30 January, 2006

Ras el 3abed... on the double!

Yup, it's here... as asked and tagged by Firas Long time ago when he posted about ras el 3abed that was made in zarqa, and me telling him that i found some made in marka... here I am with a post about it after the Marka-made ras el 3abed was out of stock around the kingdom!!!!!
Actually I'm featuring to marshmallow (RAS EL 3ABED) products here, the old well-known one made in Marka (ORIGINAL) and a modern one in a modern pack made in Jerash.

Tarrannanaanaaaaaaaaaaa!


In this picture 2 pieces of each brand are shot, obviously, CREMBO is the legacy Ras El-3abed that we have all grown with, in its traditional white plastic pack and the head of black guy on the foil paper cover. Crembo is manifactured by "AL We2am for Food Investments", and it's too “Jordanianly traditional” that it has the most famous jordanian mistake on it ;) yup the company's Numbers have a wrong prefix ;) what's even more “Jordanian” than this! it's 101% Jordanian ;)
The Nrs are printed "in arabic" as followed:
00962_2_79_5109168
00962_2_77 780716

this is it as is with the underscore and space even ;)
I dunno where did the "2" come from, and further more, i dunno where did a Nr "most probably a 7" disappear from the mobilecom Nr ;)
hehe!

The Jerashi is neater, tastier (this one really have an original flavor and taste), and with an acceptable level of Enjoyment Quality ;)
it's packed in a modern transparent pack that includes to pieces instead of 1 at the same original price of “1 SHELEN” (0.05 JD = 0.075 $ for those visiting my website from outside jordan). It has an alien name “OZO” and it's made by Biltaji Food Factory – Jerash.
Since I've displayed the Nrs of the 1st one, i'm displaying this factory's Nrs as well, but this is displayed for those interested in mass orders ;) hehe!
The Factory's Number is: 02-6340088 (this product is not for export, so they didnt right an international prefix ;))

24 January, 2006

The British way of Play's "Oh, it's a nice butt!"

Last night, while studying and surfing my PC (I have too many un organized stuff on My PC since I was extensively using my PC in the past 4 months or so for Work and nothing but work, so the only Organized thing was my Work on focus,,, too many files are missing or in different new locations since then, and being My Finals Period, I'm having the chance to bring back everything on the right track in this PC,,, aren't finals just the best opportunity to do anything but study ;) el mohem, malna o tolet el solafeh!)

anyway, Now my Radio was on Play 99.6 when their freshest British DJ "DANY" had the "Century Cinemas Guide": listing the movies now showing he pronounced the Arabic movie "LAYLAT SUQOUT BAGHDAD" like that: (LAYLA SUQ AT BEG DAD)!!!!! ((I wouldnt have known what he said if i didnt know that Century are having this Movie ON actually!)) Now I guess This is more Embarrassing than a Poor guy being happy while winning and getting surprised for having "Oh, It's a nice butt"!!!!

Now both incidents related to a Jordanian Radio Station (That is Play), both were recorded (none were broadcasted life, since this cinema guide is a recorded promo played on each and every hour), why is it that Hasan Ahmad's "ice BOD" is concedered an embarrassment, and is dealed in such away, while Dany's "LAYLA in the SUQ" is let on the air, no body making fun of it , and no body caring about the mistake, despite the fact that Dany is in a profession, while Hasan was just an excited listener, or rather winner.
why is it that Hasan Ahmad needs to repeat what he is saying 10s of times in order for his skit to be appropriate to be aired, while Dany might have repeated it a couple of time but, well, who gives a damn, it will get it on the air anyway.......

Now whose situation is more embarrassing for a Local radio station, a Local excited winner, that was asked to make a certain "ACT OF WINNING" in order for the Promo to be "Attractive", making his "Way of desired acting" combined with his Limited English Language skills Funny for Dj Lee and later to the people that got their hand to the full recording (JUST LIKE ME AND YOU DEAR READER).... or a DJ OF PROFESSION working in a JORDANIAN radio Station, broadcasting FROM JORDAN, FOR JORDANIANS INSIDE JORDAN, that couldn't really make up a couple of minutes of effort to practice and read that arabic phrase before recording the promo he will air it in ?!!!!!??

