $ google youtube post --category Education killer_robots.avi as compared to uploading a video after several clicks, and waiting for server round trips page after page. Since it's already known that the command line will be used by the power

Umair Khan: A Serial Entrepreneur

2010-06-19T13:40:00.001+01:00

I picked up the ringing phone; it seemed to be an international call. The person at the other end had a Russian accent. He introduced himself as Vladmir Soskov. If my memory serves me right, he further introduced himself as CTO of Clickmarks. I was immediately reminded that I had applied for a job there, and the call was for a technical interview. Read the complete post at The Pied Piper blog.

Further PTCL Broadband Blues

2010-06-18T13:45:00.000+01:00

PTCL customers are having nightmares these days because of abrupt login to a random user account in various famous sites---including facebook, blogger and several others. It so happens that you give your credentials but you log in as a different user---which directly means that somebody else could possibly be logging in as you! This is a much serious problem than the DNS failures I wrote about

Adsense Statistics

2010-06-16T17:28:00.001+01:00

Article edited, considering that sharing of adsense statistics could be a violation of adsense terms and conditions Around 900 visitors and a few clicks. I've started making money at adsense. But they rightly say that there is always "beginner's luck and warrior's ending:" The first click on my blog brought $0.85 while the other two collectively brought $0.14. That's a huge difference!

$1 Trillion Minerals Found in Afghanistan

2010-06-14T07:33:00.001+01:00

Afghanistan has been called "Saudi Arabia of Lithium" because of huge lithium reserves. Interestingly, Pakistan also has world's 5th largest gold and copper reserves.

Is an MBA worthwhile for Software Engineers?

2010-06-06T16:30:00.000+01:00

"Where are you going?" asked Kewan Khawaja, CEO of Techlogix. "Sweden" was my reply. He further inquired, "I hope you are not going for an MBA?" And I said that I intended to pursuit an MS in Dependable Computer Systems from Sweden. He seemed to digress, "Do you think this is a fascinating building?" The year was 2004, and this was my first and only interaction with Kewan that lasted for around

Remittance: All Options!

2010-05-28T17:13:00.001+01:00

If you are an expat who remits money to homeland, you must have faced not only high remittance fee but also a low exchange rate. It's typical for people remitting money from the UAE (or Middle East in general) to Pakistan. Worldbank now lets you view the various remittance options by choosing the sending and receiving countries. So, when you chose remittance options from UAE to Pakistan, the

Google Adsense for Domains

2010-05-24T17:17:00.000+01:00

Only one sentence: Don't try Google Adsense for Domains! While the idea seems good---you have a parked domain, why not get some revenue out of it---it doesn't work in reality. You cannot promote your parked site; firstly promoting a parked site doesn't make any sense but more importantly, Google doesn't allow you to do that with parked domains. To see how a parked domain with Google Adsense for

Freelance PHP Projects

2010-05-19T16:50:00.002+01:00

Look no further! Now you can get a list freelance PHP programming projects from http://www.freelancephpjobs.com.

The Money Machine

2010-05-16T10:33:00.004+01:00

This post has been edited after getting some comments from Jawad Farid on Oil Insights. The Money Machine is a hypothetical machine that churns out money for you even when you are asleep. Google's ads supported search engine empire is an example. Your investment in a fixed deposit certificate could be another. I want to build such a machine for myself---not because there is a never ending lust

Thirty!

2010-05-07T21:44:00.001+01:00

Today, I turn 30. When I was a teenager, I thought of 25 years to be the ideal age (as in the most enjoyable time) in one's life. The rationale was that, at the age of 25, one has completed his studies; should have a reasonable job (at the least a car, a rented apartment and some cash balance); should be independent in making his decisions; and should have earned a good name amongst the people

Blog Moved Permanently

2010-05-02T02:22:00.003+01:00

While trying to experiment with Adsense, SEO and Blogger internals, I have decided to move the blog from http://blog.thejaywalker.net to http://www.thejaywalker.net. The feeds for this blog are now available at http://www.thejaywalker.net/feeds/posts/default. I am still using a frameset on old URL (blog.thejaywalker.net) to contain the new page but I am also trying to find a better way to avoid

Startup Arabia

2010-04-29T19:48:00.000+01:00

Startup Arabia captures the latest in IT startups of the Middle East. It's an interesting blog for people living in the region; I always thought that entrepreneurship of the UAE nationals and those from the greater Middle East was limited to construction and oil industry; this blog told me otherwise. The website started in March 2008 and I guess it is gaining good momentum. There is a country

Why Google Indexed My Blogger Archive?

