25,000 views in just 80 days!
Woa! The blog's success has really taken me by surprise. Within days of publication of the blog, it got into the "fastest growing blog" list on Wordpress. It also once made it to the top 4 "Hotest Blogs", along with Scoblezier, and the Space Blog.
Within a month of the launch of this blog, I got my first digging, for the "Happy Birthday KDE" post, which resulted in 10,000+ views and 600+ new feed subscribers!
My second most popular article turned out to be "Top 10 firefox extensions" which has recieved 5,000+ views so far. Many people regularly find my blog through searches and many searches show my blog in the first position in google. My favorite one is: "hottest xxx vista", this blog is not at all pornographic, and I have no clue how someone can write this term and land in my blog!
The blog after 80 days of publication has some 29 posts, 123 comments and 87 SPAM comments which were caught by Akismet.
Some of my personal favorite posts which I enjoyed writing were:
How Hubble Killed God?? No It proved Him
Linux rises as a supercomputing OS, but faces hurdles in the Desktop
Why C has no place in Computer Science research
I came across this post, which highlights top 5 reasons why a developer should unlearn C. Given the past experience I had with realities of C development I mostly concur with the author.
In the last months I was deeply involved with building a resource broker component for the Grid Operating System project I am involved with. The biggest mistake I made initially was to go along with a C webservices framework, Apache Axis2/C thinking that in an OS level project most of the stuff should be in C due to speed and optimization reasons. This was a decision which cost us months! The original broker itself was developed pretty quickly, perhaps in 2 weeks, and we deveployed it in machines took results everything went fine. Now, when I upgraded the systems to Slackware 11.0, and then ran the broker, nothing will work! It will always segfault as soon as the service was started, I tried 20+ hrs session of debugging fixing the problem but to no avail. I traced the problem to the the framework in which it was built, Axis2/C and contacted a developer to seek some help, but the reply was that the framework was not stable for some platforms now and it will take some months for a stable version to be released. The latest release is Axis2/C 0.95.
Now there were two options, either I wait out till a stable version is released or I code it in another language. I couldn't wait months for it! Computing research is fast moving the ideas I implemented in the broker may be published by someone else by the time I get a stable C webservices framework. So I decided to code the thing in Python, and it has been a blast since! I completed the resource broker implementation in just 3 days, 8 days ahead of schedule. Due to university exams I have not gotten around to take results form it but the productivity gained by dynamic managed languages like Python has been amazing. Such languages would allow me and other members of the research group to code our ideas, implement them, and publish results for all to see. Languages like python if for anything, speed up the pace of Computer Science research.
But dynamic managed languages will never replace C/C++. OS Driver and kernels are written in it, there are some places where it will never be replaced! Python is good for a quick and dirty implementation which can be a prototype, but final products which are to be sold to customers etc. Should be in a compiled form, this is also essential of you have some intellectual property to protect. However in server hosted application, there is no reason not to use such languages.
Has AJAX killed Java Applets?
Java introduced the notion of Browser based applications, in the form of Java applets, which included nuances of feature rich desktop applications within a browser! It was a huge success and widely popular during the dot com bubble, but now I rarely hear about new nifty applets? Web Start gained some traction but the furor over it has died down. Rather another technology has taken the reigns now: AJAX, asynchronous Javascript and "XML". AJAX is the marriage of server side scripting languages such as perl or php and client side scripting language such as Javascript perhaps a little flash, imbued into HTML and some little XML or some other mechanism to transfer information, we get a powerful framework to create desktop-like applications on the browser! AJAX has taken computing by storm. The wave of AJAX based startups, acquisitions and mergers has already begun! Are we heading towards another bubble or is this one for real?
AJAX applications are a definite improvement over previous flickering page based applications, and what more, these applications are NOT memory savvy as Java applets used to be, and no runtime environment is required to run such applications, just a compatible, updated browser is enough. Nowadays many more innovative AJAX applications are being built than Java applets, and people are accepting AJAX more readily than ever. This year for the first time I heard people doing AJAX based undergraduate degree projects in Pakistan, there is talk in my research lab of developing AJAX based intefaces to some of the distributed applications developed here. Not long ago, browser based application used to be the exclusive domain of Flash and Java Applets.
