You be the judge – am I really weird?

As some of you may know how bad my tonsils are and I am always bit too careful about them, but anyway, so today everyone in my family was having an ice cream at Gelato and they kept asking me, and as usual I was reluctant because of my tonsils. But after looking at those juicy delicious ice creams I started to crave, and so I ordered.

“Can I have a scoop of Tiramisu and Strawberry”? I asked after a tough decision, all of them looked equally luscious.
“You want Tiramisu and Strawberry together?” the guy on counter asked me surprisingly
“Yes – something wrong with it?” I had no idea what was wrong with my choice of ice cream.
“No.” Said the guy with smile “I have never heard anyone asking for such a strange combination” and I could see he was genuinely surprised on my choice, he even mentioned it to his colleague.

I shrugged.

PS: I don’t regret my decision, it was delicious.

Things you can do as a lecturer.

The list is random, in no particular order.

• Take multiple naps between lecturers (I know some lecturers do during the classes too but I assure you I am not one of them.)

• Whenever there is a books, technology, educational exhibitions/seminars etc you have a good excuse to cancel the classes and attend exhibitions/seminars, since they upgrade you. (or give you a chance to go away, have good food somewhere, enjoy the day off, and in evening just report back how hectic the day was)
  

• If you don’t have a class you can leave the office, go for shopping, or even a movie. And if (Just in case) – your boss calls you and asks where you are, you can always tell him busy doing some research for next semester’s course you will be teaching.

• You can always Bu!!$hi* around as if you are a big intellectual and know every little detail of things you have never even heard of, and people will believe you. (or at-least pretend they did)

• You get a good sense of being respected and self satisfaction that you are molding young minds, doing something good for the community. (or completely opposite one, that you are ruining them)
  

• You can play Facebook, Tagged, Friendster etc and call it online research about social science and computing.

• When you are bored to death and feeling drowsy you can write a completely idiotic blog post (like this one) and post it on your blog.

• Last but not the least, after posting it, you can keep clicking the refresh button to check if there are any comments.

Okay, I gotta go now, I have a class in few minutes, but I will be back to check if there are some comments.

PS: This post was posted during the height of boredom and drowsiness.

IT Comics

From different emails and posting I have compiled my list of favorite IT related comics, specially software and programming related. As a Developer you can relate to them, here is the list according to my liking.

Enjoy.



#6

Some of you might not agree with half of it, but the other half is completely true. It is worth a look.




#5

Haha!!... I have actually seen it happening




#4

Almost all of us have used similar excuse ;)




#3

I like this one, sometimes this is how we fix the bugs as well ;)




#2

It is so frustrating when your clients have no clue why they need software; the common perception is “Software will solve all problems” lol. And trust me, when you are trying to analyze the requirements they treat you as an stupid who don’t know the basic things hehe.






#1

If you ever end up fixing others code this is exactly what happens

And I wrote again

...and deleted it.

I guess, even after 4 years as a blogger there are many things I can not write about.

Do I want to?... I don’t know. Maybe.
Should I?... I don’t know.
Will I?... Maybe not.

I classify myself as very private person.

Perhaps some things/thoughts/feelings are meant to be private.

Frustrated

I took around 50+ photos today in a bowling alley.

Moments ago, I connected my phone to my PC to transfer the files and it did it again, memory card corrupted - all photos gone.

*Scream*

I saw the dead bodies

The first time I saw the dead bodies floating on the river I was shocked. I can not explain in words my feelings, I think I didn’t felt anything; my mind was halted in that particular moment unable to think or move forward.

But people around me in the train seemed so normal, as if it was nothing at all. Me… I kept staring out of window, on the surface of river and the disturbing images of dead bodies kept coming. One after another, I couldn’t count them all, after a while I stopped trying, but I kept looking.

No matter how wrong the things or events might be, but once it becomes your routine you are no longer effected, I think that’s what happened to people in the train, and I was afraid, the same thing might happen to me. And it did.

Today, when I saw those dead bodies again, I was no longer shocked, I didn’t give much care either, but I still wonder… I wonder why those fishes died anyway, is the water really that dirty and poisonous?

Blue screen of death

And so my day was spent in fixing the blue screen of death (if you don’t know what it is, go Google it). I didn’t really had a relaxing sleep (although I was sleeping the whole day) but there are some apartments near my condominium and almost every weekend there is some sort of a function, and they spoil others peace, with loud music etc.

Anyway, when I woke up (and I didn’t feel fresh because of all that noise they call music) my Mom told me she couldn’t use the PC because it’s not working. Upon inspection I encountered the blue screen of death. I tried to boot the computer in safe mode, with last known good configuration, I disabled the onboard cache and finally I unplugged all the peripherals attached to my PC but all in vain. I was concerned because a lot of data is in that PC which I haven’t transferred to my new one yet. Finally I had no choice but to rerun the setup again.