2010-04-28T02:12:00.000+01:00

Since the archive pages of your blog repeat the content of your posts by default, there is a controversy about "duplicate content penalty" towards search engine ranking being discussed at every Blogger discussion forum. Some people do not agree to such kind of penalty, and say that it's a myth. Whether it's a myth or truth, you might want to disallow the search engine to index your archive pages

Rent a Coder from Pakistan

2010-04-24T13:06:00.003+01:00

Amongst all the freelance programming projects' sites, Rent a Coder deserves a special mention. It has won more industry acclaim than any other outsourcing site. As of 24th April 2010, there are around 137,000 buyers and 286,000 workers registered on this website. With around 16 working staff, it seems that the owner, Ian Ippolito, himself manages most of the work. I also have good feelings for

Getting Your Blog Listed on Technorati

2010-04-19T20:08:00.001+01:00

6WW5RKVMV3ZK The new method of getting a Blogger blog listed on Technorati is to first open an account there, and from your account profile, "claim your blog." They will give you a token via email but to know what to do with the token, you again have to login to your Technorati account whereby you are told that the next step is to make a blog post where you put in the token. Finally, you go back

Book Review: Outliers

2010-04-17T16:31:00.000+01:00

Malcom Gladwell has rightly adapted the tag line of the book as "The Story of Success." I find the book amusing in many ways---there are reflections on my own life which I can relate. The quest started with "Bad Luck or Dumbness (the details span over to Luck vs. Details debate by Salman Kasbati. Some answers I learned in life myself, and some other answers were provided by the book. The nice

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Shortcomings of Blogger

2010-04-17T15:54:00.002+01:00

So, you have a blog on Blogger and you think that the since Blogger/ Blogspot is owned by Google, it will automatically be optimized for Google search ranking? Wrong! Blogger sucks at Search Engine Optimization. There are many workarounds to overcome Bloggers weak SEO handling but why its so complicated is beyond me. For example, their is certain weightage of the tags, specially the

How to test a website on Safari when you have a Windows PC

2010-04-07T19:46:00.003+01:00

If you have done web development, chances are that you have come across a customer who demands the site to work flawlessly on a variety of browsers; this mainly includes IE and Firefox but sometimes Opera and Safari also make it to the list. Browsershots is an interesting website that shows you how your webpage looks on several different browsers across all popular operating systems. However, the

Sending Money via Western Union from Pakistan

2010-03-23T14:41:00.003Z

This is being written with a hope that an astray soul in search of the titled information will find this useful.You may have seen Western Union sign-boards outside branches of various banks in Pakistan. In fact, now Pakistan Post also acts as a Western Union agent. It's only when you have to send money abroad that you come to know that these particular agents (banks and the post offices) only

Backupify!

2010-02-12T16:03:00.001Z

Today, so much of your data resides online---your blog, the photos you uploaded, your emails, etc. Have you ever thought of taking a backup of these?Register for a free account at Backupify before 15th February 2010! The site is extremely well integrated. I'll give it a 5 out of 5 on usability.

Pixsense Shutting Down?

2010-02-08T18:18:00.003Z

There are rumors that Pixsense is shutting down its development center in Pakistan; thus laying off several of its engineers. It's weird that the company's career's page still lists down various vacancies as of today.