That was Just a Question!

and by the way, couldnt Lee just give the price for Hasan Ahmad where he would say Just: "Oh, It's Nice, Thank You!" and Lee to complete it with : "And remember you can still when more iPODs if you have you car sticker on" ?!!!! It would have been simpler since it's not Hasan Ahmed's fault neither for not really being a good english speaker, nor for him being a winner!
AM I RIGHT OR WHAT PEOPLE OF JORDAN!

Beat FM's stolen news on their website




The Picture above shows a piece of news on Beat FM's website about Microsoft's XboX, zooming in a lil bit, the picture attached to the post was found to be "stolen"! explicitly stolen even as the source have printed it's website on the pic (FIND IT HIGHLIGHTED IN RED).... I mean, couldn't they just get a legal picture from Microsoft's website! was it really necessary to get the picture right from where they got the article !

Even this is called piracy......

In about a week time from now i shall be talking about Intellectual Property in general in Jordan, and particularly about violating it with all sorts and methods of Piracy, getting deep inside exposed day by day violations that are not given any interest...Helping in this is the fact that i've worked with an International Intellectual property company based in Jordan lately, and got interested more in those stuff. So stay tuned for it!

22 January, 2006

FASTLINK, Enough is ENOUGH!

Fastlink... Enough is Enough!

Abandoning My Fastlink line for about 5 months now, and switching to Jordan's latest GSM provider: Umniah, as it went ON. Seems that fastlink have remembered me after all this time and sent me an SMS coupla days ago mentioning that charging 5 JDs, i'll be receiving a free amount of 5 JDs. Cool! I said, i'll be using them for my multiple daily phone calls with my mum in romania til she'll be back a week from now (Despite the fact that Umniah's Fees are less and are taxed by second even internationally) . And probably calling some Fastlink subscribers though calling them from Umniah is mainly cheaper!

Friday Morning: Charging 5 JDs , 5 JD free credit received within 35 minutes.
Credit available : “10.005 JD Expires on 20/01/2007”
Friday Morning 11:30 AM: calling Mum in Romania, Duration of call = 3:46 Minutes (A.K.A 4 minutes in fastlink's system of taxation).
Checking the credit on *116# : “7.005 JD Expires on 20/01/2007” .....!!! WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since when is does the minute to Europe cost 0.75 JD, where's their claimed price of (JT Tariff + 0.16) ?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this was actually way time ago even! They've been promoting that they are getting independent of JT in the international phone calls to Europe and the US, and the fees are getting “the Least Expected!”
0.75JD / Minute!

Now after a moment of frustration, calling the customer service (1234) at 11:38 AM, this scenario happened:
1234 : Welcome to the Customer Service Center.
1: Choosing Arabic
3: Choosing Tariffs and Packages.
2: Choosing International Call Fees.
... Sorry, The Data requested is not available at the moment!!!! You will be forwarded to a Customer Service Personnel, Please Wait ....
CALL ENDED!

What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hell Ya!

Calling again : 11:41 AM
1234 : Welcome to the Customer Service Center.
1: Choosing Arabic
6: For Further Help -> You will be forwarded to a Customer Service Personnel -> Your call will be used for Quality Insurance purposes (Cool!) -> You will be forwarded to a Customer Service Personnel (Fhemna!) -> Please Wait ... -> Sorry, Your Request can't be performed at the moment!

CALL ENDED!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
Now I'm writing those lines right after those couple of calls to 1234, Hell ya Fastlink! I guess i've abandoned it right when it was suitable to!
I'm a Fastlink Customer since 2001, and My Father is since 1998 & It has never been worst!
2 Million Customers?! I just wonder how many of those are satisfied with it!

The Real problem now is that I'm (MFALLES) and put all the money I had in those 6 JDs for the Fastlink Card just to get the free credit! And I'm feeling guilty cause seems that you can make more with a JD on Umniah than 10 on a Fastlink Mobile.