It’s up again and now I am again going to be lazy and I won’t transfer the important data. Oh and there were other things I wanted to write, but I don’t remember.

Alas, its 4:35 AM and I have to wake up again in 2 hours for work. I am not a big fan of Mondays.

Presentation skills – what I expect.

Almost a year ago, during ET (Emerging Technologies) presentations I really felt this writing was necessary. But because of busy schedule and other constraints I never completed it. Recently after Sunny’s post here, I decided to rewrite and post it.

Though Sunny’s post is thorough on the subject I would like to add what I expect specially if it’s a technical presentation and as a critic attendee. I feel I must remind all those students who presented their research work in ET, if it would have been my decision almost all of you failed. The only reason you passed was a lenient management policy of not to fail anyone unless absolutely necessary.

Pardon any inconsistency in the post because half of the things written here were written almost a year ago.



Dress well

It is not just the topic you present, you present yourself. If you don’t look good, your presentation doesn’t look good too. When I say dress well I don’t mean dress expensive or wear designer cloths, but something decent and appropriate.


Communicate

Presentation is communication; it is not just plain radio. Communicate with your audience using your gestures, body language, eye contact and voice. Be friendly, give away some smiles, and interact with them.


Body language.

Your audience not only listens to you, they watch you as well. And like the phrase goes, a picture is worth thousand words. What they see gives a far stronger impression than what you have to say. Studies show 55% of communication is done by the body language. If you look annoyed or uninterested for your presentation do you think you will convince anyone else to be interested in? Think about it, here are some suggestions.

• We often do things we shouldn’t be doing during presentation and some time we don’t even realize we are doing it because those are part of our personality – our habits. For example putting both hands in your pockets for too long or setting your hair with your hand. I always suggest to rehearse in front of mirror, so you can see what your audience will see. If you don’t like what you see in the mirror, chances are, others won’t too. You can also try recording yourself.

• Smile is a powerful tool. It gives a message of friendliness, ease and comfort. Use it. (Not a chuckle or laughter)

• Use your eye contact to regulate the flow of communication. Remember you present to audience and not the computer, wall, objects etc. Don’t keep your gazes to one person for too long as well, every one is equally important.

• Use the correct gestures, be lively.

Voice Command

• Like I mentioned 55% of communication depends on body language, your actual words that you use have only 7% impact. 38% is your tone, I can tell you, you are an idiot and stupid and you will smile or I can make you angry saying the exact same words, using different tone and body language. You can emphasize on important points, tell how serious the matter is all by your tone. Vary your tone, depending on the importance of what you are saying.

• Avoid long pauses – pauses are important and do use them, to get the attention, to raise the curiosity but make sure the timing is perfect. I will say don’t use any pause longer than 3 or max, 5 seconds. If you are setting up an equipment, writing on board etc don’t stay silent. If there is nothing else to say share an experience, tell a joke but a silence of a complete minute is a Big NO

• Use your volume, lower your volume to show a concern or raise it to show the importance, after all, presentation is all about acting. Same goes with the pace

• Don’t give me language excuse; your language skill has nothing to do with a good presentation. Language is only a tool, use it like a tool, if you lack one ability use others. One trick is, if you are out of vocabulary, shift back to your language without hesitation for a sentence or two, as it was intended to. Or you can be more formal and use something like “... Like we say in malay/urdu” and you make a transition.

Prepare the presentation.

• And before you do, you should very well know what tools will be available? For example a projector. Prepare backup as well, if plan A doesn’t work what will be the plan B

• Time is important, use it wisely. Make sure you use your facts in your time, cut down or add up information depending on the available time. Rehearse to make sure it will be within the time frame.

• Play with your words, add humor, ask questions but don’t force your audience to give you an answer, if they don’t, instead you give them an answer. The trick is ask questions which only have a 1 or 2 answers, and prepare yourself how you will continue from either answer.

• In your slides (if you have any) use bullets instead of long sentences. List down points not the complete explanations. Use graphs, charts etc. Don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of. If you can’t explain properly some technical part don’t add it up.

• The flow of your presentation should be something like this, you present the problem (yes you can exaggerate a bit, emphasize on why it really is such a big deal) once done, you suggest a solution and finally you will give benefits of solution.

• Oh and Never – I mean NEVER EVER READ from your slides.

Hope it helps.

New Virus

We have often heard about new viruses that evolved to affect both, humans and animals, like this new H1N1 (Swine Flu). But I have always been intrigued by the idea of a new virus that might affect both; computers and humans alike.

Okay, just a thought.

Maybe it’s a good movie idea, please give a credit if you do decide to make a movie on it :\

Annoying things that happened today

• In queue, while waiting for the train, this lady doesn’t want to get into the train because it is crowded. (I think four to five people can fit in). First you won’t find an empty train for an hour at this time of morning and even when you do, it will be crowded at next station as it is now. So why the heck you don’t want to board the train? Okay Fine! Don’t, but at-least offer a way to others so they can board as most people don’t have the luxury of time like you do and they are willing to compromise their comfort.

