Don’t Say Geek! Say Syntux!

I got my first ADSL back in 2001 and had 3gigs download cap and once you reach the cap they get you down to 64k speed instead of the 256k at that time.

With the promises and plans to make the Kingdom an IT rock star in Middle East we got the 1024k and 2048k ADSL but yet the download cap is ridicules, for 1024 you get 11gig of download and then they downgrade you to 128k and with 2048k you get 12gig (What an upgrade!) which means they are providing you with a faster mean to consume your cap, that’s it. To add salt to injury they offer no extra bandwidth plans and if they do then be sure it will cost you enormous amount of money.

This kind of restriction is pain and very unfair especially when we pay around $70 a month to get that capped ADSL.

Now with the information boom especially in the era of online videos and TVs; and podcasts you could consume your 10gig in a day watching Google I/O, Techtalks, Ubuntu Developer channel on youtube and many other technical video cast, not to mention the online TV shows or podcasts. This is unfair especially when you know that most of the capital Amman is covered with fiber and the Kingdom is being covered, so none of our ISPs nor Jordan Telecoms have an excuse for such restriction.

In the last two months we heard many rumors and got many insider about giant Internet companies considering the Kingdom as potential place for their regional business which supposedly should help in making the Kingdom a better Internet place.

NOTE: This post was blogged with 128k connection after bandwidth drop from 1024 due to the sin the author made which was watching Google I/O sessions and some other normal Internet activities.

Tags: 2048 adsl, capital amman, google, potential place, giant internet, internet place, internet companies, last two months, techtalk, regional business, 256k, amount of money, rock star, restriction, isps, excuse, tv shows, tvs, boom, promises

During my tech-life I had to deal with number of Web Hosting providers and truth to be said I have had extremely pleasant experience with many of them although I don’t use any but two of them now.

Truth to be said I picked them because they offered Debian based dedicated, VPS or shared, although on shared it doesn’t matter if it’s Debian or not but I’m so extreme when it comes to GNU/Linux.

LayeredTech.com: my first experience with them was when it was my task to hunt for a decent dedicated servers provider and since I was the administrator to be I picked them because they have a good reputation and they provide Debian and Ubuntu! my experience with them were so good, they are fantastic people although I don’t remember flagging any of our tickets to them as critical but their support was always fast, it’s worth mentioning that our machine with Layered Tech would have been running without the need to reboot for almost two years now but in real life we needed to reboot for kernel upgrades.

Linode.com: One of my freelance projects needed a decent hosting that is not as pricey as dedicated hosting and not as restricted as shared hosting so the decision was to go with VPS solution and again because the guys at linode.com have decent reputation I picked them and honestly never needed to contact them other than requesting upgrades and/or downgrades; our VPS account, seriously I have never had any problem with them not a single glitch.

Dreamhost.com I wonder who don’t know about Dreamhost.com, they are really good at least in the big picture of it, many of my personal small and petite projects are running on dreamhost and actually on the same account. Their accounts are highly flexible and you could use your account for various things starting from hosting your blog ending with setting up a VPN over your account or even running a personal Debian repository and again they run Debian. Although they get many glitches but they are so transparent about it and so quick in fixing them too considering the large setup they have.

One of my dreams other than studying at MIT which I cannot afford now is working in an internships with Dreamhost.com, it’s not a feasible dream, anyway.

If you have been into hosting business as in reselling or were hired as a system administrator then you would definitely value decent providers such as the mentioned above.

NOTE: Dreamhost link has a referral parameter, if you don’t like the idea just go to dreamhost.com

Tags: setting up a vpn, kernel upgrades, gnu linux, layeredtech, freelance projects, downgrades, dedicated servers, first experience, glitches, glitch, dreamhost, big picture, worth mentioning that, repository, good reputation, linux, truth, blog

Tags: application, cool, error, Web, error tags, application error, cool web, web application

Would you hate it if you knew that someone listening to your phone calls in the name of national security and war against terror ? do you think that they have time to listen to your girl friend flirting to you ?

