As you all know it’s one of my most important dreams to work for the search engine giant “Google”, although it’s very difficult to get a job at Google, I’ll keep preparing and waiting for the right moment to apply…

The lesson every company should learn from Google is the comfortable work environment that attracts the engineers around the world. But Why?

For example, in Egypt we have a very small number of skilled computer engineer and a huge number of clumsy/lazy/unskilled engineers. but in contrary there are a high number of opportunities for really skilled engineers. so what’s wrong with that? isn’t this good for skilled guys?

Yes it’s, but the problem is that as soon as you start working for a company you discover that they want to consume what you know and they are afraid of letting you know more or get educated because you might leave any moment, as instead of attracting you to stay in the company or providing a very comfortable workplace with challenging problems and interesting meetings, they prevent you from learning and they don’t want to spend a penny on you!

The lesson we all should learn from Google is that when engineers are happy they can produce more and be more and more loyal to the company, thus thinking about building a long and successful careers in the same company rather than moving to another place.

Google is best for me because it will use all of my talents, I would produce more output efficiently, and I will be able to write code that would affect the whole world…

I didn’t find a company in egypt yet that focuses on its engineers much, I didn’t find a company that really focuses on how to make people happy and enjoying what they do. Most of companies are focusing on customer satisfaction but not employees satisfaction!

So, it’s very important these days for companies to do their best to keep the good engineers from leaving and to provide the most comfortable and challenging work environment…

I’ve a local home server that works as a local RAID storage with some virtual machines that serve different services to me and to some friends. The most known service to most of you is the XMPP service for chat.cat-hackers.net that enables all the H4ck3rZ Foundation members to communicate in an efficient way.

Another thing is that this server hold all of my important data that represents my own work throughout the years, so it’s very important to keep them secure and safe. I’d a bad experience of losing a 2.5GB harddrive that had all of my programming work. That experience taught me how to spend more money to keep your data safe and secure.

So I got an external 500GB USB hard drive to have it mainly as a backup drive for my 500GB RAID local home server, and as you can see it’s 500GB too, so I can’t do incremental backups on that disk because it too small for such a plan, so I decided to rsync the data on the storage server to the USB hard drive and I wrote a nice script that does some smart stuff….

Let’s post the script first then I’ll describe more about it.. Read the rest of this entry »

In my preparation plan for a very imporant job role I’m applying to these days, I have C and C++ revision in it.

I’d an interview a couple of days ago in C++ and it turned out that I don’t remember almost anything! that’s because the last time I used C++ intensively were on 2001 when I worked on Al Natoor and 7ares applications based on MFC and VC++ 6.0.

Since then I used C++ lightly and what I do remember much more is C and specially GNU C, anyway it seems that I’m getting back to the low-level programming again after spending some time doing high-level coding using .NET and J2EE.

Two years ago I launched exciting courses that I loved and I wanted to use them intensively but I didn’t have the change to even develop myself in. Those courses were “The Linux Kernel Internals”, “Linux Programming Essentials” and “Device Drivers Programming”, they gave me a very very good deep introduction about the kernel internals and at then I would speak the kernel language, but now I forgot most of stuff.

I believe I’ve a very bad memory, but what I’m good at is finding the right information in the most efficient way, so I don’t take much time getting a piece of information back. I’m trying now to revive those experiences and try to prove that I was C/C++ expert in a very very short time. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to do that or not, but I’ll give it a try anyway.

When I started revision yesterday I discovered how bad I was in the last interview!, If I were in place of the interviewer I’d say (The interviewer) that I suck!

Let’s hope the second international interview would be better

I’ve been doing some self improvements lately and I’m still working on it. It’s all about technical stuff and new/old things I wanted to read or to do.

That made me wonder, how would I look like after unleashing all those technical stuff I’m reading? Would it be really useful or I will forget them as soon as I get involved in another different thing at work?

I really need to unleash my internal new powers and it should be reflected on my work very soon, I also intended to do more to the community and I think I’ll start by a simple framework that utilizes my knowledge and capabilities in the most efficient way.

It won’t be big but it’ll be efficient and I’ll do my best to learn how to write efficient code at this project.

The project is called “solcounter”, it stands for “Soliman’s Accountant”. It’s about packets accounting and graphing, it’ll be used to select certain packets based on a user-defined criteria and perform an accounting stuff to it using hashmaps in the most efficient way available. I’ll implement the hashmap algorithm myself and use libpcap library to do the capture.

The project also will use the RRD (Round Robin Database) to store the accounting information that you can use them to draw nice graphic charts.

I’ve written some code, but it’s not published yet. The project URL is http://code.google.com/p/solcounter/

So wait for a brand new ahmed within the coming months, you will notice great difference isA, trying to prove the I’m trying to become different.

