Warm in London

Really warm day in London this Saturday. I would guess not less that 24 to 25, really lovely.
Staying at Marriott London Maida Vale which is a good Hotel. The neighbourhood is OK, first time for me at Maida Value street, but i found out that it is an extension to Edgware Road at the North Side. However, it is very close to St Johns Wood area NW of London.
The only problem is that i am developing a nasty cough and cold, and i m feeling week. wanted to behave a little like a tourist so Visited London Zoo, North of Regent Park, it was a real disappointment. Spent the rest of the time at Regent Park and camden market where people are mostly goth, punk and emo.

Yesterday, the weather was also nice, spent sometime at Hyde Park.
As for food, yesterday we dined at Busaba Eathai, that one i was wondering about before, it is good food, but i felt it was better two years back, or maybe i was not that hungry. It is located in Soho not far from Piccadilly circus.

No plans for tomorrow yet

Mom strikes again -- round 2

In between flights, i dropped by my parents house to say hi and bye.
Mom told me that microsoft has released an OS called Vista. She talked about VOIP and she also told me that some words we use in the internet has become official english words like Googling , stemming from the verb TO GOOGLE.

I checked for that in here is what i have found

The verb Google was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) on June 15, 2006, and to the 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary in July 2006.The OED notes the question, "Has anyone Googled?" in the Usenet Newsgroup alt.fan.british-accent on October 10, 1999 as the first recorded usage of the word.

By the way, creating new words (like googling) to reflect new inventions , phenomena etc.. is called NEOLOGISM

according to wikipeadia A neologism (Greek νεολογισμός [neologismos], from νέος [neos] new + λόγος [logos] word, speech, discourse + suffix -ισμός [-ismos] -ism) is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created ("coined") — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. Neologisms are especially useful in identifying inventions, new phenomena, or old ideas which have taken on a new cultural context. The term "e-mail", as used today, is an example of a neologism.
Neologisms are by definition "new", and as such are often directly attributable to a specific individual, publication, period or event. The term "neologism" was itself coined around 1800; so for some time in the early 19th Century, the word "neologism" was itself a neologism.
Neologisms can also refer to an existing word or phrase which has been assigned a new meaning.

Finally, i have found out that mom does not have the book 'the world is flat', rather she is a member in a book discussion group who are currently discussing this book

Bahrain

I cannot believe this this is my fourth night in Bahrain! I just feel like having arrvied yesterday.
I am staying at the Sheraton. It is really good, but expensive. For example, the daily rate for an internet connection is 30 USD.
Anyway, it has been hectic and and will continue to be until my departure time at 12 tomorrow. I still have to meet two different parties before i leave. It will not be long before i am back again. Most probably on the 5th of May.

Anything worth attending

I am trying to find if there is anything worth watching this week end in London.

checked the Royal Opera House, but nothing appealing there.

As for the West End, no i am not going to watch Mama Mia one more time. I can understand why Phantom of the Opera has been playing for so long, but Mama Mia musical does not stand any chance. If not, I guess an expedition to search for that one nice restaurant should start. It serves Asian food, but cannot remember the name. It is off Oxford street toward the west end and Soho. People Queue up to get seated, and then you end up sharing a table with others. Once i find it, i will definitely cease the moment and write about it, Excellent food.

Ammmmar

Serendipity

I talked about the the book "The World is Flat" in previous posts
http://oraclejo.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-mother-is-asking-strange-question-i.html
Yesterday, we were invited for dinner at my cousin house, when he told me that he wanted to show me a book he is currently reading; It was "THE WORLD IS FLAT". I thought that he showed me the book after reading my blog, but what not the case, it was quite serendipitous.
It is a big book and you should read and evaluate the content carefuly and not take everything in it for granted

Ammar Sajdi

Of Course, how did i miss that!

As a reply for my previous post(http://oraclejo.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-mother-is-asking-strange-question-i.html) in which i wondered where the feather came in the Apache group logo

Apache, of course, the name of Native American tribes (Indians).
This is where the feather comes from!!!

Ammar Sajdi

My mother is asking strange question - i freaked out

My mother, Amal Jardaneh Sajdi, 68 years, Arabic Literature Graduate from The American University of Beirut asked me questions that made me feel that she must have a new 21 century new hang out group.

Ammar, she asked, Is it true that there is a company that is not happy with Microsoft monopoly and is called Linux? and what is this company??!!

I tried to explain that Linux is not a company and tried to explain that it is an important part of an open source endeavor etc ...

After a moment of silence...

Ammar, What is Apache?
I was really stunned; this is not Al-mutanbi nor Ibn Zaidoon stuff! Where is Mom getting this vocabulary from? must be a new hang out!! not my auntie(s) akeed! nor the rest of the Shemisani Gang! Wow, questions are getting harder to explain!!
Apache, the Server with the feather (have no idea where the feather come from )
Well, ok, a public-domain open source Web Server developed by a loosely-knit group of programmers. The first version of Apache, based on , National Center for Supercomputing Application (NCSA) at the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign (UIUC) (http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/) httpd Web Server, was developed in 1995. Core development of the Apache Web server is performed by a group of about 20 volunteer programmers, called the Apache Group. However, because the source code is freely available, anyone can adapt the server for specific needs, and there is a large public library of Apache add-ons. In many respects, development of Apache is similar to development of the Linux operating system.

I was not sure that she liked the answer... Then from her facial expression, there seemed to be more question coming.. Finally, Is it true that Y2K computer problems were largely fixed by Indians??? This one beats me. Mostly likely yes, but i have no information about this issue.

Then, finally, my Mom made the confession, she is reading a book called "The World is Flat" By Thomas Friedman. The book turned out to be a best seller talking about Globalization.

Bow of respect, Mom has always been an intellect, ruling supreme the tip of the intellectual iceberg of Ammanians. She is a source of inspiration for me. I must buy the book before i fall behind the 21 century.

Ammar Sajdi

Spring

This post is supposed to be full of pictures, but as usual, there is something i should forget, otherwise, it is not me anymore!! I forgot to bring my Olympus 6 MPixel digital camera.
I went with my friend Maen Suhiamat on a late afternoon drive to explore the country side on the northern suburbs of Amman. Both of us did not have lunch so we picked up a lousy fast food meal and started the drive. We reached the area of interest, Some 15 Km North of Amman, on hills approximately rising 1050 M above sea level in an area called Al-kamsh, some 10 Km north of Abu Nsair. We picked a nice peak just to consume the food. It was so cold and very windy, we could not find a suitable place to shield us from the wind, we ended up hiding behind some big rock,, It was not enjoyable when your hands become as cold as ice while trying to eat. We went back to the car and took some off road trails. The sceneries were really fascinating, Old Oak tree, greenery etc..
We drove through villages (3alook, Masarra) then moved south east until we arrived to a village called "Birane", an area that i visited several times on many mostly pleasant occasions. Boy, days has passed, and Birane has changed, it is now more developed, the streets are wider and better than the last time i visited it. I was hoping to do something similar and investigate another area before spring is over, however i do not think I will be in town for the coming 10 days

ammar sajdi

Carnage at Virginia Tech

The US media has been preoccupied with the most horrifying carnage that took place at Virginia Tech. While i would like to extend my deepest sorrow for the American people for their loss due to this act of terror and to the families who are mourning their beloved ones and for the mothers, who are crying their children, I would like to remind Mr. Bush and the American people that IRAQI AND PALESTINIAN MOTHERS LOVE THEIR CHILDREN TOO