Now, It's 12:00 PM Midday, I'll be calling 1234 again and write exactly what happens to me:
1: Choosing Arabic
6: For Further Help -> You will be forwarded to a Customer Service Personnel -> Your call will be used for Quality Insurance purposes (Cool!) -> You will be forwarded to a Customer Service Personnel (Fhemna!) -> Please Wait ... -> Sorry, Your Request can't be performed at the moment!

CALL ENDED!

BA3DEN!!!!!!!!!!!

Similar tries with similar results occurred at 12:10, 12:30, 12:35, 12:50, 13:05, 13:25 (NO CONNECTION CAN BE MADE TO 1234 EVEN!), 13:32, 13:40, 13:50, 14:00, 14:25, 15:30,

Now at 16:00: I made another phone call to Europe, this time to Germany, Call duration 1:27 minutes, (A.K.A 2 minutes on Fastlink's system)
Check Credit : 6.025 JD!
Which means that now they have charged me 0.49 JD / minute to Europe instead of 0.75 (since they consider Europe and the states as one Tariff region), but still, way much more than JT tariff + 0.16 JD!!!!

Back to the useless tries of calling the customer care center with the same results mentioned above occurred at: 17:10, 17:48, 18:06 (5 times, no connection could be established to 1234), 18:07, 18:11, 18:26, 18:49, 19:20, 20:21 (8 times, no connection could be established to 1234 in 7 out of them), 20:45, 21:10, 21:26, 22:05 ....
You know, I got sick of it, It's 22:08 Friday night and i'm still updating this document.............! anyway, seems my mission will be shifted to tomorrow, because this Customer Care system fastlink has is making me sick.... so my next update will be when someone will answer, just for you to know, until then, loads of failed calls have to be made to the customer care center!

Saturday... of course, I've been calling Fastlink's “Customer Care” Center all day long now,with same results! Some Fastlink Users around also mentioned that they're suffering the same problem for a while now! It's 19.30, and I have just finished a phone call to Romania, Call duration 3.26 Minutes (A.K.A 4 minutes on Fastlink's counter), Checking the credit: It's 3.025 JD now!
Which simply means that calling on a Friday cost me exactly like calling on any other day on Peak time, 0.75 JD, which something that Fastlink doesnt declare! And still , 0.75 JD is not JT+0.16 as they declare!!!!!!

Enough is Enough I think! It's Sunday and those are still not answering and not even opening the lines to the customer care center!

I declare my WAR against FASTLINK, though it's sure my PAST-THINK for now, but I wont forgive them, it's not about money, it's about not being suitable to be a GSM operator in the most growing telecommunications market in the area! I really hope someone from the Ministry of Telecommunication read this soon, I know I got visits to the blog from their several times, but i really hope they will soon and take this issue seriously...

and My Dear PAST-THINK, I wont stop here!
And I'll be updating you dear reader with posts as anything occurs with the issue.

Hell Ya Fastlink!

19 January, 2006

Jordan TourXplorer - The 1st Jordanian GIS software


Yes, and finally some dared for a Multi User-purpose Jordanian GIS System, something that would give the user in Jordan services Google Earth gives it's users in Europe and the US. Something that provides the visitors to Jordan as well as the residents, the information about “Where can you go to Jordan”, from Historical and archaeological sites, Hotels, and entertainment places, to Services, associates, and government offices and ministries. And “How can you Go” to that place,providing the exact location and area in which the place exists, and the entire network of roads and highways all over the country!

People of Jordan, Jordan TourXplorer is HERE!

100% made in Jordan, 100% Jordanian IT students made! (A.K.A. IN HOUSE DEVELOPMENT).

This semester, four students from the faculty of Information Technology - Software Engineering Department at the Hashemite University submitted their Graduation project, Jordan TourXplorer, after 3.5 months of continuous investigation, analysis, design and implementation, making the dream of one of the group members come true.

Muna Jaber, Esam Bdair, Abdallah Malaka, and Khaled Zuhair made the 1st ever Usable GIS system for Jordan, a simple software that integrates multiple layers and platforms of data and generates a User attractive experience about jordan for the user on his PC or PDA.