I’m all with free software and open sourcing every single bit of software on this living earth and make it free too; but yet this doesn’t mean I will say that every single closed source application is evil nor be aware of X or Y closed source application unless I have a point that I can prove.

I do not mind my calls to be monitored as long as they do it under the name of security, I don’t want them to say Only if we were monitoring those bloody VOIP calls that shit wouldn’t happen if it’s for security then please go ahead, I don’t mind it, break my privacy please.

on the contrary I can’t really understand why they’re assuming that terrorists would coordinate their operations through Skype ? how about normal cell phones which is harder to trace especially when anyone can buy it with a fake ID?

I do love Ekiga and I respect Open Wengo but the matter fact I have single contact in my Ekiga account and never been able to register with Open Wengo.

On the other hand Gizmo has a competent voice quality and pricing and actually I do use it more than Skype for calling land and cell phones especially because it Gizmo is actually smoother than Skype on Nokia N800.

Skype is the most popular Internet telephony application with the largest network compared to Gizmo and Wengo and the cheapest one too and I can’t see any reason why one should stop using it especially when there is no better or same quality and pricing alternative to it and by the way you don’t use Skype just for internet telephony but text messaging too and I’d say (Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ) IM era has gone and I chat with almost all of my friends using Skype IM.

Maybe I should make it clear that I’m not defending Skype here as much as defending a good application, network and telephony pricing and be sure I’d do the funky chicken dance and upload it to youtube if we got a better open source alternative to Skype.

Tags: open wengo, internet telephony application, living earth, matter fact, war against terror, application network, nokia n800, source application, skype, voice quality, fake id, gizmo, girl friend, text messaging, national security, contrary, voip, terrorists, cell phones, nokia

The Unambiguous Information Society

Communicating your message unambiguously means it can only be understood one way. Whether speaking or writing, do your best to strive for clarity. Before you speak or write, examine the message closely for any ambiguities or potential holes that could lead to a misread. Obviously, you will not always have the luxury of self-examination before you speak or write, and in these instances repetition is the way to distil or parse the message to its essence. Repeat yourself, or ask repeatedly for clarification, until both parties get the point.

Distilling technical minutiae into clear, unequivocal language is a challenge for everyone on the team. Look at the following.

PROJECT MANAGER: Does the system only check user name and password for authentication?
DEVELOPER: E-mail is the unique identifier for authentication in the system.
PROJECT MANAGER: What about user name and password?
DEVELOPER: Yes. Those, too.
PROJECT MANAGER: So user name, password, and e-mail are all used for authentication?
DEVELOPER: No. Only e-mail.
PROJECT MANAGER: So a user can put in the wrong user name and password but use an e-mail address the system recognizes and get in?
DEVELOPER: Yes and no. A user can have multiple identities but only one e-mail address.
PROJECT MANAGER: So what you are saying is a user could enter any old user name and password along with an e-mail address the system will recognize and get in. Right?
DEVELOPER: Yes, the user can enter any login they want, but if the e-mail address is not in the database, they won’t get in. If the e-mail addresses match but not the user name or password, they will get a message saying the login is incorrect.
PROJECT MANAGER: So, then, they can’t get in?
DEVELOPER: They could if they enter a user name and password that matches what is stored in their profile.
PROJECT MANAGER: So, then, what you are saying is user name and password are not the only fields being checked for authentication?

DEVELOPER: Well, actually, yes, but technically, no.

PROJECT MANAGER: I’m going to shoot myself now. Care to join me?
DEVELOPER: Not today, thanks.

Source: Real Web Project Management: Case Studies and Best Practices from the Trenches by Thomas J. Shelford, Gregory A. Remillard

Tags: e mail address, mail project, unequivocal language, communicating your message, self examination, minutiae, ambiguities, red flag, information society, repetition, stakeholders, clarification, questions and answers, clarity, authentication, team members, instances, holes