tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74654122024-03-07T22:55:21.628+05:00Aspirations.......My experience with networking, and .NET to be blogged here. Since I dont have an always online connection at home, the posts may not be live enough and perhaps even sporadic.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.comBlogger556125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-41735411282750066672018-09-03T08:29:00.002+05:002018-09-03T08:31:29.566+05:00Uber sucks!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I don't know about you, but my experience with Uber has been very rocky. Here are some incidents:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Several times, Uber drivers didn't turn the AC on despite the ride class requiring it. The excuse was that no one runs AC, otherwise they don't save any money. </li>
<li>Several times, a ride is confirmed, the driver is coming my way and starts spinning around the world in a trajectory that can't be explained. I'm standing there waiting for the guy to show up. I often set up a pick up on a road and walk there to make it easier for the driver - that way, he/she doesn't have to navigate the pickup point. I get what I deserve for being courteous. Day before yesterday, I decided to use the motor bike service since I was traveling alone and light. The guy starts coming towards my place, I leave the house and walk to the pick up point. I check Uber and I see that he has overshot and gone. He keeps going a long long way. That wasn't an overshot by mistake. He was taking care of some personal chores or whatever. Why the hell did he take my ride until he was ready to take it? I called him, no reply. I can't stand around on the road waiting for him. I texted him to kindly cancel the ride as he was clearly going around town while I was waiting. I got charged for the cancelation. The same thing happened once earlier when an auto driver couldn't find the front gate of FAST University in Faisal Town, while I was standing out in the heat. I asked him to forget it and took my own car, instead. I got charged for cancelation. This is criminal.</li>
<li>Once we had a car break down. By the driver's reaction, it was clear that this wasn't the first time. He was used to it and tried the tested way of waiting for a while and trying to start the car again. We stood in the heat and hailed another Uber. That guy couldn't find us for about 20 minutes. We were standing at a busy market center in DHA on the main road! The driver apparently wasn't familiar with the smart phone and navigation. We called him twice and gave him verbal directions until he was able to rescue us.</li>
</ul>
<div>
I visited their website and there isn't even a decent portal to lodge a complaint at. Just a bunch of FAQs explaining to me that I am wrong. All these times, I took pity on the drivers and didn't give them poor ratings. I guess I should have. Until the day before yesterday, I was reluctant to hail Uber. Now, I have decided that I wouldn't. Either I'll drive my own car or I'll take a rickshaw from the roadside.</div>
</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-12826693621584901032018-07-20T17:52:00.001+05:002018-07-20T17:57:13.512+05:00Deja vu?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Maybe I shouldn't call it Deja Vu. Maybe I should call it Karam. I don't know. Not sure.<br />
<br />
Anyway, people used to bash Microsoft for its monopoly and how it allegedly had backdoors and was exploiting users. Then, there was an anti-trust motion that resulted in Microsoft being asked to divorce Internet Explorer from Microsoft Windows OS.<br />
<br />
Today, I read <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1421312/what-android-users-should-know-about-googles-fight-with-eu" target="_blank">this news item</a>. What do you know? Google, the defender of the people from the giants, itself a giant now is in the same chair. The EU has fined Google for pre-loading Google software on Android phones.<br />
<br />
What should I call this?</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-92052740881084565742018-06-19T14:42:00.000+05:002018-06-19T14:42:53.719+05:00And this year's theme is.....<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I drove a bit in Lahore this eid and traveled to Sialkot. This year's eid theme seemed to be "firearms". Everywhere I went, boys were on the streets playing with toy guns of all shapes and sizes. I wonder what relevance firearms have with eid celebrations. Maybe the reason is that since adults do aerial firing in celebration, kids also follow suit. But are the parents asleep or does this make perfect sense to them? Why aren't the kids playing regular sports? Oh, sorry, there are no playgrounds left in most of the country. I am intrigued as to how this choice of toys becomes uniform across cities, though. Is there like a great big Facebook group of all Pakistani kids who post there and agree to play with firearms this eid?</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-70754051070315157602018-05-18T11:48:00.001+05:002018-05-18T11:48:35.385+05:00A response to "Education-employment link"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I just read this article in Dawn - <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1408398/education-employment-link" target="_blank">Education-employment link</a>. It is a very interesting article, but not an alarming one - at least to me, it isn't.<br />