• The machine ate my money. Yes the stupid ticketing machine ate my money. It was just $2 but then I had to use the long queue on counter since I didn’t have any more change. It just ate it, said thank you but never gave me a ticket :\

• Office Air Conditioner isn’t working. It is running, but its not working. It’s just running, I was sweating the whole day and God know how many days we will have to live like that.

There were other things I wanted to write. But I forgot.

I think by now you can tell how blur I am.

Google Reader

Try out Google Reader if you haven’t so far. I know there are dozens of other web based RSS/ATOM Aggregators now but I didn’t want to register on yet “another web site”. I have used My Yahoo, but I guess Google Reader gives it touch of more like aggregator software which I liked.

So I started to subscribe blogs that I read — and other web sites — and other blogs — and anything else that seemed interesting and guess what… I have 187 subscriptions now and I have no clue what’s going on. Every second there is something new and I can’t keep up. And now it seems so difficult to remove them, and which ones.

Bhaaaa.

Mothers Day and Tare Zameen Per

Zee TV aired Tare Zameen Per today as a mother day special, and even though I didn’t watch the whole movie but the parts (scenes) that I did, were enough to make me (or anyone else for that matter) cry. The movie is a classic.

I remember when I watched it first time in cinema almost ever eye was wet, every hand had a tissue. I think the movie have touched millions of hearts. And specially when you have a kid in a family who is Autistic.

Okay, yes I admit, I did end up shedding some tears here and there.

Here is song “Maa” (Mom) for you from the said movie.

Quote(s) of the day

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody

Bill Cosby




If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon.

George Aiken.




In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known

Thomas Pickering




To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all

Peter McWilliams

State of existence

There are times when I hate my existence... perhaps death will be the cure.

Author: Me
Reason: Unspoken
Pain: Ultimate
Run away chances: None.

Update

Last few days have been awful. In their own way, and, in different domains.

I do have many different chunks in my mind to write about, but I have no idea how to relate them or where to start.

In short, I have burnt a lot of calories.

Yesterday I bought a new desk top and this will be a first blog post from the new PC. I have tried to keep myself busy in assembling and installing.

I think you can see I have no clue what I would like to write, so I will stop.

Blogroll rants

I like the RSS Live Blogroll on some blogs. The updated blogs will appear at top with recent post title — pretty convenient. I made a small search to find such a plug-in or widget for wordpress but I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Instead, I found something else, now if you hover the mouse on blogroll you will see a popup window with recent posts from the link. Hope it adds at-least some convenience.

I also updated some links which were changed or moved to other addresses and removed old ones. Although there are dozens of links I would like to add but as most of you know me, I remain the ‘lazy’ one to do so.

In the mean time, hope you enjoy the new blogroll plug-in.

I am your Master - I am a Man

I am so sick of it when most men dissemble themselves aesthetically as gentle and nice when in reality — recreant they are. I know this individual as (boy friend / potential future spouse) of a dear friend; let’s just call him Mr. X for now, and I will refer to my friend as Ms. A.

So, Mr. X sneaks into Ms. A’s cell phone and goes through her SMS and call details; and he had courage to inquire and argue about one call length she had (Approx. 20-25 min). As if his very first act of looking into private things wasn’t unfledged at all, not disgusting at all.

The call at hand was from Ms. A’s friend who is having some of his own problems and he was just discussing those with her. But Mr. X insists the only possible explanation for such a lengthy call is — you are having an affair on his back. What utter nonsense. If she wanted to have an affair with someone else why would she stick with such a lowlife like you anyway?

So after the altercation they had over the issue, the conclusion; Ms. A’s SIM got broken and she is not allowed to contact with her friends who are guys. What saddens me more though — is— she might do as he asked. She will, as most women do, allow him to treat her like a property and not an equal companion with equal rights and freedom.

Although I wish the best for her and hope she stays happy, it is highly unlikely the wishes and hopes can solve the problems. I believe, men will never manumit, they never have. The answer is not in the hope things will get better but in an action from women, in a refusal of being treated as a slave.

The best dance

I received the following video on facebook with the title “Who says Taliban are backward?” The title is probably just a hoax but nevertheless, I assure you, this is one of the best dance video you will ever see in your life time. So enjoy!

Tapping your cell phone

I don’t want to freak you out but take a look at this YouTube Video. It will certainly change your perception how you look at your cell phone.

Money Planning

I seriously need a money planning. I was just going thru the transaction history of my account for the past month and guess what, I have spent more than what I earn for a month — 10% more. Okay I had to pay the TAX this month but it still doesn’t explain what the heck did I do with all that money? I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do clubbing and I didn’t even go for a cinema past month.

Maybe there is a chink in my pocket and I am dropping out my money everywhere? :\