So what was wrong with Applets? I don't need to list any reasons, you can check out this poll which was conducted in Java.net, the official Java forums, and complaints ranged from: Too hard to deploy to to slow in loading!
So we can safely say that AJAX has killed Java applets, a significant portion of standard Java.
From Google Trends we can see how much interest people have in the three technologies, Java Applets, Webstart and AJAX, and compare the news reference volume certainly AJAX has ruled the headlines in recent months and years.
As wireless connectivity expands and gets increasingly cheaper, more and more mobile devices will get connected, once this happens the future of J2ME would look bleak. I personally have started using AJAX based services like Airset.com, which provides an intuitive calendar solution that helps you also to remain in touch with your friends and family. The built- in calendar program which came with the PDA, was developed in J2ME and it lacked a lot functionality, and I found it a bit clunky to use. Another drawback of J2ME applications which you won't find in AJAX applications is the mutual incompatibilities between mobile devices. Like I can purchase a game from the internet designed for Symbian mobiles, but when I try to run it in a cellphone using symbian it won't run! After a little bit of investigation it turns out that the game supports Nokia symbian mobiles, and some certain sets NOT Motorola ones, like wise try running a J2ME game for the Motorola E680i on a Nokia N92 it wont work!
The greatest impediment to AJAX of course is the lack of connectivity, once connectivity is seamless and universal, than people will stop using native applications like the one developed in J2ME and start using AJAX ones.
One complaint I have about AJAX services is that many of them run poorly on cellphone/PDAs, this is certainly not a problem with AJAX itself, because services such as Gmail and Airset.com, prove that AJAX can run on supported browsers on mobile devices if the service is well developed.
How Hubble Killed God?? No it proved Him!
First of all this is hardly the type of post I write in my blog, which are mostly technical and technology oriented, but today on Wordpress this particular article "How Hubble Killed God" became popular and I think it could decieve people, so I decided to write a counter-article saying how it infact proved that He exists.
The Hubble Telescope, is named after Edwin Hubble, the american astronomer who proved the redshifting of galaxies far far away. White Light as we know it is a mixture of colors, a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we humans can see, if an object is moving away from an observer the light which comes from that objects directions increases in wavelength, and thus the frequency is reduced thus light shifts towards the red side of the spectrum. Hubble proved that the light from the galaxies was redshifted which means they were moving away, this led credence to the "Big Bang" theory, which replaced the Steady State theory of the 1800s. Observations from the Hubble telescope further proved the red-shifting, and thus the Big Bang theory is the established theory of the Universe now.
But wait! Is it really new? The Holy Quran, the holiest Book of Islam, which is the Word of God, and was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), in around 600 AD in 20+ years says:
"Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were a closed-up mass (ratqan), then We clove them asunder (fataqna)? And We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?"
Now we know from Einstein that Mass and Energy are interchangeable from his famous E=mc^2 Equation so that closed up mass the Holy Quran mentions could be the energy from which the universe was created. Indeed modern cosmologists believe that it is the colliding of matter and anti matter which could have produced the gigantic energies to create the universe. So the the above verse from the Holy Quran clearly proves that Universe indeed started with a Bang, call it the Big Bang. This was in 600s AD . It was not untill early 1900s some 1300 years later that people realized that the Quran was right.
The Quran also supports the redshifting theory of Hubble in :
"And the heaven We built with Our own powers (aydin) and indeed We go on expanding it (musi'un)."
The Hubble Telescope has been credited with finding Black holes. Many scientists doubt that such a thing exists, but there should be no doubt, as the Quran mentions it.The Holy Quran also proves the existence of Black Holes, which have preoccupied cosmologists during the last decades:
"Remember the day when We shall roll up the heavens like the rolling up of written scrolls .."