The Project, an idea of Abdallah Malaka inspired from the very famous Google Earth, was to be , as Abdallah says, an Idea to support the Tourism in Jordan, providing the user with an exact and real geographical description of jordan, the governates, main cities and towns, and natural geographical elements across jordan, and their relation to the Historical and Archaeological sites across Jordan, along with Full Information about the Governate, it's center City, and All the sites in it. On the other side, and since No nation wide GIS or GPS system is available in Jordan, came the urge of providing as many as possible other services integrated in the software, and there it was, the software included each and every area in the governates across Jordan, and Areas and sectors in the Capital, along with all the roads and highways across Jordan inside and outside Cities, All the Hotels, Associates, ATMs, Entertainment Places, Airline Offices, Car rental Offices, Banks, Restaurants, Government Offices, and much more sorts of services the user being a visitor or a resident might be interested in.

Amazing isn't it?!

Now Comes the real work...
Data Needed,
GIS Platform Needed,

As far as finding a suitable GIS system, many have been found. Different GIS frameworks and Software packages where found, all implementing similar techniques of Having the Model stored in databases and rendered as layers on graphical maps or yet other layers. Decision was made to use Geomedia, since it supports multiple platforms of models and data, it's components can be integrated and controlled from within Micorsoft.NET framework, that is, the development technology adopted by the group, and the most important reason: Having collected the data in a wide range of models, formats and platforms, that is, the other half of the problems they faced along the duration of the project!

Other reasons were that, Google Earth it self uses components from Geomedia's GIS system, and the fact that Geomedia have good support in Jordan, provided by GCE-Soft, who supported them with a Free Copy of the software, APIs, methodologies, and even some sort of data ;)

Next comes the Jordanian Mission Impossible, DATA GATHERING!
Unfortunately, The National Information Center, The Royal Geographical Center, The Ministries of Tourism, Public Work, Local Administration, and others, none provided the needed or the aimed help or data for the group, this stage took them just over 5 consecutive weeks, and they didn't really get what they wanted from these Governmental divisions.

As Esam and Abdallah say: “All of them thought we are just kids missing around! despite we had official papers from the university asking support from those Places. All of them were making fun of us and we are doing; that urged the challenge spirit deep inside of us to go as far as possible with the project.” “I really hope they'll get convinced now by our abilities” Muna says, “and even get interested in the project it self”. Ahh! Not to forget the bureaucracy of getting a paper from the university nowadays since the current President doesn't want any official paper to be issue by the name of university without his signature on it!

Now in order to make your self feel like if you are really in Jordan, the data format gathered from each and every place was completely different from the others! Microsoft Access, FoxPro, mico-station, shapefile, and other formats of data were gathered, even AutoCad files including data models where gathered (Now you tell me what's e-Gov with all of these file formats around!). Having choose Geomedia as a GIS platform helped them, but still, processing and choosing the suitable needed data took time even using Geomedia. Geomedia's role as Esam says was mainly registering the image for the coordinates and data models to be layered on it.

Getting into the software, as available in the screenshots provided by the damn good fellow programmer and friend, Esam ;) Moving throughout the map and zooming can be done using the mouse, zooming into the picture will show the borders of governates, and deeper the borders of Administrative Region and municipalities, as well as the roads and highways network. Tool-tips are available everywhere on all the levels of zooming mentioning the pointed-to location.


Search Tab on the right part enables you to choose a governate and an Administrative Region in it, and will lead the user to that region and highlight it.

More service was provided in greater amman area, providing indications for spots, services and locations across the capital. The Group was lucky to get a TIFF Satellite Image for SHMEISANI through GCE-soft (No It's not from Google Earth). Thus, As much Information as possible was gathered for shmeisani, integrated, and turning it to a so-called “Full Service Coverage” area in the project. Shmeisani was simply the proof of how much could the group provide with their software, all using data available around the governmental offices and ministries, but not organized nor structured in a way that may provide useful integrated information for people. Is it a lack of care regarding having centralized integrable data for the Jordanian Government along the time, or a Lack of communication and group work between parts and divisions of a single government across those years, or simply both!

As seen in this General Shmeisani preview, you can mention the facts that sectors and area's in the capital are separated by main streets.