Ammar Sajdi

Human clock

Yes, this is a real time clock showing current time digitally. Digits are mad up of human formation. To test it yourself and see your PC time realtime visit
http://billychasen.com/clock/
It is an Ingenious clock, do not pretend that you do not like it, you cannot resist but to like

You've got mail

Starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, was shown on MBC2 tonight, I watched this movie several times before. Never, however, from its begining. Each time I watch it, it is as if I am watching it for the first time. Once upon a time, Meg Ryan was my favorite. Melancholically, the days when she shined have long been gone! Cast Away, was an Incredibly memorable movie for Tom Hank

Ammar

RJ Voodoo

Since I am doing lots of traveling this period, with a rather volatile schedule, it is a fairly messy job to organize the itinerary in an optimum way. I vested the RJ new website; and I liked the fact that it allows you to reserve your seat on the main deck of the aircraft.
Anyway, I used the website to reserve a flight to Bahrain, and the most impressive feature of the site is that it can predict the future. I logged back to the website to give more information about my reservation for my travel agent, but was really pissed off when I did not find any traces of all the reservations I did the previous day. While I was rearranging the reservation again through the agent in the classical manner, I received a call from Bahrain asking me to postpone the trip till next Saturday. thumps us RJ, you simply had the talent to foresee my future. I hope they RJ can tell me if there is any change on my Trip to London late next week. May be I should travel directly from Bahrain. I will just make a reservation to London through the website and track it. I would be a nice feature if the system can also know about postmonements and book me accordingly

Zareef

One of two Iranian restaurants I know of in Amman. It is located within a close proximity of Abdoun round-about. We went yesterday for dinner
The setting is nice, you could ask for seating in the upper floor over looking abdoun round about. It is a casual restaurant. The menu is good and the food is excellent.
We had mixed Iranian grill with different taste of Iranian rice. I had a spinach soup which I liked very much (may be because if you talk about spinach and me, we click)

I recomment the place (so far)

Ammar Sajdi

They have done again

I would like to congratulate my Uncle Aziz and my cousins Izzat and Mutaz Sajdi for winning The King Abdullah II award for Excellence. Consulting Engineering Center (CEC) has won this award before (2003-2004) for Small to Medium Size Firms. Four companies in Jordan has won this prestigious award twice so far. The announcement has been made last week.

Keep up the good work!

Traveling again

It is getting imminant , i am leaving to Bahrain again on Monday, staying for one or two days.
I have got lots of traveling looming
Next week to the UK
The week after, probably again to Bahrain
Then have to be back by May 5th to Amman, as i am conducting an advanced Oracle Security course.
I will finish the course and again to Bahrain.
I know many people like to travel, but anybody doing the kind of traveling i am doing must be getting really sick and tiered. Late night flights, early morning flights, packing, unpacking, getting late to the Airport!! getting used to the pillows at Hotel, remebering the different exchange rates. And the four things i cannot affort to lose while traveling

1) Myself
2) My passport
3) My laptop
4) Business Card holder

As i am really in deep sh.t without any of the above items

Hugh (John Mungo) Grant - Music & Lyrics

In all honesty, I was in for a better show! for Hugh Grant, the actor who was born in London back in 1960 and studied English at Oxford. He became internationally known following his role in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, Best Actor Golden Globe).

The movie revolved around him and Drew Barrymore and as such lacks diversity. The entire movie is about composing a song for some hot chick called Cora. I had to look at my watch several times during the movie as I was getting board, which incidentally, allowed me to find a draw back about my top-pick "advertise-when-possible" Tissot watch; it does not perform well in darkness; Simply stated, I could not read the time. Possibly, nevertheless, it is an aging problem that has to do with me and need not necessarily be attributed to the poor Tissot

In 1995, while dating Elizabeth Hurley, Hugh was arrested in Hollywood for indecent conduct with a prostitute, Divine Brown, in a public place. He offered an apology for this on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

To read the more about this incident , http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/1995/06/28/hughgrant.xml

ammar

Spontaneity

It was Firday 11 AM when the phone rang. It was my sister suggesting that we go to Aqaba to check our "Never-have-seen" apartment at Tala Bay, and return back to Amman on the same day.
When I was younger, I was an easy going, easy to please, and spontaneous guy. As I grew, I became a bit stubborn, hard to please and less spontaneous. Yesterday, I was profoundly impressed by my Spontaneity. At 11:30, me, Jumana, My sister Luma and her husband Zaher where cruising in their 4 wheel drive to Aqaba! To be a bit more honest, what drove towards this venture was not really my urge to see Tala Bay, rather, I was aware of the fact that there was an unstable weather system. The nature of such system is Jordan manifests itself more explicitly in the southern and eastern desert lands of Jordan. It was exactly what I expected. At around 1:30 we were at the highest point on the Desert highway, Ras Al-naqab, rising some 1500 Meters above Sea Level (of course I used my watch to verify that http://oraclejo.blogspot.com/2006/12/my-new-watch.html).And Heaven have mercy, Wadi Rum was not the rocky desert area you would expect to see. It was all hidden behind a huge mass of spectacular cloud formation touching the ground, typical to those formed when a cold air front meets a warm air mass; Lightening was occurring at an intriguing rate of almost once every 30 seconds and pouring rain with a drop size reaching the size of a bean.

Rare phenomenon indeed.

At 2:00, we were approaching Aqaba, the skies were almost clear with rain reminiscent. At 2:30 we reached Aqaba, the weather was fascinating, a cool breeze under sunny skies. We immediately went to Floka (fish restaurant) reserved a table for 4 to be readu at 3:45 and ordered the food, so it would be ready at 3:45. we immediately headed to Tala Bay, lcoated at the southern tip of aqaba (10 Km north of the Saudi Borders). To be honest, Tala Bay looks better than I expected, it is a glamorous place; Good size Marina filled with Yachts, Jest Skies etc ..Laguna in between buildings, walk ways etc.. In 45 minutes we were back at the restaurant, where we found the dishes almost ready. We had a nice see food meal (of course paying a hefty price tag for it). At 4:30, we left the restaurant to the Movenpick and had a delicious banana split as appetizers. At 5 PM, we left to what is called "city center" duty free mall right at the northern tip of Aqaba,. We shopped, I bought a Clarks shoes, and at 6:05 we started our journey back to Amman. Wadi Rum, Ras Al-Naqab was all soaking wet with Water, but was not raining any more. However, someplace far to the east, we could also see lightening breaking the eternal darkness.At around 9:15, we were back home. The only thing we did not do in Aqaba was what appears to have become a ritual for Jordanians who visit Aqaba; namely, Buy Cashew nuts, bottles of Rani Juice and 7 Kg of Bananas (these items sell a bit cheaper in Aqaba).
Ammar Sajdi
Amman - Jordan
April 13, 07