Cosmologists speculate that a mass of accretion from space falling into a black hole, as described above, would be pressed into a sheet under the enormous pressure created by the gravitational and electromagnetic forces. As the centre of the black hole is constantly revolving around itself, the singularity, this sheet—as it approaches—will begin to be wrapped around it, before disappearing into the realm of the unknown.
Now to the original article, at one point the author says
" If God or Allah created all of this, He did so an incredibly long time ago. If Man is the reason for Creation, why has intelligent Man’s existence only been for the last few thousand years? If Time since creation was a kilometre long piece of rope, intelligent Man is represented only by the last half-CENTIMETRE. If Man is the purpose of creation, why did it take so long to create Man? "
Man certainly was NOT the reason for Creation of the Universe according to the Holy Quran, so again if the author believes that the Universe according to observed evidence is soo old, and the earth so young, God must not exist??? Wait a second!
The Quran narrates the story of the apple which got Prophet Adam and Eve thrown out of Heaven onto the Earth,
" Remember when your Lord said to the angels: 'Verily, I am going to place mankind generations after generations on earth.' They said: 'Will You place therein those who will make mischief therein and shed blood, while we glorify You with praises and thanks (exalted be You above all that they associate with You as partners) and sanctify You.' Allah said: 'I know that which you do not know.'"
So the above verse from the Holy Quran, shows that Earth existed before God created Adam, which means that the Earth and the Universe are supposed to be older than Humanity! One interesting fact is that, I heard from a renowned Islamic Scholar, is that the Earth was already inhabited when Prophet Adam was sent to it. It was inhabited by a species called the "Jinn", which are creatures made from fire. They still exist today, people may find it incredible, but I'm sure some scientists will prove that they indeed exist.
I could write on and on about this, but it should be clear to anyone, that if anything Hubble has proved is that God exists, and it has proved that the Holy Quran is indeed His word. And it should be clear to anyone that atleast in Islam there is NO clash between science and Religion! It is just so sad to see, that Muslims are not in the forefront of research and scientific progress, this is primarily due to lack of education, most, nearly all I think muslim countries have very high illitracy rates! Even in Pakistan, people just read the Holy Quran, and they dont understand a word in it, because it is in Arabic, although localized translations exist very few have access to it. Because of the illitracy people tend to be gullible and easily believe rogue mullah who twist the teachings of Islam, this has led to things like Al-Qaeda which use religion for primarily political aims! Had there been more education and more awareness I think Al-Qaeda would be non-existant and the only place where the Muslims would be competing with the rest of the world would be in scientific progress.
WiFi hazardous to health?? Give me a break!
I just came across this news item which claimed that UK Schools were dismantling wireless networks for fear of health risks! From the original article:
"Parents and teachers are forcing some schools to dismantle wireless computer networks amid fears that they could damage children’s health.
More schools are putting transmitters in classrooms to give pupils wireless access from laptops to the school computer network and the internet. But many parents and some scientists fear that low levels of microwave radiation emitted by the transmitters could be harmful, causing loss of concentration, headaches, fatigue, memory and behavioural problems and possibly cancer in the long term. "
This is absurd! WiFi operates on the Radio band at 2.4 Ghz or 2.5 Ghz (on some versions), this puts WiFi on the Ultra High Frequency Spectrum (300Mhz to 3 Ghz) , this is the same spectrum which is used by television broadcasts, mobile phones, Bluetooth, and Two-Way Radios. If WiFi is hazardous to health, than why not ban TV channels and cell phones along with them??? TV certainly has been round for decades, have we seen any research which relates the mentioned illnesses to TV broadcast radiation, I certainly haven't. Besides the Sun generates tons of high frequency radiation which bombards the planets around it, including the earth. I have seen research related to ultra violet radiation, which has magnitudes more frequency and shorter wavelength than UHF Radio, causing skin cancers, but nothing related to radio radiation.