I know that this topic might look weird, that’s because it is.

While exploring new programming languages and frameworks I discovered a really important rule, that efficiency is the main thing that really matters, not speed. Let me tell you the complete story.

For the last year I spent too much time studying my programming performance and how can I finish tasks as fast as possible with maximum output performance possible. I thought that I’m slow and my programming speed is getting slower and slower while I see people finish complete applications in half the time I spent writing something. so I quickly started to search for new technologies for agile development and I found really great things, things like “Ruby On Rails”, “Django”, “GWT”, “ExtJS” and many many web development frameworks for agile development.

I quickly read about Ruby On Rails and I became a fan of it, also I wrote a project using GWT-Ext “Java” and wrote some samples using Django. They were/are great.

I’ve always had a philosophy regarding programming performance, that it is speed is very important, because time is money and when you spend more time writing code you are spending more time. That’s why using such frameworks is very nice.

But after sometime I discovered that I write code efficiently not fast!, how is that?

Efficiency is the output compared to the input, and for constant input increasing output increases efficiency proportionally, but if we are decreasing input that would enhance the efficiency more.

Writing code fast is a very nice thing and would greatly help, but writing a well-thought code slowly is more efficient because you generally write less code and you decrease the potentials design-errors you might see later on. so the best thing is to control both, try to increase the output as you can and decrease the input as you can without sacrificing output quality.

In programming this can happen if you have learned the programming basics correctly, things like Algorithms and data structures can really help you write more efficient and error-calculated code. you would write great code in much less time that can perform better. Thus increasing your programming efficiency.

So the result is the efficiency is what matters most. Not speed, it’s OK if you are slow programmer but make sure that you write code efficiently because that will make your final performance better.

Increase your efficiency by reading more about academic programming basics and performance-tuning books so you can think more efficient and use inputs more efficiently and generating high output.

حاجة مالهاش علاقة بالموضوع خالص بس متغاظ منها قوي، كوكاكولا عاملة سلسلة اعلانات عن كوكاكولا زيرو و بتقول كوكاكولا عملت المستحيل و انت كمان ممكن تعمل المستحيل

انا عايز اقول ان لو حد عمل المستحيل يبقي هو مش جامد او اي حاجة، كل ما في الأمر ان الموضوع ما طلعش مستحيل و لا حاجة، لأن المستحيل هو الشئ اللي محدش يقدر يعملو و لو حد عملو يبقى مش مستحيل من اساسة، صح؟

it’s now four days since I got my new MacBook “white” after more than 2 months reading and searching to get convinced enough to do that move, and pew I did it

Let’s start with the hardware specifications, it has 13.3″ widescreen with (LED backlight technology) this extra-awesome hyper saturated colors. (I read a few articles about LED backlighting and it differs from the old CCFL screens, you can read more about that here http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/06/macbook-pro-backlight-comparison-led-vs-ccfl/ ). And it has an Intel 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo processor with 4 megabytes L3 cache, 160GB 5400RPM SATA (low-noise) disk, 2.27kg weight, 5 hours-long battery and Airport Wireless card that supports 802.11n technology with awesome reception accuracy and iSight camera.

It’s a whole new world for me, so expect the next few posts will be about it.

The most astonishing thing for now is the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard 64bit, AWESOME operating system, and I can really understand now why apple always said that it’s the most advanced operating system in the world, they are right, it’s. it’s a very well designed for a great user experience and you’ll see many snapshots in the next few posts and well. it has more than 300 new features over the previous version “Tiger 10.4″ and the main thing you’ll notice about mac is that it’s a REAL FAST.

The great news is that most of the well known and famous applications I needed are available for mac, like microsoft office and it’s open source clone open office, adobe creative suite 3, yahoo messenger, MSN messenger and iChat works as an awesome jabber chat client.

I don’t have much time now, but the first thing I’m so happy about is that I chose The white model. That’s because the surface is very finger-print catching and can be easily scratched, but happily the white color hides most of it.

