Do you really think you can "do database Design"

Software industry in Jordan is pretty progressive with, however, about 90% of of software system involving in a way or another the usage of some database system. Graduates of Jordanian Unviersities specializing in Computer Science related dept are barely exposed to database concepts. Obviously this is due to the fact that the Educational System and the Industry are completely decoupled. My personal opinion, the Jordanian computer science graduate barely knows the ABC's of Database concepts. This is catastrophic because he/she shall be spending alsmost the entirty of their office hours writing applications that heavily depend on databases.

while interviewing new employees, i tend to ask basic questions about basic database questions, like defining the second normal form, explaining what concurrency and consistency is, the basics meaning of a transaction, Types of Joins etc. To my surprise initially, but otherwise lately, very, very few understand Normal Forms, or yet, what precisely a relation means in a Relational Database Management System.

My fears and paranoia continues till after employment, becuase, I have reasons to believe that many of those graduates deliver system while still do not have clear, precise and scientific understanding about topics that they spend a large portion of their career working with.

Current, previous and future IT emplyess should read the following series of articles to ensure that they are equipped with what is necessary to carry out your job correctly. Read on and assess yourself

http://database-programmer.blogspot.com/2007/12/database-skills-complete-contents.html

Ammar Sajdi

Towards a computerized methodology for computerization

We build software solution that run on computers to help people better run their businesses. We use computers to build these software solutions. Yet, computers help us to better run or computer enablement business (it is a vicious circle). But i am excited about some advances that will help us manage building software solutions using computers.
During testing, we find bugs, when the system becomes big and the no of developers grows, it is not easy to follow up on bugs. A couple of year ago, we started using a software tool called Mantis. It is an open source bug tracking software than runs PHP, Apache and MySQL (The LAMP combination, you know). It is a very helpful tool, where developers are assigned tasks to solve bugs. Unsurprisingly, we also use software like MS Project to follow up our project plan. There are Open Source Project planning software like DotProject. Not very exciting so far. What is more exciting however is the fact that you can integrate Mantis with DotProject. This will effectively link bug fixing task with your project plan. In other words, once a bug is fed into Mantis and assigned to a developer. The project plan shall immediately reflect this as a new task in the project plan and shall also reflect this task in terms of time plan in your project plan (Gantt Chart)
You have no clue how much joy is brought to my soul whenever an attempt is made towards reaching a Chaos free software development endeavor.
Mantis is already implemented in our office. DotProject is not, neither is the integration between both. Any volunteers?

Dubai, what has changed

It has been a while since my last visit to Dubai. To be exact my last visit was some 15 months back. What has changed since?
If you looked in the skyline before, you would see hight rise. Now , you would see high rise, and more high rise

If you drove on Shiek Zaied Road, you would be stuck in traffic Jams. Now, you would be stuck in traffic jams, and more traffic jams.

If you booked in a hotel, you would spend big money. Now you spend big money and bigger money (A five star hotel is 300 USD easy - Per night + taxes)

other than that nothing has changed except of course with the high rise, traffic more people are found around.

But to be fair, i found the weather more pleasant that expected for this time of the year

I came yesterday very late at night, and leaving tomorrow morning to Bahrain. Bahrain is still more reasonable.

Snow in London

April Snow in London is not common, neither is the fact that Jordan witnessed no Rain during the entire month of March. Year 2008 is going to be a tough year for everybody in Jordan. Oil prices jumped ridiculously (Diesel doubled and selling at around 88 cent / liter), water is scarce, rent is sky rocketing, electricity tariffs increased and I am afraid that Humous and Falafel meal shall soon become “a delicacy”

ammar

Mohammad Rateb Nabulsi

I was at dinner party two days back where the guest of honor was Dr. Mohammad Rateb Nabulsi, a Syrian scholar. Even though i was not feeling well due to severe cold conditions, but i have to say that i enjoyed Dr. Nabulsi interpretation of many controversial issues in religion domain. He is very elaborate, yet concise with a wealth of information that is barely surpassed by the most prominent scholars of the world. Adding to pthe leasure of listening to him was his eloquent language and organized logic.

backup your computer data

undoubtedly, we all have important data residing on our computers. That may include emails, important documents , financial sheets, digital photos, database files etc..

data can get lost: your hard disk can break down, a virus can wipe out your files, your laptop can be stolen, let alone fire, water floods etc

having said that, backup strategy is your insurance against a tragedy.

Human tend to fall in to the following categories backup - wise

1- Do not understand the need for backup
2- Understand the need for backup, but always look at the bright side and as such can dispel any backup related obsessions or flashes
3- Understand the need but either lazy or incapable of performing it
4- Understand the need, and are taking it religiously

Well, one day a disaster will take place and you will loose what can be indispensable data. Taking regular backup can be a daunting and not to mention a very boring process. I searched the internet and found some user friendly tools that should prove very helpful in assisting you to create an effective backup strategy. Most of these tools can allow you to take incremental backup. An incremental backup only take the changes between your last backup and the current one , thus making your backup much faster

Anyway, i will name a few products, and you can search the net and by using the following search words for more tools

file duplicator, File synchronize, File mirror, Mirror Disk

you will find tools that are prices from a few bucks to several hundreds.

I tried the following two products

ViseVersa http://www.tgrmn.com
Titan Backup http://www.neobytesolutions.com/

You should not know have an excuse for loosing data. Please remeber that it is not enough to take your backup to a different hard disk within your computer, it should be taken to an external device and stored in a safe place

Happy backing-up (or backup-ing)
Ammar sajdi

We never cease to learn - Cadre

The word كادر is a common word that is used in the Arabic language to describe a team of people to deliver a certain job. Before today, i would have sworn my life that it is a word of Arabic origin. Today i have received from a customer a request for a quotation. Within the document i came across the following

RealSoft shall p0rovide a capable technical cadre to be on call to correct any breakdowns ...