I'm not saying that WiFi is "completely" safe, because frankly it is hard to prove that _anything_ is safe! But from the widespread use of the same frequency band over decades one can deduce that it is quite safe. Here is a quote from the WLAN health safety FAQ released by the WiFi alliance, in mid 2005:
"The safety of radio waves has been extensively studied for more than 50 years. This large and growing body of research has been regularly reviewed by numerous independent scientific expert panels, government agencies, standard-setting organizations and health authorities from around the world. These organizations have reached the same general scientific
conclusion: there is no established evidence of any adverse health effects from exposure to radio waves when present at or below the recommended limits applied to wireless communications systems. "
Firefox 2’s Memory Management problems
I love Firefox! When Firefox 2 came out I loved its enhancements and wrote a rave about it! But now I'm considering the prospect of downgrading to Firefox 1.5 in my Windows XP installation on my Dell Inspiron 6400 notebook. Firefox2 takes an atrocious amount of memory, for example right now I have just 3 tabs open, and Firefox is taking 74MB of RAM:
I've seen Firefox using upwards of 140MB for less than 6 tabs in the past. Although my notebook has enough memory to spare but this is unacceptable, I really hope that Mozilla fixes these memory leak problems, otherwise reverse migrations to IE could be possible and the growth of Firefox could be stopped in its tracks. Initially when Firefox2 was released, I tested it on a Linux machine and the memory footprint was really small and I was over joyed! But now I'm disappointed! The problem is not uncommon, this guys here faces a 375MB hog, and here is a comparison between Firefox2 and IE memory usage, in which Firefox2 is clearly 'ahead' in consuming memory
Poor memory management plagues many open source projects: OpenOffice, KDE and Eclipse come to my mind. Wasn't it a hallmark feature of open source software to run on older hardware? What ever happened to the hacker ethic of squeezing every ounce of performance from a machine by building efficient software?
Where Digg can never beat Slashdot
Like many techies in the world, I have been a regular Slashdot reader, and when Digg came around, I was initially attracted by its free-for-all-to-submit notion. A regular grudge in Slashdot has been that the moderators end up rejecting some good stories so this could not happen on Digg. Very soon Digg became very popular, it gained mainstream media attention like in CNN Business 2.0 "10 people who dont matter", Slashdots moderator Rob Malda was mentioned because Slashdot "was no match for the power of the multitudes". This was followed by the reports that Digg had surpassed Slashdot in number of visitors. , and many predicted the demise of Slashdot if it did not change towards a more open moderation system. Now, fortunately, that didn't happen, and as it turns out Digg has failed me and many techies I know who enjoy Slashdot, but not Digg! These are my presonal reasons why Digg can never replace Slashdot for me:
1. Digg is full of garbage! Just go to the main page and you'll see all sorts of gossip/political stuff and rumors being digged by people, and what 'sensible posts' there are if you follow the discussion you will find that most people don't have a clue as to what they are talking about. Slashdot is also susceptible to this, however to a lesser degree as the most lame stories get rejected by expert moderators slashdot has! Slashdot's moderation system can be likened to a "benevolent dictatorship" where the moderators who are adept in their fields approve or reject stories which in their opinion are worth approving or rejecting! Nothing like this happens in Digg, hence Digg is flooded with lame submissions! However the idea behind Digg was that the masses will separate the chaff from the grain, however that doesn't seem to be working, because majority of the masses are NOT geeks, they like gossip, political stuff hence most of these stories make it to the front page. Even the technology section in Digg is full of gossip, minor software releases etc, every single package added to Ubuntu is digged! Hence Digg is a good place if you want to waste your time!
2. Although in Digg I'm able to find stories before they land on Slashdot, but in Slashdot, I find that the level of discourse is generally higher than on Digg. Discussion are generally deeper and more informative. There have been numerous discussions where I said to myself "man this was good, I better del.icio.us it", but in Digg I have yet not come across a discussion where I said this to myself.
Digg certainly has more diverse material and is only good if you want to skim through some news very quickly without having discussion about any, Slashdot is a place where news is discussed in depth, and you certainly want to have a closer look at the submissions.
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