Well, first of all, look around you and tell me a field in which we are excelling. Positive ones, only, please. There is no excellence in crime and other negative enterprise. You could call it inverse-excellence.<br />
Every professional comes from amongst us - the society. Failure in every field is reflective of the incompetence, ignorance, selfishness and most importantly dishonesty. Personally, I can live with an honest but incompetent person - if I could find one, that is. So, why should I <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1408394/power-breakdown-yet-again" target="_blank">blame the bureaucrats</a> for the recent power outage? They are but a reflection of us all.<br />
But let's talk about education - the "industry" that I am in. Universities are not producing quality graduates, right? That is a no-brainer. There are few quality graduates out there, in every field. And these guys are there no thanks to the universities that they graduated from. They were either hugely gifted or guided by someone with a clue, who mostly happens to be a family friend and not a faculty member.<br />
There are well-meaning faculty members in our universities, but they are frustrated with the declining quality of the student intake. So, the colleges are to blame, then? Wait a minute! Who even goes to college nowadays? Oh, the academies, then! Hmmm. Many students who make it into some of the top universities in Pakistan don't make it because they are among the best. They go to academies which provide pools of questions whose answers are to be crammed to succeed at the entry tests. No wonder, clueless people will make it into some of our top universities. Then, what output do you expect from the university?<br />
Trace the thread backwards, further. The schools. Have you looked at their state? Private, public, both. Pathetic overall, if you ask me. I particularly hate the ones with the high fees who claim to be giving quality education, but I know exactly what they are giving.<br />
Back in the days when we had gems in our society, it was because we had quality teachers in schools. Individuals who were great human beings, first. Even if they didn't teach a kid how to find the highest common factor, they taught him what mattered. Through the "go buy a liter of milk and drop it at my home" to the punishment, it was all well-intended. I am not saying that you start doing this now and everything will be better again. No, it doesn't work that way. Copy-pasting is the worst thing you can do. It was the teacher's mind that was deciding what needs to be done now and what results it will produce years later. You can't copy-paste that. Wisdom is a slow and painful process.<br />
Let's pause and think who ends up in the teaching process in our schools and, for the most part, in our universities. That's right, those who couldn't get a "real job". Guys like me, they are these rejects and outcasts. Why do you expect us to do a miracle, then? At schools, the situation is even worse. The place where we need better people, we hire the ones with no experience, no clue and even low grades.<br />
I interviewed people for a private school over a number of years. We found people with M. Phils in English who couldn't translate a simple sentence into English. And these people were hired to be teachers and even principals at really high salaries by Government schools.<br />
A lot of emphasis is being paid on higher education in Pakistan, but I think that by the time a student enters university, it is too late. Emphasis on higher education is necessary, but a greater level of emphasis must be paid on the primary and secondary education. That way, even if someone doesn't continue onto higher education, you would have better citizens.<br />
Also, the argument of, we need engineers/scientists and not social science/humanities graduates is bogus. The root of all our problems are in our society, which can't be fixed by science or engineering. You need good social science and humanities people to fix that. And what people do we admit to those programs? The ones whose grades are too low for any other program. From amongst these, you will have future teachers and the cycle will continue.<br />
So, there, I've told you what needs to be done to fix our society, our education-employment link etc. What I can't tell you though, is how to do it. I'm not a social scientist, I'm a computer engineer.</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-78307992305032480792018-05-17T10:01:00.002+05:002018-05-17T10:01:50.994+05:00Change, we wouldn't<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Would you try to count the average number of times you lie during a day? For those who don't know how, count your number of lies for a week and then divide by seven. My guess is that the answer will be significantly higher than zero. Actually, my guess is different, but I'll reveal that later.<br />