Sony FP85

2010-01-21T16:35:00.004Z

I recently bought a Sony FP 85 photo printer from Bahdarabad (Karachi). The printer cost me Rs. 14K without the cartridge. A cartridge with paper to take 40 snaps was bought for an additional Rs. 1,200/-But the more interesting thing is the shopping experience. Firstly the guy there was knowledgeable about the gadget but he didn't have any other model to compare. He compensated that by quickly

Outlook Attachment Sniffer

2010-01-11T06:53:00.004Z

Sometimes you wish working with attachments in Outlook was easier! I specially desist the situation where somebody sends me an email with lots of emails as .msg attachments, each one in turn containing further attachments; I have to open up and save each message separately!I have tried but have never given enough time to automate MS Office but I could tell that somebody else would have faced

A Tale of Two Holy Cities

2009-12-10T19:24:00.009Z

A quick 26 days tour of Makkah and Madina during Hajj 1431 taught me some new things in life. Each foreign visit broadens up your vision of the world, and tells you a few things you never learn from the media and the books.Makkah Mukarma turned out to be very different from the image I had in my mind. To my surprise, it's a hilly area with very warm weather; it felt hot even in November. At the

Book Review: Predictably Irrational

2009-10-11T11:20:00.011+01:00

"Predictably Irrational" is what I classify as an "idea book." It's a good read by all means. The central theme of the book by Dan Ariely is twofold; firstly, human beings are not rational---they don't make the most logical choice---and secondly, the dimensions of this irrationality are predictable. Most of the content of the book surrounds "behavioral economics." Dan basis his claims around

MS Project Tip: Linking Tasks Duration

2009-10-01T11:05:00.004+01:00

One task in a project schedule might have its duration dependent on another task. While dependencies like Finish-to-Finish (FF) or Start-to-Start (SS) allow you to link the finish or start dates, they are not helpful in dynamically changing the "duration" of the task. The need may arise for activities like "review" whose duration is directly related to start and finish dates of "development." MS

MS Project Tip: Task Drivers

2009-10-01T08:13:00.002+01:00

If you are using MS Project 2007, chances are that you are unfamiliar with a nicely added feature to this version of the product. Task Drivers let you find what is causing the task to start and stop at the shown dates; the delays include calendar constraints, resource leveling, etc. See the following screenshot to find the icon for enabling "task drivers" view pane. Very handy!

Multicontent Heist!

2009-09-29T16:39:00.003+01:00

Mujtaba Qadri shared an interesting news item on Facebook; this is regarding a fraud ring in Europe which is uploading credit cards data to a server in Lahore (Pakistan). The "bugged" card readers through which this fraud was being carried out were manufactured in China.What a multi-continent heist!

Pipes!

2009-09-01T06:55:00.005+01:00

Sometimes, even RSS is not enough. Being an avid Google Reader user for some time, I frequently thought of having a way to sift through the blog posts/ news items coming in my reading list.And this is a problem in general, not just limited to RSS: information explosion is eating us out. It takes more time to visit, login, sift through information on a website than to really read/ understand what

Podcasts to Improve Your English Communication Skills

2009-08-24T00:50:00.006+01:00

Moving to the next level of skill in a foreign language is challenging. Even when you have read, written, listened to and spoken a second language for years, it always seems difficult to be at home. At the least, that's how it is for me when it comes to English. Consider the translation of the following sentence from Urdu into English: "Meray paaon daba do."I am totally lost here. It's not

The Value of Logic in Practical Life

2009-08-16T18:53:00.001+01:00

First a quote from The Matrix Reloaded: Architect: The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art - flawless, sublime. A triumph equalled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being. Thus, I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the

PTCL Broadband Blues

2009-08-08T19:52:00.003+01:00

PTCL Broadband has some serious issues. The most common one for me is DNS failure. I believe it's better switch to Open DNS permanently. The settings are208.67.222.222208.67.220.220So, if you are a PTCL Broadband user, and your IP based access to systems is working fine but your web browsing is not working, logon to the admin panel of the router and change the DNS settings to the one shown above.

Personal Information Management

2009-07-22T12:47:00.003+01:00

Computers are meant to store, process and organize information. Yet, many people don't use computers to store day-to-day information. In fact, organizing day to day information is a pain area in the modern life---thanks to information overload we are suffering from. Yet, deep down, software developers believe that there is efficient, easy to use way of storing things-to-do, appointments, contact

Why FAST?