Thank God it is Thursday (TGIT)

I need no reason to be euphoric on Thursdays, how about when there is a reason
Today, I will complete a very rich course to FASTLINK IT members about database centric development techniques covering features up to and including 10g. There are lots and lots of topics that span a wide array of technologies. And just to name a few

• Exposing Oracle stored procedures as Web Services,
• Exchanging Database record in XML format.
• Doing Interprocess communication using PIPES and Queues, Sending and receiving
• packets using TCP sockets from PL/SQL.
• Demystifying Analytical Function used in DW OLAP
• Configuring Heterogeneous Service for distributed access
• Data Encryption
• Row Level Security
• many more
• It took me hours and hours of preparation and testing.
• Many more

Thank God it is Over, now we can hit the movies with a fairly un-pre-occupied-mind

Ammar sajdi

Ammar Sajdi

Bonsai - An ancient Art

Bonsai is the art of cultivating miniature trees. The pine, a tree that grows many meters tall in wild nature, is the most typical plant used for bonsai, but many other tree species can be used.
To achieve miniaturization, the tree is frequently transferred into new pots, and on that occasion its roots are cut a little bit. Bonsai skills include the knowledge of when and how much to cut the roots, how much fertilizer and water is ideal, and which branches should be pruned to give the plant an aesthetic look.

Join the Bonsai Society

http://www.absbonsai.org/

I hate single-quotes

When you use SQL, you must enclose string values with Single-Quotes.

This sounds fair and square.

Things get messy when your strings themselves contain single-quote. A new technique has been introduced by Oracle to circumvent the hurdles. However, before describing that solution, let me describe the problem and its classical solution before showing the enhancement

Example (let me start with the normal straight forward case)
If I am using Oracle SQL and I want to display the following text

The Customer said YES

Then

SQL> SELECT ' The Customer said YES ' AS title from dual;

TITLE
-----------------------
The Customer said YES

Now, if the output should read

The Customer said 'YES' -- The difference her is that YES is surrounded with single-quotes

In this case, you cannot simply expect to just add a single quote around YES and pray that things shall work fine. You will be confusing the hell out of the parser because it cannot tell which quotes are to be displayed or the quotes that end the string

I mean the following SQL is a NO NO situation

SQL>SELECT 'The Customer said 'YES' ' AS title from dual;

*ERROR at line 1:ORA-00923: FROM keyword not found where expected

Traditionally, we could use two consecutive single-quote around YES to tell the parser that this is not the end of the string but rather an actual single quote character that needs to be displayed

1* SELECT ' The Customer said ' 'YES' ' ' AS title from dual;

TITLE
------------------------
The Customer said 'YES'

This will become even messier, if the entire string needs to be surrounded by single quotes

'The Customer said 'YES' '

New Approach, The Q-quote mechanism
In this approach, you can define your Single-Quote character which enables you to specify q or Q followed by a single quote and then another character to be used as the quote delimiter.

i.e. I want to define a character that indicates the beginning of the string and the terminator of the string.
If, for example, you want to utilize # as the single quote mark, then this is what you need to do when you encounter the beginning of the string, write the letter q followed by a single-quote followed by # and when the string is finished you just add # followed by ' as shown below

AMMAR>SELECT q'# The Customer said 'YES' #' as TITLE from dual;

TITLE
-------------------------
The Customer said 'YES'

Ammar Sajdi

Push the button, and feel the power!

Because I am so in loving with last minute packing, I almost always forget something. It could be anything, but I never miss what I forgot on the last trip, cuz my mind is so alert to packing what I missed the last time.
a few days back I flew to Oman for a two day business trip, and while on transit at Bahrain Airport, it flashed to my mind that I did not pack my traditional Gillette razor. While looking for a Gillette razor I found something new "A Gillette M3Power razor"

It is a manual razor with normal blades, but is equipped with a battery. What the hell is a battery for? If I still need to move my hand up and down to shave??
This is the charm of the 21st century,, The tip of the razor (where the blades are) vibrates.
I do not know what value this is adding to the shaving process?? the process is for sure a bit ticklish, noisy and feels weird!! As for the quality for shave, i am not decided.
It is also event driven, there is a push button that can trigger the vibration or stop it!
I don’t get it, Generation of shaving techniques since i started shaving and i can hardly note any difference!! What next! Laser guided shaving machine?

Ammar Sajdi

Salary Theorem

This theorem stipulates that the less you work, the more money you make

read on

Sunset

Ammar Sajdi

Dont miss this place

Jal3ad Again!


I visited Jal3ad again two weeks back with the company guys. This is the second visit, I wrote about my first visit to Jalad in my third blog post back in August 14th, 2005 http://oraclejo.blogspot.com/2005/08/blog-post.html . I liked it this time more because of the greenery that this area enjoys during spring, really breath taking views. I had to reduce the resolution to make the size of the images, which resulted in deterioration of image quality. The actual images and the acual scenes are much nices, but this should give you an idea

That is me by the way, Ammar

Warm! Warm! weather coming up!!

Be careful,

The three coming days are going to be really warm. Temperature could be toping 27 Degree in Amman

Jennifer Aniston on Oprah winfrey

born on February 11, 1969 Sherman Oaks, California, USA

Her father (Ioannis Anastassakis) is Greek and was born in the island of Crete. He was an actor himself. Jennifer Anastassakis spend her child in Greece and N.Y.

Tonight and on Oprah Winfrey Show, Jennifer put an end to all rumors and declared that she did not undergo any cosmatic surgical procedure of any kind (Jobs). Still, nevertheless, and at age of 38, looking as good as ever. (Brad Pitt must have gone out of his mind)

recently in 2007, she received People's Choice Award: Favorite Female Movie Star, The Break-Up

Most expensive ITEM on Amazon

Mohamad a friend of mine sent me a link to Amazon, could anybody find an item more expensive than this item
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000NL8210/downandoutint-20

Palindrome !!!?

Palindrome is an English word. I am NOT resourceful when it come to English vocabulary. I thought this word is worth talking about.

I am an IT guy and most of my knowledge , including written and spoken languages, is tightly coupled to the IT domain (Tightly coupled is one example, where people talk about Tightly Coupled Multi-processor system).

Naturally, then, Palindrome, must have something to do with IT.

I was looking for a way to speed up retrieval of names from an Oracle database system based on some knowledge about the suffix of the name (letters at the end of the word). Normal indexing wont work since indexing is based on the prefix of the name (Like when you look up the phone no of a person using a phone book, you search by the leading part of the name and not the trailing part).

I wanted to try an old SYNTAX that i still remeber which is the Reverse Key index , in which, index entries are indexed by the trailing part. While this approach is not intended for my purpose and has its own usage, but to properly use such indexing method, I also need to reverse my search variable, for example

the original query is

SELECT * FROM EMP where ENAME like '%AMMAR'

it should become

SELECT * FROM EMP where ENAME like ' RAMMA%'

To make is easier for the programmers, i thought that it would be good to introduce a REVRSE function so the the second query would look like

SELECT * FROM EMP where ENAME like REVERSE '%AMMAR'

The REVERSE function takes care of resequencing the name.