Here is a photo I took using the iSight camera with background replacement effect

edit: added some screenshots

طبعاً انا ماليش في السياسة و مبحبش اتكلم فيها عشان كلها مشاكل و عشان كدة انا مش هدخل في التفاصيل السياسة للموضوع . الموضوع هو المحلة الكبرى واللي عشت فيها سنين طويلة و كان فيها اجمل ايام حياتي و كمان متجوز منها

لمجموعة اسباب متعددة انتشرت فكرة اضراب يوم 6 ابريل في مصر كلها في اشكال متعددة و على الرغم من ان محدش كان عارف هو جاي منين بس ناس كتير جداً شجعتة و قالت “و ماله، اهو حاجة الواحد يحس بيها انو مش سلبي” و انا فكرت كتير و قررت اخد اليوم ده اجازة و اقضيه في المحلة

طبعاً من الصبح و انا عمال متابع الجزيرة عايز اعرف اي اخبار عن الاضراب و هل فعلاً البلد سمعت الكلام و عملت اضراب و لا الناس كالعادة خافت من الحكومة؟ لقيت الأعلام نكتة - الأعلام المصري بيقولك كله تمام و زي الفل و القلة القليلة اللي عملت اضراب لا تمثل قوي الشعب و الباقي بيقولك ان البلد فعلاً كانت فاضية و محدش راح غير موظفين الحكومة لقلة حيلتهم

المهم بدأت احس بتوتر في المدينة و لقيت الناس بتجري في الشوارع و انا كنت عايز اسافر ف مشيت من خلال الطريق الدائري الساعة 5 يعني تقريباً بعد اشتعال الحرب بين الشعب و الحكومة، و من ساعتها و انا متابع كل الاخبار في كل الصحف و وكالات الأخبار العالمية عشان اعرف اللي بيحصل و خصوصاً برنامج عمرو اديب اللي كان اكتر من رائع من حيث التغطية

الواقع بقة ان انا اتكونت عندي صورة من خلال الأعلام ان المحلة بقت خرابة و ان البلطجية كسروا البلد و محلات البفل كلها اتكسرت و و بدأ يبقى عندي شعور ان البلد مش امان و ان بعد كدة الواحد يمشي بمسدس في جيبوا خوفاً من البلطجية اللي الكميات اللي مشوفتش زيها في حياتي من الأمن المركزي مش قادر عليها

لكن الحقيقة لما نزلت الويك اند ده لقيت البلد عادية جداً و الناس عايشا حياة اكتر من طبيعية، كل اللي مش طبيعي هو وجود كميات مهولة من الامن المركزي في الشوارع و كأن امريكا احتلت البلد و كمان البغل شغال زي الفل يادوب جزء من القزاز مكسور بس مظبط نفسة و حاطط انوار و دلع! و الغريبة اكتر كلام عموم الناس و اللي سمعتوا من اكتر من واحد و منهم ناس بثق فيهم جدا

الناس بتقول الآتي:

اللي حصل في الحقيقة اكتر كتييييير من اللي ظهر في التلفزيون و الضرب كان للركب، و الكلام اللي بيتقال ان عدد المصابين اكتر كتير قوي من اللي بيتقال

اللي بدأ بالشغب هوا الأمن و الناس كانت ماشية في حالها لكن الأمن بدأ بضرب الرصاص المطاطي على طول بعد ما عدد الناس كتر و ده اللي استفز الناس و طبعا البلطجية مقدروش يسكتوا و اشتغلوا في الهيصة

اللي أغرب بقة ان كل الناس مبسوطة و ده بقة اللي فعلا مدهش، الناس مبسوطة ان الضباط اتضربت و ان صورة الرئيس اتقطعت و لا كأن العلم الأسرائيلي هو اللي بيتقطع

اللي واضح جداً و مش محتاج اي ذكاء ان الأمن كان مش قادر على العيال دي او حسب رأي ناس تانية بتقول انة كان سايبهم عشان الناس بعد كده متفكرش تعمل اضراب او اي مظاهرات و كلة يقوللك شفت المظاهرات عملت ايه في البلد. و اللي واضح برضو ان الناس جابت اخرها و انا لو من الحكومة ابدأ افكر في الشغلانة اللي هاشتغلها بعد من الناس تنفجر و يشيلوا الكل من الكراسي أو يصلحوا مع الشعب و لو ان ده صعب عشان الناس مش متقبلة ده

ده انا هاقوللوكم قصة غريبة عشان تعرفوا ان الكل مهموم، انا بعد معرفت تفاصيل قانون الضرائب العقارية المقترح حلمت بأن الحكومة هتاخد 10 جنية و 30 قرش على كل صلاة نصليها، و طبعا انا مش عارف سر ال 30 قرش دول بس ده اللي حصل

يعني الموضوع وصل للأحلام بليل و الواحد على الرغم من انه الحمد لله دخله كويس لكن برضو حاسس بالضيق

ربنا يفرجها

ملحوظة: انا مش بعارض و لا بأيد الأضراب و الموضوع كله بعيد عن وجهه نظري الشخصية، الموضوع كله عبارة عن سرد للي سمعتة من الناس و مختلف وجهات النظر المطروحة، يعني انا مش بشجع على الأضراب و لا حاجة عشان الناس ماتفهمش غلط