We lie, lie, lie, all the time. It's not just the fruit seller telling you that he is giving you A-grade merchandise, whereas actually it is B-grade being sold on a higher price. It's not just the chicken seller who falsely accuses others of clever tricks to explain why he's charging a higher price. It's not just the clothes seller who claims his merchandise to be A-grade export quality or imported stuff, when it is not. It's me and you, as well. If you disagree, perhaps you should take another look at your definition of a "lie".<br />
For example, calling an animal to come to you pretending to have food in your palm, while your hand is empty is a lie. For example, telling your child that you'll buy them a toy tomorrow, which you certainly don't intend to, is a lie. For example, telling your boss that you couldn't come to work because of being sick while you were just being lazy, is a lie. For example, when you tell the traffic cop that the light was green when you passed it after being stopped for skipping a red light, is a lie.<br />
No lie is too small. Big and small are relative terms. As I note earlier, the definition of lie is relative. The problem is, that if you accept little lies, your threshold of small creeps up slowly. What you earlier considered a big lie, becomes a small one. But, what's wrong with that?<br />
Most of us are worried that we are ruled by crooks. I'm not talking about the present regime or the previous one, or the next one. Some portion of society is unhappy because of that reason at all times. Most of us are worried about the corrupt bureaucracy. I hate to generalize, there are good politicians and there are good bureaucrats, but let's admit that the average case is pretty bad. It comes as no surprise to me, because these guys are from amongst us. They're not aliens or foreigners. So, how can we expect them to be different. And lying, being the root of all evil..., can you do the math?<br />
To those who are expecting a great change, through a regime change following the next elections: wake up! If you have a country full of liars, except for few, what are the odds of electing a few hundred nice, clean men? In other words, if you have a box full of black balls, with one or two white balls, what is the probability that you pick a few hundred white balls?<br />
And to everyone, let's just stop complaining about corrupt this and corrupt that. We have no right to do that. Once a thief tried to rob a house at night and injured himself over a knife lying on the floor. He sued the home owners for negligence that caused him harm. Does that make any sense? No? Then, how can we, liars, complaint about others lying about ending load shedding in 6 months or changing the fate of the nation in one year and so on. Just zip it!<br />
The regime only robs me a limited number of times a day when I purchase over-taxed stuff. All of the common folks around me continuously rob me by being unfair - by skipping a queue, or skipping a red light, or passing me on the left hand side or showing no respect for the lanes on the road. Shouldn't I hate you all more than I hate the government?<br />
To get meaningful change, we must first change ourselves. Respect others, be truthful in speech and in action, be fair and honest. Only then, do we have a little bit of hope of change.<br />
Now, onto the average number of lies you tell. When you ask a liar to tell the number of lies he has told, what do you expect in reply? A lie! So, I bet, for most of you, the answer will be quite close to 0.</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-19312796435784813102018-05-10T12:40:00.001+05:002018-05-10T12:40:39.488+05:00Rules don't apply<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yesterday, at around 6 pm, I was going grocery shopping with my family. We were exiting WAPDA Town, Lahore when a Suzuki Moron (read Mehran) approached in the fast lane, on the wrong side of the road. The road had two lanes, I was in the fast lane, but I couldn't immediately switch lanes because there were cars approaching from behind us in the left lane. I waited patiently. Meanwhile, the old man driving the Suzuki Moron on the wrong side started angrily waving his arm out of the window to let him pass.<br />
When traffic allowed, I switched to the left lane and pulled up next to his car. I pointed out that he was on the wrong side of the road, to which he replied that the house on my left was his house and that's where he was going. I pointed out that he had to drive on the correct side of the road, make a U-turn and then reach his home. He gave a great reply to that. He said, "this is WAPDA Town, these rules don't apply here." We had a hearty laugh.<br />