So what does Palindrome have to do with this?

IF REVERSE (X) = X then X is a Palindrome

IF X reads the same backward or Forward then it satisfies the meaning of Palindrome
Actually, it does have to be a word , it also can be a whole sentence (Read the following sentecne backward "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama")

"Side note: the word has another medical meaning
A segment of double-stranded DNA in which the nucleotide sequence of one strand reads in reverse order to that of the complementary strand."
The longest Palindrome is believed to be tattarrattat , then detartrated

Some examples from the web

civic
rotator
EYE
level
madam
minim
refer
sagas
dad
did
تُوْت
خَوْخ

[phrases and sentences]
Do geese see God?
Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
Murder for a jar of red rum.
Some men interpret nine memos.
Never odd or even.
12/02/2021

can you verify that the following is Palindromic
我愛媽媽，媽媽愛我
Anyone with more words that satisfy the Palindrome criteria?

Ammar

Most Expensive Capital in the Arab World

According to the Economist, it is Amman.

the EIU Worldwide Cost of Living Survey revealed that Amman is the most expesive city in the Arab World. The list goes as follows: (it seems that the survey did not actually cover all Arab Contries, as i cannot see Beirut in the list)

This year rank (last year rank) city

72 (70) Amman Jordan
79 (80) Casablanca Morocco
79 (71) Dubai UAE
85 (82) Abu Dhabi UAE
88 (87) Doha Qatar
98 (87) Riyadh Saudi Arabia
103 (95) Kuwait City Kuwait
103 (93) Muscat Oman
109 (100) Jeddah Saudi Arabia
111 (104) Al Khobar Saudi Arabia
116 (113) Cairo Egypt
118 (115) Damascus Syria
123 (115) Algiers Algeria
126 (122) Tripoli Libya

as the ranking shows, Amman stands at position no 70,
Intresting, no American city is among the top 25 most expensive city

1 (1) Oslo Norway
2 (4) Paris France
3 (6) Copenhagen Denmark
4 (7) London UK
5 (2) Tokyo Japan
6 (4) Osaka Kobe Japan
6 (3) Reykjavik Iceland
6 (8) Zurich Switzerland
9 (12) Frankfurt Germany
9 (10) Helsinki Finland
11 (13) Seoul South Korea
12 (9) Geneva Switzerland
12 (11) Vienna Austria
14 (16) Milan Italy
14 (24) Singapore Singapore
16 (14) Hong Kong Hong Kong
16 (14) Munich Germany
18 (19) Berlin Germany
18 (16) Sydney Australia
20 (21) Brussels Belgium
20 (16) Dublin Ireland
20 (n/a) Nouméa New Caledonia
20 (21) Stockholm Sweden
24 (19) Melbourne Australia
25 (24) Lyon France

New York comes @28 just after Moscow.
Rome @31, Chicago and Montreal tie @36, San Francisco @41 , Toronto @43, Instanbul @53, Athens and Miami tie @55, Boston @63 (little hard to believe) ,Rio de Janeiro @79, Atlanta @84.

At the end of the list
123 (115) Algiers Algeria
124 (124) Asuncion Paraguay
125 (121) Dhaka Bangladesh
126 (n/a) Kathmandu Nepal
126 (122) New Delhi India
126 (122) Tripoli Libya
129 (126) Karachi Pakistan
129 (124) Mumbai India
131 (127) Manila Philippines
132 (128) Tehran Iran

From a world wide perspective we are almost in the middle.

Ammar Sajdi

6 degrees of seperation - what a small world

The 6 degrees of seperation is theory stating that any one on earth can reach another person on earth through a chain of acquintances that has no more than 5 poeple in between.
For example, if you want to send a gift to Madona, call somebody you think he/she knows madona! chances are she/he does not know her personally, but then again, that person shall try to contact another person. If the chain continues, the gift is bound to reach Madona after 5 links (contacts). Maybe one can try this through the Linked-In network as well.

The theory was first proposed in 1929 by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in a short story called "Chains."

" In 1967, American sociologist Stanley Milgram devised a new way to test the theory, which he called "the small-world problem." He randomly selected people in the mid-West to send packages to a stranger located in Massachusetts. The senders knew the recipient's name, occupation, and general location. They were instructed to send the package to a person they knew on a first-name basis who they thought was most likely, out of all their friends, to know the target personally. That person would do the same, and so on, until the package was personally delivered to its target recipient.

Although the participants expected the chain to include at least a hundred intermediaries, it only took (on average) between five and seven intermediaries to get each package delivered. Milgram's findings were published in Psychology Today and inspired the phrase "six degrees of separation."

Read the original article

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci932596,00.html

ammar sajdi

Presenting PowerPoint to business executives , The 10/20/30 Rule and the Meniere's Disease

Guy Kawasaki wrote an article how to write a practical presentation for the business community. The guy (whose name is Guy) is a ventrure capitalist who listened to hundreds of presentations for people trying to sell their companies. Here is what Guy said in his 10/20/30 Rule

a PowerPoint presentation
should have ten slides,
last no more than twenty minutes,
and contain no font smaller than thirty points

Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and venture capitalists are very normal. (The only difference between you and venture capitalist is that he is getting paid to gamble with someone else’s money). If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don’t have a business. The ten topics that a venture capitalist cares about are:

• Problem
• Your solution
• Business model
• Underlying magic/technology
• Marketing and sales
• Competition
• Team
• Projections and milestones
• Status and timeline
• Summary and call to action

You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion.

The reason people use a small font is twofold: first, that they don’t know their material well enough; second, they think that more text is more convincing. Total bozosity. Force yourself to use no font smaller than thirty points. I guarantee it will make your presentations better because it requires you to find the most salient points and to know how to explain them well. If “thirty points,” is too dogmatic, the I offer you an algorithm: find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That’s your optimal font size.

Then Guy adds a comment

"So please observe the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. If nothing else, the next time someone in your audience complains of hearing loss, ringing, or vertigo, you’ll know what caused the problem"

Guy actually starts his blog by saying that he suffers from something called Ménière’s disease,

The symptoms of Ménière’s include hearing loss, tinnitus (a constant ringing sound), and vertigo. Guy claims that there are many medical reason that cause Ménière (too much salt, caffeine, or alcohol in one’s diet, too much stress, and allergies)

Guy then says that he is not subjected to any of the above causes, but he still gets Ménière’s disease. I Guess Guy was trying point out to the medical community that the audiance on NON 10/20/30 Presentation are prone to develop the Ménière’s disease as well.