Not that i am a linguistic wiz, but it was the first time that i read this usage. Wikipedia came to the rescue with the following

"Cadre (from the French; pronounced /ˈkɑːdreɪ/) are the backbone of an organization, usually a political organization ..... The term is also commonly used in other venues to indicate an "original" or "leadership" group, i.e. the "first set" of users of a system who then will act as the seed-group who gain initial experience with a system, in order to facilitate its later use by a more general population"

Amazing!, i added a new easy work to my English vocabulary

Just for the Fun of It

Test your personality

visit the site http://www.kisa.ca/personality/


my results
Introverted (I) 57% Extraverted (E) 43%
Intuitive (N) 68% Sensing (S) 32%
Thinking (T) 65% Feeling (F) 35%
Judging (J) 95% Perceiving (P) 5%

ولد الهدى

ولد الهدى فالكائنات ضياء وفم السماء تبسم وثناء

Arab Bank and an attempt to abandon the dark ages

This is not the first time, as a company we closed most of our accounts in the Arab bank due to the fact that Arab Bank thinks that we have nothing to do in this world but spend all of our time finishing up transaction with the bank. Unfortunately, i still have a personal account.
Last week I received a call from Arab Bank telling me that they renewed my Credit Card and that i should be receiving a new credit card with Aramex. Within a couple of day, i received it. I ended up with two cards, the old card that expires at End of March, 2008 and the new Card expires 2010. Today, i went to the Swiefieh Branch at 8:30 sharp in order to cancel the old one and activate the new one. The women was helpful enough to explain that I need to call customer service center in order to activate the Credit Card. She gave me the phone no. Still i could not understand why activating the card cannot be done in person. The reason why i showed up in person was because the Arab Bank built a culture in me that I could not do business with them over the phone; in other words, you have to do the walking and you cannot make your fingers do the walking. They always ask you to come in person, present IDs, and several other documents including, but not limited to, your Electricity Bill.

It was a joyful moment to me as i thought no more parking issue, or queue up, the Arab bank finally realized that channels are open! And finally we are out of the dark ages

I called the customer service no
A lady politely answered, and as you would expect, she talks like a recorder. Nothing surprising there, since during my career, I developed a customer service management system and i know that scripts are created to dictate how the customer service agent talks

I told her that i received a new credit card and i wanted to activate it. She immediately barraged me with huge amount of question

Your name
Your birthday
Your Credit Card no
Your account no
and the killer question: what is your current balance?
I answered politely that i could not remember the balance! She said that she cannot do anything, because she needs the balance ( I suspect, the balance is needed as a means of authenticating me)

As part of my profession, we develop web solutions; some of them involve making money transaction over the net. I understand what Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is , i know what public key encryption is! I fully understand what authentication, authorization and non repudiation is!. I read about most of the available means and mechanism of establishing one's identify, but this new Arab-bank innovative what-is-your-balance identity management technology is quite new to me. I want to ask the arabbank not to bother to patent its new invention; since I seriously doubt that security sensitive institutions would be particularly keen in using this new identity technology

Fine, maybe the Arabbank has pioneered technology that i am still short of understanding, but surely, i can still understand instruction.

When i first received a call to tell me that i would be receiving my new card, the lady did not give me instructions that when i call their customer service center, i need to memorize my current balance

When i received the Card, no written instruction exists in the envelop telling me that i needed to memorize my current balance when i call the customer care center

Finally, and most annoyingly, when i walked in Face to Face to the Swiefieh Branch, the lady, who gave me the customer care phone no also did not tell me that since i was already in the bank, I might as well inquire about my balance before calling them.

I asked the lady what to do, she told me that I need to login to the internet and inquire about my balance – That was no solution as I was not connected nor did I have the password ready. The other solution she offered is for me to go to an ATM machine and inquire about my account. Back to the Dark ages!!!!
Drive your car that is coasting 1 USD/Liter, find your way in the busy streets, find an ATM machine, find a parking and inquire about your account. Then call back,, we are 24 x 7 service.

The Arab bank seems to be still living in the 60's when the streets were empty and used to take you at most 10 minutes to go from one side of Amman to the other... When parking was never an issue, when you had only one account (if any). When you could spare the entire day to visit the bank! and most importantly, when no body was constantly claiming that the investment climate in Jordan is advancing, when plans on top level are been made to encourage foreign investment.
This requires no Einstein to foresee, nor a noble prize winner to realize that, No Foreign Investment shall be seen, because as things stand, Local investment shall seize.

If Arab bank wants to dictate its regulation, this is absolutely fine with me, on one condition, not to expect us to be fortune tellers, but at least make the instructions clear

Finally, Arab bank does not really have to bother with this. Further discussion with Arab bank shall be to no avail. Arab bank has made a record 1 Billion USD in profit and can surely sustain business without the disarray that I m causing. The best solution is to close the account and cancel the Credit Card, I am sure it is an easier process that activating the damn credit card

Ammar Sajdi

Disconnected

this year, and in order to limit errands that i miss during traveling, i prepared a check list! when i pack, i just check it to make sure I put an end for the habbit of leaving things behind.

Well, It seems that i forgot to add my mobile on this list.
I came back from bahrain yesterday without my mobile. Where exactly it is, is something that remians to be found.

It feels good to be mobileless,, at least you get some privacy.. which makes me pose the following question

Were mobiles invented for the convenience of the mobile owner or for the convenience of others? In my case, i feel my mobile serves the others more than it serves me