A Special Tab for Shmeisani was provided, with a search for a type of services needed, choosing a service will provide all the places/service providers in the area and lead you to the choosed one.
In this Screen shot, ABC Bank was have been chosen, the map was centered at the search location and the location was highlighted with a big Blue Dot.
Yes, This shot shows the Culture Street in Shmeisani, along with all the services in the area represented in colored dots, each color representing a type of service or location, rolling over a dot will show the name of location, for example, rolling over that dark green dot representing companies, a tool-tip mentioning it's “FASTLINK” appeared.
Interesting!

Now will anybody in the jordanian Government care about such a software many people had a resolution about in the media, and even here in JordanPlanet.net ?! (Of Course, we have all sorts of everything in Jordan Planet :)

and Just to mention, the Software is 100% modular and Object oriented, making it more than easy to add any area of service along with it's satellite image and services to the software. I told you Esam is damn good ;)

and hey, not to forget Khaled's (A.K.A Kreative's) PDA software (sorry for not having any screen shots at the moment. Making such a software available anywhere for business men that don't really have time (or care) to know each and everyplace in the capital but care to find it, and as soon as possible, along with information about the places, such as Contact Numbers and Website. The PDA application is more like a directory about the places and services within a new approach and experience, that is since extensive zooming is cannot be applied on the PDA's because of space and Hardware performance limitations.

Finally comes my greetings for the group. Muna, Abdallah and Khaled are graduating now, while Esam is graduating with me in June... I'm really proud of them, they where just another proof for the nation that the 2002 IT group simply roxx!
Probably they had loads of mistakes in their english language used in the documentation (which wasnt really as it should have been for such a project) along with some expression and spelling mistakes in the labels and buttons inside the software it self, I mean , U could have asked for help guys ;P though secracy is a must in such projects..
Think Big Guys!

And people of Jordan, there you have it, Jordan TourXplorer,your future virtual guide across Jordan ;)

10 January, 2006

Will Fedora Core 6 be in STEREO!

Just fresh out of the oven:
Fedora Core 5 is to include Mono (what's Mono? Click Here)


Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 10,
@08:29AMfrom the fedora-core-six-will-be-in-stereo dept.

cyberjessy writes "Surprise! The Fedora Core 5 Release will include Mono in the distribution, in spite of Red Hat's opposition. In addition to the Mono runtime, it will also include Mono applications like Beagle and F-Spot. Is the Linux community finally ready to accept Mono? Mono is becoming increasing important due to Windows Vista, which has WinFX (the next .Net Framework) as its core API. This will mean that in future, all native Windows applications will easily run on Linux, with Mono. Will Mono achieve what WINE could not?"

Last August's Linux Event @ HU featured on IEEE News

Remember the Linux Event I've been annoying all of you about last August! Well, It has been featured in December's IEEE Region 8 News ;)

Thanx for Moh'd Khawaja for scanning it for me ;) we might have give kinda small space for what i've sent, but it's better than nothing!! esp that I've sent it after the deadline Date ;P

By the way, I'm the one in the 2nd picture :P .. Ammar, Sorry, I've sent them 2 picture of you but the didnt seem to like you that much ;P hehe ,, just kidding....

this was a Nice 3edeeh for me actually, esp on the not that eid im having !
Happy Eid anyone, and by the way, in case you need to make any successful event just buzz me ;)

PS: That's If you find me free aslan :)

07 January, 2006

Graduation Projects at HUIT (Draft 2)

Are we a geeky group or what!!
for real!
2002 group roxx baby (ok ok, 2001 guys where performant as well).

Here's the 2nd Graduation Projects Draft for next Semester (my Graduation Semester) in the Faculty of IT - The Hashemite University:
(Again this is still the 1st draft, til next Feb changes may occur)

- Bus Scheduling and Control for the City of Amman: RESERVED
=== Oh Baby, that's a lot of work to do!

- Mini Operating System:
=== The problem is the Dr supervising this project, he knows nothing in Operating Systems, I think he doesnt know 1 single command on UNIX, no wonder if he'll make the students develop it using Microsoft.NET!