Ammar Sajdi

Oracle consultant

Amman - jordan

Best Business books of 2006 (Business Week)

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/12/1226_careerbooks/index_01.htm?campaign_id=rediff

Business week compiled this list
1. Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business TodayBy Jack and Suzy Welch
2. Success Built to Last: Creating a Life That MattersBy Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson
3. The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your LifeBy Lee Eisenberg
4. The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes EverythingBy Stephen Covey
5. The Difference Maker: Making Your Attitude Your Greatest AssetBy John Maxwell
6. You’re In Charge — Now What? The 8 Point PlanBy Thomas Neff and James Citrin
7. What Color is Your Parachute? 2007By Richard Nelson Bolles
8. What Should I Do With My Life?By Po Bronson
9. Now, Discover Your StrengthsBy Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton
10.Dilbert and the Way of the WeaselBy Scott Adams


Ammar Sajdi

Chargers Chargers everywhere, but not ..

I was trying to mimic "water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink". Obviously, i am not as good as Samuel Taylor Coleridge when he composed Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I remembered this poem that was part of our O level syllabus (Way back then) when I was looking for my digital camera charger at home. Literally, there are more than 10 charges at home, but these chargers are never interoperable. One charger for my SONY laptop, another for my wives DELL laptop, one for my E71 Nokia, which does not work for her Nokia, a couple of old mobile chargers, one for the electrical shaver, one for the miniature hover and many more.
What wrong with electrical appliances manufacturer! They do not get it, Cannot we just make 2 or 3 standard models that all manufacturers can use. The idea is not far fetched! In fact, it is already implemented by battery operated devices. Why can i use the same battery set for all the different Remote Controls (for example). There are a few standard sizes and then you do not have to get the battery from the same manufacturer, nor do you have to have dozen of different batteries that cannot be used when you need them! In management, everybody is talking about standard operating procedure and all kinds of standard, ISO, IEC, EN, DN, and ANSI covering many different industries. Does it require a UN resolution to enforce standard chargers!

Ammar Sajdi
www.e-ammar.com

Secret

"You are God in a physical body.
You are Spirit in the flesh.
You are Eternal Life expressing itself as You.
You are a cosmic being.
You are all power.
You are all wisdom.
You are all intelligence.
You are perfection.
You are magnificence.
You are the creator,
and you are creating the creation of You on this planet" (p. 164).

A best selling book (DVD) The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne and is spreading like crazy in the USA, especially after making it to the Oprah Winfrey Show. More than 16 million copies sold (BTW, any book selling more than 4000 Copies in the Arab World, makes it to the best selling list among arabic publication- sadly)
I did not read the book; i read reviews about it and would like to share this review with you

"The essence of The Secret is "the law of attraction." According to Byrne and the twenty-nine co-contributors whom she quotes extensively, everything in the Universe (which is always capitalized and usually synonymous for "God") vibrates on a particular frequency. When you think in harmony with the frequency of something, you attract it to you. If you think about wealth, you will receive wealth. If you think instead about your debt, you will receive more debt. You attract what you think about; your thoughts determine your destiny. Byrne restates the law of attraction in various ways: "Nothing [good or bad] can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thoughts" (p. 28). "Your thoughts are the primary cause of everything" (p. 33). "Your current reality or your current life is a result of the thoughts you have been thinking" (p. 71). According to the product description on the DVD, "This is The Secret to everything—the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted."
reference
http://www.spiritualdisciplines.org/secret.html

from my background in physics , we learned that when things vibrate in harmonious frequencies , they resonate but not Attract. Therefore, i am not sure that the essence of this book has any scientific support. Additionally, the Likes repel and do not attract. If i want to say that if i think about wealth a generate Positive charges and that wealth itself is positively charged, then no attraction should take place (With the exception of semiconductors, where positive charges can flow against the flow of positive charge - or the electrical field- due to changes in energy level and minority carriers having enough energy to cross the energy field barrier. A theory in solid state physics that made diodes and transistors become realities)

It is a controversial book, not only scientifically, but also religiously ..Not only is this evident from the starting paragraph of this post, but also in the following

The earth turns on its orbit for You.
The oceans ebb and flow for You.
The birds sing for You.
The sun rises and it sets for You.
The stars come out for You.
Every beautiful thing you see,
every wondrous thing you experience,
is all there for You.
Take a look around.
None of it can exist, without You.
No matter who you thought you were, now you know the Truth of Who You Really Are.
You are the master of the Universe.
You are the heir to the kingdom.
You are the perfection of Life.
And now you know The Secret (p. 183).

ammar sajdi
www.e-ammar.com

Nine more rainy days

It was an interesting day yesterday (weather wise). it snowed off and on during the day, and the last wave of snow was at about 8:30 in the evening, i was real heavy, i must add. While at home, you know if snow is accumulating or not, by the fact the satellite channels. Of course, when the dish is covered by snow, the reception ceases. At this point, even one lives without TV or one has to get on his/her feet and shuffle the snow off.

This morning, it is cold and the skies are overcast. No precipitation of any form. The snow has almost completely melted. This is just normal considering the fact that the current temperature is 6 degrees.

As you can see on the weather map on the left, the low pressure system has moved to the north east as shown by the arrow. I expect this as the "Kiss Good bye" weather system as we are moving towards Spring. This does not mean, no more rain, but nothing like what we witnessed in the past 48 Hours.

The total precipitation during the storm is around 50 mm and the total rain fall this season, so far, is about 85% of total seasonal rain. However, the so far amount is, in line with the average for this time of the year. The no of rainy days so far is 53 days, and total rainy days per season is 62, so one would expect 9 more rainy days

Snow or no Snow, and this is the answer

Location: My office Abu Elhajj comercial complex office 805 room 201
Time : 8 AM
Outside Temperature : 1 (One) degree above freezing
Precipitation form : Snow
current condition : Snowing

It is actually snowing, but the accumulation on the ground is little, maybe not cold enough or because it was raining all night. There is a white cover of not more than 2 cm.

Ammar Sajdi
www.e-ammar.com

Snow or no Snow, this is the question

This is my first weather-centric post!!I was looking at weather forecasting maps, and i think it

there is a weathe system that is worth talking about. By the way, weatherwise, last month was a quiet month. The rain fall was below seasonal averate; wet weather is really welcomed at this point.
To follow why, first look at the image on the left; if you can NOT geographically recognize the boundaries of the eastern med, then, now is the best time to quit reading, otherwise keep going

There are semi circular line (Light green, green, reddish etc).. These are call isobars. These circles connect points where atmospheric pressure values are equal.

Can you spot Cyprus?, it is surrounded by light blue circle! This is the center of a Low Pressure System that is affecting the Easter Med. You can also read the pressure value on the map. the center of the system is at 1006 millibar This is not directly shown on the map, but the outer circle reads (08) which is an abbreviation for 1008.. The normal atmospheric pressure is around 1022 mb. Low pressure system cause instability and therefore, active weather conditions (wind, rain etc..).
The button line is, there is a fairly deep low pressure system centered around Cyprus that is likely to affect the area for the coming 24-48 hours.