2009-07-04T22:10:00.007+01:00

A batch-mate sent a message on MSN messenger a few days back. It's always nice to hear from old fellows, specially after 9 years :) Below is a snap of the chat; with due respect to FAST and its administration.Note 1: It's not that I have something personal against FAST rather I am one of the proud alumni. I hold the institute dear to me to the extent that some of the most respected people for me

The Emperor's New Clothes

2009-07-03T07:05:00.001+01:00

A stupid story read in the childhood seems so relevant and to the point in the mid-ages! I am sure you have read The Emperor's New Clothes in one form or another.Time and again, I have seen people praising something just because some other people were praising the same thing! In fact, people seem stupid (or backward or conservative) if they don't appreciate the "new clothes" which either do not

Outlook: Forgot to attach the document?

2009-06-08T07:50:00.004+01:00

Sometime back, I discussed how you can get notified while sending emails without a subject in Outlook. Below is an improvement which checks for missing attachments when there is a keyword "attach" found in the body of the message before a "From: " string is found.1Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)2 If (Not Item.Class = olMail) Then Exit Sub3 4 Dim

PHP: strpos() and the game of Booleans

2009-05-31T15:17:00.009+01:00

Once you know a certain programming paradigm, learning different languages within that paradigm is a piece of cake, except for the idiosyncrasies of these languages. I wonder if there is any language without these!So, while writing a game of hangman in PHP, I needed to use strpos() and was happy that the syntax matched C++.int strpos (string $haystack, string $needle [, int $offset = 0])However,

Mobilink EDGE Settings for BlackBerry

2009-05-28T13:29:00.002+01:00

While playing with my Blackberry Curve 8310 a few weeks back, I somehow deleted some configuration which caused all programs using GPRS/ EDGE Connectivity to stop working. The blackberry effectively got limited to being an email client. The surprising thing is that the web browser kept on working but remain limited to a few sites (mainly Google). If I tried to surf to some other site, I usually

WolframAlpha Launched

2009-05-17T07:11:00.002+01:00

Though the much awaited knowledge computational engine has been launched, it's experienceing performance issues. Google Operating System has done a nice review of Wolfram Alpha here. A must read!

Yubnub: Command Line for the World Wide Web

2009-05-13T13:18:00.001+01:00

If you are a fan of SlickRun, I have a goodie to share with you today. And in case, you don't know what SlickRun is, you are wasting lots of your time in finding programs to execute, opening documents, and doing redundant things on your Windows PC.The goodie is Yubnub. Possible uses are only limited to the number of websites over the web. I, for one, frequently use xe.com to convert money from

Going to Sweden for Studies?

2009-05-11T07:21:00.001+01:00

If you are a Pakistani, going for higher studies to Sweden below are some indispensable links from Pak Sir Zameen:Swedish Visa ApplicationMailing list of Pakistani's in SwedenLife in Sweden as a Pakistani Student in GeneralOdd JobsTravel to SwedenThings to Bring to SwedenRanking of Swedish UniversitiesCourtesy: Saad Rahman, owner PakSirZameen.net

Reverse PIN on ATM's

2009-05-07T17:49:00.000+01:00

Recently there has been surge on cash snatching on ATMs at gun point. Various videos have been circulating around in Karachi---most of the time the event happens when the ATM is placed inside an enclosure.Concerned people have also started forwarding emails which say that you can save yourself in such a situation by entering your ATM PIN in reverse order; further claiming that doing so will alert

Five Dollar Words for Programmers

2009-05-05T17:40:00.003+01:00

Eric Lippert posted a few entries titled "Five-Dollar Words for Programmers." So far, he has covered the following:IdempotenceOrthogonalHomoiconicBoustrophedonicReificationJust in case you are wondering why should one know these words, I would like to reiterate that to know is to be able to "identify" and "associate". A word has everything in it!

Making Some Hard Drive Space

2009-05-04T11:08:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately, MSIZAP can safely be used only to clean up "orphaned installations." All other uses of MSIZAP can be catastrophic, unless you know what you are doing. So, one of the easy ways to save another 450 MB (approximately) of diskspace in your Windows folder is to remove Windows XP SP2 uninstall files. Most people don't need to uninstall service packs; if you installed SP2 or SP3 on top of

On Change: Part II

2009-05-03T09:28:00.001+01:00

If a change begets a new set of problems, am I suggesting that one should always remain tied with the daily tedium? No, not at all. It's just that one should set the right expectations with "a change." With every change, some unknown reveals itself, imparting you more knowledge. If your expectation with a need for change is to gain more knowledge/ skill accompanied with the readiness for new