- Case Tool: UML Editor:
=== Too many things to do, to lil time to do what you may think of!

- Sign Language Recognition
=== Oh Dear ME!

- Reverse Engineering Tool:
=== Too many things to do, to lil time to do what you may think of!


- Automatic Web Builder
=== Too many things to do, to lil time to do what you may think of!

- Communication Company Support System: RESERVED
=== is it just another usual Database system?! I really hope not!

- Syntax Analyzer for Arabic Language: RESERVED
=== This project is on the list for 3 years now, finally it's has been reserved


- Car Service Center: RESERVED
=== This an ERP-like system, but , do the group of students doing it know what is ERP ?!

- Web-based interactive english language learning for disabled people
=== Why not!

- Pattern Based Stemmer for Tertiary Arabic Roots
=== Weired Idea with loads of work to do!


- Query Expansion to enhance IS retrieval
=== Any body looking forward to work at Sybase or oracle!?


- e-Business System
=== General definition for something that might be very complex!

- Airport Reservation System: RESERVED
=== Is it a reservation for passengers!? it reads like its for planes!

- 3D Game
=== GTA Zarqa!

- Arabic Text Compression:
=== Viva la Huffman!

- Implementing a Messenger:
=== !!!!!!!! I did it in 4 hours with RSA encryption!

- Bi-language web based dictionary (Arabic - English - Arabic)
=== Data Entry blonds needed!
[UPDATED]....

- Java E-Learning Tool: RESERVED
=== I wanted to do such a thing by my own one day!

- WAP e-Service Portal: RESERVED
=== switching to M-Commerce

-Poiny Of Sale (POS) System: RESERVED
=== kinda usual

- Website for a modeling agency: RESERVED
=== WHAT THE HELL!!!!! I guess the girl misguided the faculty.

- Website for the faculty of IT:
=== Bla Bla Bla!!

- Student Data Minor:
=== The art of arts!

- Web - Based Jordan Road navigation system:
=== Oh baby.

- Computer System for a Daycare courses:
=== HCI Power !!!

05 January, 2006

The Graduators

Moments before some windows would CRASH!


this was taken a couple of days ago actually...! & It's Still running!

according to a JOLUG fellow....

Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 01:58:30 +0200
From: Ahmad Abu Gharbieh <agharbieh@gmail.com>
Subject: [JoLUG-General] Will Windows work continuously for more than 49.7 days?
To: Jordan Linux User Group Mailing list <General@jolug.org>


hey guys i got this forward 2day.. is this true??

Original message:

Will Windows work continuously for more than 49.7 days?

Here is a bit of information, which may surprise you all. Windows crashes automatically if you don't switch off the machine for 49.7 Days. Microsoft accepts this. Do you know why? If not read this.

In Windows the Virtual Machine Manager (here after referred as VMM) is responsible for creation, execution, monitoring and termination of virtual machines. This VMM, which is a 32 bit, protected mode operating system entity, provides a number of system services at chip level. One of these services is "Get_System_Time". This particular service loads the EAX register with the time in
milliseconds since Windows started on that machine. This service is accurate to 1 ms. EAX is a 32 bit register in Intel 386 Processor onwards.

So the maximum number of milliseconds it can hold is
(232)-1 = 4294967295 milliseconds = 4294967.295 seconds = 71582.79 minutes = 1193 hours = 49.7 days

So after 49.7 days the EAX resets to zero. Most of the Drivers use this Time Service to keep track of the Timeout of various services they provide. So after 49.7 days the drivers cannot use the get_System_Time function of VMM and they crash taking the OS along with


01 January, 2006

On Campus #1 (Last Xmas)

As a Part of my plans during 2006 and My Last Semester on Campus. I decided to describe those 4 years On My Blog using Pictures!

I'll be posting pictures from my PC based Photo Album. The photos will be choosen to make a General View of seens and sights I have witnessed during my 4 Years at HU.

Mainly Some changes in my blog will occur as ill have time for it. some major changes might occur on my Radio Guide Page later this year so watch out!

Anyway, Starting off with this photo I took Last Xmas on the 24th of Dec.... I dunno the individual, just took a snap :P