Snow or no Snow?
The low pressure system causes the wind system to revlove around its center in an anti-clockwise manner (in the northern hemisphere). If you can track the where the wind is coming from , you can find out if it is going to be cold or not.. As this is not to teach you how to read weather maps, there is an indicator on the map that can give you a hint about how cold the winds are. Look at the black line with 540 reading. We call this the snow line, because this line indicates zones where temperature approaching zero may occur. Look back to the map, and you will see that the bounders of this line cross the eastern med and Jordan. So yes, there is a chance of snow at higher elevation in Jordan

Lets wait and see,, this is all predictive modeling after all

better to know 'cpio' before getting down to the serious business

A Real Techy post, OR should I say a real Techie post
Both work well, Techie is a term, derivative of the word technology. This post is really on the Tech side, Techy a variant of tetchy (easily irritated or annoyed)

This post is a bit of both,
but you will see in the end of the post , the findings are not really techy

I am spent the entire morning upgrading our Oracle portal platform to version 10.1.4
I just downloaded the binaries from Oracle Site
One file was downloaded (as_linux_x86_portal_1014.cpio)
The installation manual assumes that you have the CD media
The installation command is really straight forward

$mrua.sh -oracle_home /home/oracle/infra -oid_host asdb.realsoft.com -oid_ssl_port636

Thinking i am thee linux cpio expert (which i only use while installing oracle products by the way), i thought i can remember the command of my head, fa i wrote

cpio -icvf (smaller than sign) as_linux_x86_portal_1014.cpio

when command finished running and i ran the mrua.sh command as instructed

immediately i ended up with

could not find javalib.so
COULD not find java 2 Runtime Environment

how can this be the case, when all other applications use the JRE

This where i spend most try all possible techniques to make sure JRE is really exposed.
After thorough investigation, i found out the mrua scripts uses the JRE that is contained within the portal upgrade binaries. I looked into the JRE subdirectories in the main directory under which the portal upgrade binaries were loaded, but i found no libraries.

Well, all of that happened because i thought that checking the cpio command is a waste of time. The contrary proved to be quite true is this case

The correct command is

cpio -idmv (smaller than sign) as_linux_x86_portal_1014.cpio

it is the d in the idmv

The Lesion Learned
i you believe you know your stuff very well to become a monster, your monstrous behaviour does not guarantee you an effective resolution of yr problems

if you try to save time by cutting corners, you may end up wasting a lot of time, check the documents first

ammar Sajdi
http://www.e-ammar.com/
http://www.palco-me.com/
Amman jordan
oracle consultant

My New LCD TV

To add to my TV view pleasure, i wanted to buy a new Flat TV. (do not laugh, but i spend most of my time on TV while asleep)

As normal, i do not embark on engaging in new project without enough thought.
I wanted to buy flat TV. Naturally, i was confronted with many issues that i needed to resovle before buying one


1- How many inches
2- LCD or Plasma
3-most importantly ,, the Brand

After some research i found the following

1) for the size, you might be confined with the size of the room. One has to keep a distance between the seat and the TV. For the best viewing pleasure the following are guidelines

For 32 Inch TV 2.4 meters
For 37 Inch TV 2.7 meters
For 40 Inch TV 3,0 meters
For 42 Inch TV 3.2 meters
For 46 Inch TV 3.5 meters

Because i m not planning to buy a new house just for the TV, i figured it would be wise to choose a set that suits the current dimension of the existing sitting root. It best scenario (w/o changing decoration and with all wires hidden) was 37 Inch


2)LCD or Plasma

There are two compelling advantages with an LCD TV. The first is that they can be much easier to watch than a cathode ray tube (CRT) model. This is because screen displays are significantly brighter with a high contrast and the flicker free picture. LCD TVs will work effectively in almost any kind of room lighting from bright to ambient. Secondly, LCDs have a higher native resolution than plasma TVs of the same size making them ideal for high-definition output. While plasma TVs are currently better at the moment for sheer screen size, as more and more television output becomes high-definition TV (HDTV), LCD technology will come to the fore.

3) Brand

S O N Y came as my initial bet, unfortunately, the Sony dealer has limited range and when compared with the market prices of SONY LCD across the world, the Sony dealer here in Jordan is not doing a good job. There is no 37" in Amman, and the 40" sells for 2600 JD.
My research has shown that Samsung is well ranked worldwide, but again, the dealer in Amman carries the 32" and the 46" only and (for some reason) even the next shipment will not have 37" , 40" range (i think Samsung competitors cannot get any luckier than this, what an ideal competitor; Samsung must be thinking of a marketing plan that really beats me).
When i was looking for the top selling LCD TV, SONY and Samsung were ranked among the best, but, i could not get what i wanted in Amman. SHARP came to my rescue, i bought a 37 Inch SHARP at a price tag of 1600 JD, the 42" model is selling for 1900.

It is a nice TV with good crisp picture. These TV can give excellent picture if you feed High Definition (HD), signal. However, it is seldom the case that we get HD signal in the current set of Satellite Channel. I thought the MBC have the best signal so far.

But this is not where the excitement is!!!
I found out that it has a Computer input, meaning that you can connect your laptop and here you go, a 37" Computer Screen. For obvious reasons, my wife was not particularly happy about this discovery. For my, it was really a thrill, with a wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, high power laptop and a large flat panel LCD display, the sitting room has been transformed "be anywhere" always wired, digital sitting room.

i will take a picture of my new LCD and show it to you soon

Ammmmar
www.e-ammar.com

Hindsight is 20/20 What about my Name Ammar

I lived 4 years in the USA back in the 80s,
i thought that it should be easy for Americans to pronounce my name correctly (Ammar). I was easy on the fact that the fist letter of my name cannot be pronounced by native English speakers, but thought that the rest should be OK. I thought that the Double-M is enough to for the American to understand that there is an Arabic "Shadda" over the Letter M.
However, i think they should be excused when you consider the following:

The only English word that gets as close to my name (Ammar) as possible is (GrAmmar)
But how do we Arabic Native speakers pronounce the English Grammar, now remove the first two letter and there you go, you have just mis-pronounced me name. Only now i have come to realize that native English speakers ought to be excused, it looks too obvious now, but as the saying goes Hindsight is 20/20 .
Sorry, i misjudged things for just too long!!!! and the time has come for me to realize my mistake... By the same token, i am afraid there are so many things (situations, people) that i misjudged.

Conclusion: The way i write my name in English (Ammar) is wrong!!! How then should i write my name???

By the way, i learned the word Grammar during my early years in school. Quite honestly, the resemblance to my name did not come at that stage, but much later. This is only to illustrate, how much of seemingly obvious things we human (or i should talk about myself). God knows how many of these seemingly obvious things that i still miss.
As one of them said : Among all the things i miss, i miss my mind most

Ammar Sajdi
http://www.e-ammar.com/
http://www.palco-me.com/
Oracle consultant

PS: I should probably guess how French would pronounce my name

The software that drives NASA Space Shuttle

If you read my previous blog, i have extracted a few paragraph from an article that appeared at http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.html called The right stuff kicks in at T-minus 31 seconds.