السلام عليكم جميعا…

دا أول بوست لي أكتبه من بيت الزوجية

انا و أحمد اتجوزنا يوم الخميس 31 يناير 2008 , والحمد لله كانت ليلة جميلة جدا عقبالكم جميعا ان شاء الله

بعد الفرح سافرنا يوم الجمعة للغردقة و قضينا هناك يومين بس اييهه دلع دلع على الآخر

الفندق كان وهمي ماشاء الله و تحس ان هم مش وراهم حاجه هناك غير انهم يضحكم في وشك و يريحوك

الغردقة مدينة جميلة للاستجمام فعلا, لكن اللي كانت ممتعة جدا بجد هى شرم الشيخ

سافرناها يوم الأحد ورجعنا الخميس

شرم بقى مدينة جمييييلة جدااااا فى شوارعها وخضرتها و فسحها

بس لو سألتم أحمد هيقولكم ان أجمل حاجه شرم هي الروسيين وانه كان نفسه يروح شرم مرة قبل الجواز رغم اني والله كنت سايباه براحته

اصل هناك مفيش مكان تقدر تغض فيه بصرك والاظرف ان احنا كنا الفرجة بتوعهم يعني خلال الاسبوع ماشفناش اكتر من 3 أسر مصريه والباقى ربنا يسهلهم بقى

هناك رحنا سفارى و كانت جامدددةة و عملنا

snorkling

أو بمعنى أصح أحمد بس اللي عمل وانا فرجت عليا الأجانب عشان مش بعرف أعوم وجالي حالة ذعر لما نزلت المية لدرجة انى كنت هغرق أحمد معايا

المهم رجعنا الحمد لله يوم الخميس على بيت الأسرة في المحلة عشان نقضي اسبوع معاهم والحمد لله رجعنا امبارح لشقتنا في القاهرة والنهاردة يعتبر عمليا أول يوم أتولى فيه زمام الأمور في بيت الزوجية

يعني من الأخر بدأت أطبخ واغسل , و دعواتكم بقى

انشاء الله احنا طالعين رحلة الكات يوم الجمعة 22 فبراير اللي هتروح دريم بارك

انا المرة الوحيدة اللي رحت فيها دريم بارك كنت في تانية ثانوي وكانت أول مرة أشوف أحمد واتكلم معاه

واديني بعد 9 سنين هروحها تاني وانا معاه بعد ما ربنا اكرمني و حققلي حلم عمري و هو اني أعيش بقيت عمري معاه

ربنا يخليهولي يا رب دايما

عقبالكم جميعا يا رب

It’s 11:00 pm now, it’s only one hour till midnight which will start a brand new year 2008

so, Happy new year to all of you,

and let us all wish that this coming year will be a better, blessing year, full of joy, happiness and great achievements isA.

as for me, the past year 2007 was a move point for me, may be i didn’t make or reach huge goals, but during it, a huge change in me personal and in my life in general has happened.

joining MCIT was one of those changes,  AND i got married to ahmed (half married ya3ni ) and this was the greatest thing ever for me.

so, i thank ALLAH for everything he gave me in this year, and the whole passing years, and wish the best for the comings isA.

any way, it’s not only about the new year, but it’s Ahmed’s birthday, which i wait from year to year, to celebrate it with him, i love birthdays

I wish him, a very happy and delighted birthday, and i pray for him every second, to find the right way he seeks and reach the perfect decision in his career YA RAB.

we yarab all the coming birthdays to be better and better as we’ll be together isa

so… Happy birthday My loving husband and thank you for everything you gave me, truly you light up my life

and happy new year for all of u

This topic isn’t related to CAT series, it’s about me (directly me).

Guys, I’m really having hard times deciding whether I should resume my career life as a developer mainly or administrator. It’s really a hard choice and if you saw my “Resume” in the about section you’ll somehow understand why I’m confused about it.

My past experience and knowledge are hybrid between development (high-level and low-level), systems administration (Linux mainly) and Software Engineering/Architecture.

I always thought that it’s good to be a “joker” that can fit anywhere in the business market but nowadays I feel wrong, I need to focus on one thing, ONLY one because of the business requirements you must be devoted to one topic. Thank Allah that I’m not lost between different areas of science, but I’m lost between several field in IT.

My ultimate dream is to work as low-level systems programmer (kernel, drivers) and/or software architecture that works at awesome company like “Google” or “Sun Microsystems” (while I like google more ).

Maybe soon I’ll start my first step and it’ll be announced publicly as part of my plan to go to google or any interesting company.

Please share my with ideas, suggestions and if you can find a good mentor for me please advice….