I Don't Trust Shell

2009-05-01T16:12:00.003+01:00

In fact, I dread Shell. I would never goto a Shell station, had it not been due to the Shell fuel card lock-in, thanks to my employer. I have had countless fraudulent attempts on me by Shell Pump at Askari 4 (Rashid Minhas Road), and other Shell pumps haven't been better either. A typical fuel filling session goes as follows: The pump attendant first ensures that your car is parked such that you

On Change: Part I

2009-04-25T08:18:00.007+01:00

TPS or Avanza? Phoenix or Nimbus? We are always making choices, and sometimes we make a choice which negates some of our choices in the past, just for the sake of change. Switching companies is one such example.So many people want change in life; so much so that nobody seems to be happy/ contended with what they have or what they do. While this might sound selfish but I believe change in itself

Getting Unread Gmail Messages

2009-04-15T18:29:00.002+01:00

The trick is simple: just search for "is:unread" in your Gmail account and you'll get all the unread messages.An alternate is to search for "label:unread" which means that "unread" is a special system label which is not visible to you but exists nevertheless.

Job Titles in Software Development

2009-04-12T07:28:00.008+01:00

What's beyond Software Engineer/ Developer and Senior Software Engineer/ Developer in your organization?While searching for appropriate designations in a software development organization---not your typical outsourcing man-hour based company---I was wondering what could possibly be a "good title" for a person who looks after development of multiple products. While one can always come up with

Foreign Universities in Pakistan

2009-04-12T06:27:00.006+01:00

One of the good acts put together by Musharraf government is the initiation of the collaboration between some Pakistani and foreign universities. Several universities were planned to be established as a result of this collaboration; land was acquired for one such university in Sialkot. The plan was for Royal Institute of Stockholm (KTH, Sweden) to provide curriculum while most of the faculty

What's in a name?

2009-03-29T16:50:00.007+01:00

Everything. Its narrated in Quran (Sura Al-Baqara, 30-34) that Hazrat Adam (AS) was taught the "names of all things" and when the angels enquired why humans were selected as caliphs on Earth, Allah asked the angels to narrate the names, in which they failed. Then Allah instructed Hazrat Adam (AS) to tell the names, which he did. I was always intrigued by the phrase "names of all things." Below is

We continue to make World Records

2009-03-08T12:05:00.005Z

Despite all odds, we continue to exceed everyone's expectations in this dry and troubled country. Ali Moeen, a student of Roots (Rawalpindi) has made his name to Guinness Book of World Records by securing 22 A's in his GCE exam.I heard in the news that after being interviewed several times abroad, our government woke up out of its coma and awarded him some Presidential Medal. Who needs

MSIZAP and the Case of Ever Shrinking Hard Disk Space

2009-01-19T08:28:00.003Z

I keep installing patches and removing programs on my Windows XP machine from time to time. I recently noticed that my hard disk kept shrinking after installing (and using) Google Chrome.So, I fired up WinDirStat (a nice tool which gives you summary of folders and the disk space they are taking) and found out that Google Chrome caching was using 406 MB on my machine (folder: C:\Documents and

Israel and Gaza

2009-01-17T08:23:00.000Z

"The Big Pitcure" at boston.com tells you a graphic summary of the recent news.

Boycott Intel?

2009-01-07T08:37:00.008Z

Somebody posted against Intel supporting Israel. The email's context was current Israel-Palestine fiasco, giving a link to Boycott Intel. A quick search revealed an interesting news item from July 2008, with very though provoking comments. The web is full of how Israel saved Intel and how Intel's investment is causing boom in Israel.

Ultimate Boot CD and the Case of Missing NTLDR

2009-01-04T07:32:00.004Z

Trying to find a purpose to live beyond the ordinary, I have resolved to help my relatives with PC problems. Now this is a very boring job when you know that "just formatting the hard disk" or "buying more expensive equipment" will solve the problem; I try not to suggest such extreme measures as this just eases your job and sheds cloak of gloom over the face of the person facing the problem.By

$50 billion scam!

2008-12-15T07:24:00.003Z

It seems that Double Shah's don't exist only in Pakistan. Our world is very prone to risks: see this $50 billion scam!