I have repeated the opening section of that article because i thought it is really interesting

The right stuff kicks in at T-minus 31 seconds.
As the 120-ton space shuttle sits surrounded by almost 4 million pounds of rocket fuel, exhaling noxious fumes, visibly impatient to defy gravity, its on-board computers take command. Four identical machines, running identical software, pull information from thousands of sensors, make hundreds of milli-second decisions, vote on every decision, check with each other 250 times a second. A fifth computer, with different software, stands by to take control should the other four malfunction.
At T-minus 6.6 seconds, if the pressures, pumps, and temperatures are nominal, the computers give the order to light the shuttle main engines -- each of the three engines firing off precisely 160 milliseconds apart, tons of super-cooled liquid fuel pouring into combustion chambers, the ship rocking on its launch pad, held to the ground only by bolts. As the main engines come to one million pounds of thrust, their exhausts tighten into blue diamonds of flame.
Then and only then at T-minus zero seconds, if the computers are satisfied that the engines are running true, they give the order to light the solid rocket boosters. In less than one second, they achieve 6.6 million pounds of thrust. And at that exact same moment, the computers give the order for the explosive bolts to blow, and 4.5 million pounds of spacecraft lifts majestically off its launch pad.
It's an awesome display of hardware prowess. But no human pushes a button to make it happen, no astronaut jockeys a joy stick to settle the shuttle into orbit.
The right stuff is the software. The software gives the orders to gimbal the main engines, executing the dramatic belly roll the shuttle does soon after it clears the tower. The software throttles the engines to make sure the craft doesn't accelerate too fast. It keeps track of where the shuttle is, orders the solid rocket boosters to fall away, makes minor course corrections, and after about 10 minutes, directs the shuttle into orbit more than 100 miles up. When the software is satisfied with the shuttle's position in space, it orders the main engines to shut down -- weightlessness begins and everything starts to float.
But how much work the software does is not what makes it remarkable. What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors.
This software is the work of 260 women and men based in an anonymous office building across the street from the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake, Texas, southeast of Houston. They work for the "on-board shuttle group," a branch of Lockheed Martin Corps space mission systems division, and their prowess is world renowned: the shuttle software group is one of just four outfits in the world to win the coveted Level 5 ranking of the federal governments Software Engineering Institute (SEI) a measure of the sophistication and reliability of the way they do their work. In fact, the SEI based it standards in part from watching the on-board shuttle group do its work.
The group writes software this good because that's how good it has to be. Every time it fires up the shuttle, their software is controlling a $4 billion piece of equipment, the lives of a half-dozen astronauts, and the dreams of the nation. Even the smallest error in space can have enormous consequences: the orbiting space shuttle travels at 17,500 miles per hour; a bug that causes a timing problem of just two-thirds of a second puts the space shuttle three miles off course.
NASA knows how good the software has to be. Before every flight, Ted Keller, the senior technical manager of the on-board shuttle group, flies to Florida where he signs a document certifying that the software will not endanger the shuttle. If Keller can't go, a formal line of succession dictates who can sign in his place.
Bill Pate, who's worked on the space flight software over the last 22 years, says the group understands the stakes: "If the software isn't perfect, some of the people we go to meetings with might die.


For the entire article please refer to the link above

Ammar Sajdi
www.e-ammar.com
www.informobility.com
Amman Jordan
Oracle consultant

Software Craftsmanship (I)

I have spent most of my spare time last week to read an interesting book called SOFTWARE CRAFTSMANSHIP. The book basically evaluates the suitability of Software Engineering approach to Software Development; and compares and contrast its effectiveness in developing successful application. The book tries to emphasis the effectiveness of skilled Software developers (craftsmen). In essence, the author (Pete McBreen) is inclined towards stressing the role of craftsmanship as major factor in making software development successful, while advocating the Software Engineering should be left to huge projects.

I tend to agree with the author and i will attempt to touch upon some of the ideas that the book surfaces in this regard

In the beginning, let me articulate how IEEE defined software Engineering (1)

Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to development, operation, and maintenance of software, that is, the application of engineering to software

(1) IEEE standard computer Dictionary, Software Craftsmanship ISBN 0-201-73386-2 page 7

the software that runs NASA space shuttle was developed using Software Engineering approach (2)

What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats: the last three versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors.

But this amazing work comes with a price tag

"Most people choose to spend their money at the wrong end of the process," says Munson. "In the modern software environment, 80% of the cost of the software is spent after the software is written the first time -- they don't get it right the first time, so they spend time flogging it. In shuttle, they do it right the first time. And they don't change the software without changing the blueprint. That's why their software is so perfect."

"As the rest of the world struggles with the basics, the on-board shuttle group edges ever closer to perfect software. Admittedly they have a lot of advantages over the rest of the software world. They have a single product: one program that flies one spaceship. They understand their software intimately, and they get more familiar with it all the time. The group has one customer, a smart one. And money is not the critical constraint: the groups $35 million per year budget is a trivial slice of the NASA pie, but on a dollars-per-line basis, it makes the group among the nation's most expensive software organizations"

(2) http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.html

But if we do not have the leisure to spend $35 Million per year, may be software engineering is not for us!

The book then raises an interesting point based on the team that created SCRUM software development approach

"If a process can be fully defined, with all things known about it so that it can be designed and run repeatable with predictable results, it is known as a defined process. and it can be subjected to automataion. If all things about a process aren't fully known -- only what generally happens when you mix these inputs and what to measure and control to get the desired output -- these are called empirical processes"

If you think about software projects that you were involved in, who close did you ever get to the defintion given above.

With this introduction to the subject, you have probably gotton a feel about what the book is about. I will try, in later blogs, to shed more light about other ideas the the book presents

Ammar Sajdi
www.e-ammar.com
www.realsoft-me.com
www.palco-me.com

Smooth Sophisticate

The car that drives itself has arrived

I am facinated, not about cars themselves, rather about the technology being used in the realm of cars.
Do not get the impression that i am a car freak,,, but when you read on , you will appreicate the reason for this writing

The new Mercedes-Benz 2007 S Class is equipped with an adaptive cruise control system that comes with a short-range radar, yes a RADAR, mind you this is not an aircraft, it is a car.
This means that if you're stopped at a traffic light, and a car is in front of you, all you have to do is sit and watch. The S-Class will hold down the brakes for you, then accelerate when the lead car starts moving. Then it will brake when necessary. You could drive the length of Gardens Street with your feet on the dashboard; ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS STEER.


Ammar Sajdi
www.e-ammar.com
oracle consultant

CARdiac Confusion

I keep thinking of changing my 2003 BMW 525i car that i really like. There is a large assortment of modern cars with hefty price tags that induce CAR cardiac problems.

Yes price tags of >70000 USD are becoming easy on the ear for an entry 5 Serier BMW or 200 Mercedes.

anyway, let me not get into the discussion of whether one conscious should let go and accept driving such cars while the world is full of atrosities; carnage in Iraq and Palestine, Poverty in the third world contries, hunger is Africa etc.

the following is a list of cars that i potential could own soon .. help me choosing

Mercedes 350 SL

BMW 530i

Audi A5 -- Will be revealed this week

The All-mighty Cadillac

Ammar

www.e-ammar.com

in the Pursue of Zen

According to wikipedia

"Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that places great importance on moment-by-moment awareness and 'seeing deeply into the nature of things' by direct experience"

Say what??

Moment-by-moment Awareness ... It is a moving statement,,, i must be missing something,, Can each of us ask the question, do we have moment-by-moment awareness, and what is that supposed to mean??

Let us move on.. Seeing deeply into the nature of things .. this is even more intereting!! it makes me feel joy when profound meaning are revealed after pausing at things and think about them rather than let them just fly by.

What is also more importnat is that Zen has been around for so long, but it went by me un-noticed for so long as well,,

The two lines of defitions mentioned above really cought my attention and are pushing me to further explore Zen in a practical way; maybe it sheds light onto shinny things that my mind just fails to see and enlighten me to see beyond what my direct senses can comprehend. If i can explore such things, it will make me more excited about life as i am just bored of the Normal issue that my 5 senses can reveal.

Here are some extracts from articles i read on the internet


"Zen trains the practitioner simply to observe plainly, quietly, and non-judgmentally the thoughts and feelings passing through the mind, instead of being pulled along reflexively by them.
With consistent practice paying bare, unembellished attention to the moment-by-moment flow, the practitioner begins to awaken from the cloud of aboutness and self-referential thinking that has built up through lifelong habit.

How can Zen be learned as part of a contemporary lifestyle?
In a sense, the practice of Zen is simply to stop thinking, by quietly relinquishing the inner mental dialogue within which we habitually wrap our experience.


Why do we seem to be trapped inside our own experience?
We can all say that "no matter where I go, there I am." At first that seems too obvious for comment, but on second thought why should our mental floor plan be set up this way?

What is the tiny observer that we call our "self", that peers out onto the world and into ourselves, and that reacts to what it sees? Is that observer who we are?

When a train of thought or a feeling passes through our mind, we can observe it within ourselves, but when we observe the observer within ourselves, then who or what is doing the observation?

Because our own experience is all we really know, we take ourselves so seriously that we seem almost to forget that an entire world exists outside ourselves. "

I feel happy because somehow i had these ideas in my mind, but somebody was able to organize the thoughts and have them written for me. I always believed that one should alway have enough tolerance to accept what his mind and senses fail to realize, as during my life i was stunned about things that i could not have believed if i had not experienced
(like gravity). The question is how many of these things really exist, but we, mankind, resist to believe just because our senses fail to directly realize (or because they have not been scientifically proven ........................wait ..YET ??) Religions clearly go under such category

Ammar Sajdi
www.e-ammar.com
www.realsoft-me.com
www.palco-me.com
www.informobility.com
Amman jordan

LAMP

recently, i came across the "LAMP" term; I was excited to know that it is an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP programs (description later). I thought it is a cool term. I am the kind of person who spend lots of time browsing the net and always eager to learn about new technologies, platforms, tools, etc ..Having said that, i would expect that LAMP is a pretty new term. To my surprise, the term has been around since 1998 and was first used by the Michael Kunze. in an article for the German computing magazine c't in 1998 (12/98, page 230). At a later stage it has become more popular among English readers by O'Reilly and MySQL AB.

Each program (LAMP) is an open source standard in its own right: Linux is the operating system; Apache is the most commonly-used Web server; MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) with add-on tools for Web-based administration; and PHP is a popular object-oriented scripting language that encompasses the best features of many other programming languages to make it efficient for Web development.

Many of the world's largest organizations, including Yahoo!, Sabre Holdings, Cox Communications, The Associated Press, Google, and NASA, are realizing significant cost savings by using open source products to power web sites, business-critical enterprise applications and packaged software.

ammar sajdi
Oracle consultant
Amman - Jordan
www.e-ammar.com
www.realsoft-me.com
www.palco-me.com
www.informobility.com

Welcome to Joomla!

Finally, i spared sometime to install JOOMLA
I read about it several time and browsed the website so many times, i wanted to try it out; and i had no way to do that but to install it.
I installed it on our Linux machine 192.168.0.1 which is also used as the companies Proxy (not a very nice idea) It required MySQL, PHP and Apache server which were already installed by me due to earlier experimentations. It is an open source thing and it fully utilizes LAMP (short for Linux, Apache, Mysql, PHP).

But what is Joomla, well here is what the website says

Cutting Edge Content Management

"Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable"

and this is what the defautl template has to say

"If you've read anything at all about Content Management Systems (CMS), you'll probably know at least three things: CMS are the most exciting way to do business, CMS can be really, I mean really, complicated and lastly Portals are absolutely, outrageously, often unaffordably expensive. ....
Joomla! is set to change all that ...
Joomla! is different from the normal models for portal software. For a start, it's not complicated. Joomla! has been developed for the masses. It's licensed under the GNU/GPL license, easy to install and administer and reliable. Joomla! doesn't even require the user or administrator of the system to know HTML to operate it once it's up and running. "

I am going to pursue this beast and see where i end up at!
wish me luck

Visiting Bahrain

I am here in Bahrain visiting the Central Bank of Bahrain to make an assessment for migrating their J2ee and portal software application to the latest releases of Oracle Application Server. This is probably my 6th visit to Bahrain. The following are some of the comments

1- Taxis are overpriced. They are equipped with meters but drivers do not use them. A short trip costs around 12 USD.

2-You cannot stay in non-5-star hotels. Unless newly innovated, even the 5 starts are not all that good. I tried Hilton some time back and it was horrible (I noticed that its name has been changed to Golden Tulip). Holiday Inn was also horrible (the name has now changed to Crown Plaza and I hope it is better). The 5-star hotels cost something like 180 USD +20% without breakfast. I felt that this was also overpriced compared to the standard and the service offered.

3- The weather is fine during the day, however, it turned a bit cool in the evening. You need a jacket, which is something I do not use in the Gulf Region. But it seems that Bahrain is cooler than UAE and Oman during winter.

4- I came to Gulf Air, which left on time, but the AirBus 320 seat space is limited and as such is uncomfortable for a 191 cm guy

5- I am leaving tomorrow back to Amman after less than 36 hours, which is long enough to miss Amman.


Ammar Sajdi
www.e-ammar.net
www.realsoft-me.com

Seven for all mankind jeans

hey all of you women of jordan, if you do not wear "7 for all mankind jeans" ($180), sorry, you have not quite made it!!!! yet (http://www.7forallmankind.com/pl/c/3.html)

Ah and do not forgret Juicy

Eid

3id in Arabic comes from E3adah (return , repetition). Saying Happy Eid implicitly means that one wishes the happy return of this occasion. On the personal front, 2006 was a good year for my career. However, on the regional and global domain, i hope it never repeats. I am really sad that year after year, we have pieces of our land still occupied. Both Arab and Muslim worlds have a lot of catching up to do, and i am unable to see the first step towards catching up being taken. i hope next year comes with a reason for us to be happy and wish the return of same occasion

Peter Answers - Interactive Soul Engine

A couple of years back, one of the kids in the family logged into www.peteranswers.com and started asking me questions and letting the Web engine write back the correct answers. A couple of days back, we checked it out again for fun to see how the elderly would react to it.
try it out yourself. Depending on the level of spirituality embedded within you, your level of interaction with the soul engine would be stronger. Try it out

Ammar Sajdi
www.palco-me.com

www.realsoft-me.com

www.e-ammar.net

REALSOFT, PALCO,