In fact, rules don't apply anywhere in Pakistan. I have seen loaded trucks driving up the exit ramp onto Lahore Ring Road, amongst many amusing displays of complete disrespect for the law and safety. When we believe that rules don't apply to us, what justification do we have to expect, for instance, politicians to be fair and non-corrupt? </div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-25021598530734267372016-02-13T21:45:00.002+05:002016-02-13T21:52:19.412+05:00The beginning of a journey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Alhamdulillah, yesterday, February 12, 2016, I finally defended my PhD thesis successfully. I am grateful to Dr. Zartash and Dr. Ihsan for sparing time for rehearsals and feedback during the entire last week. Also, Dr. Tariq Jadoon was there in the mock presentation and gave excellent feedback. A special thanks to my sincere friend Kamran Nishat for being there throughout the last week or so. He lent a great and invaluable helping hand. He was there with excellent suggestions just as he has been throughout my PhD studies at LUMS. Irteza was also there with encouragement in the tough last week. A special thanks to Zeeshan Rana, Akeel Faridee, Umar Suleman and Fahad Javed for being there to attend the defense presentation.<br />
I will write more details about it later. One might think that this is the end. In fact, it is a beginning. Conference of this degree symbolizes an expression of confidence in my ability to do independent research. It is not a farewell, but a welcoming ceremony to the club. Hopefully, a spectacular journey of discovery lies ahead. I pray that Allah may help me in that journey more than He has during my PhD, in particular, and in the rest of my life in general.<br />
One last reflection in this post is that I did not feel "that moment" to be one of pride. It was more of a humbling one. In fact, my entire PhD experience has been a humbling one because it made me realize not how much I have learnt, but that there is a vast amount of things that I do not know.</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-59285125574361042492015-10-18T22:09:00.003+05:002015-10-20T19:36:19.275+05:00Online component stores in Pakistan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://evselectro.com/" target="_blank">EVSElectronics</a><br />
<a href="http://digipak.org/" target="_blank">DigiPak</a><br />
<a href="http://theengineeringprojects.com/" target="_blank">The Engineering Projects</a><br />
<a href="http://roboticspk.com/" target="_blank">Robotics PK</a><br />
<a href="http://www.taraztechnologies.com/" target="_blank">Taraz Technologies</a><br />
<a href="http://artofcircuits.com/" target="_blank">Art of circuits</a><br />
<a href="http://elab.pk/" target="_blank">ELab</a><br />
<a href="http://proveedor.com.pk/" target="_blank">Proveedor</a><br />
<a href="http://www.electroboticshop.com/" target="_blank">Electrobotic shop</a><br />
<a href="http://robocave.pk/" target="_blank">Robocave</a><br />
<a href="http://www.microsolution.com.pk/" target="_blank">Microsolution</a><br />
<a href="http://www.arduinopak.com/" target="_blank">ArduinoPak</a><br />
<a href="http://www.icmasteronline.com/" target="_blank">IC Master</a><br />
<a href="http://barqilab.com/" target="_blank">Barqi Lab</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-67031799673764322692014-11-12T19:45:00.001+05:002014-11-12T19:45:38.165+05:00Open source cloud platforms<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If you think that OpenStack is one of a kind, you need to update yourself. There are several open source players in this area. Please read this interesting <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/most-popular-open-source-cloud-projects-of-2014-7000032856/" target="_blank">article</a> (not written by me) about open source cloud platforms. </div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-42412339383062575512013-09-27T08:28:00.000+05:002013-09-27T08:29:10.530+05:00Latex -> PS -> PDF profile for TeXnicCenter 2.01 Beta<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I love using TeXnicCenter for writing my conference papers. I am presently using v 2.01 Beta of it. Other software versions are:<br />
<br />
dvips - 5.992<br />
latex - 2.9.4535<br />
ps2pdf wouldn't tell me which version it is<br />
<br />
I created the PDF of a paper and not all fonts were embedded. I had to modify the default output profile. I've extracted the .tco file for the <a href="http://suraj.lums.edu.pk/~msaqib/latexpspdf.tco" target="_blank">latex => PD => PDF profile</a> that you can import to your install of TeXnicCenter.</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-45873591073061226422012-12-27T18:46:00.000+05:002012-12-27T18:46:03.791+05:00Party?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I just saw <a href="http://dawn.com/2012/12/27/three-reasons-to-party-hard-this-new-years-eve/" target="_blank">this piece</a> in Dawn. I don't see how one can celebrate when everything around us is falling apart. People are going hungry and shivering in cold nights. Streets are littered. Traffic is rowdy. Just because I have earned some money, or gotten pocket money, I have the right to party? Instead of a few moments of music, laughter and fun, which produces nothing concrete in the end except memories, wouldn't it be much more enriching and useful if we did something creative?<br />
<br />
The rich will party for sure, because they don't have a problem. They've created their own Amreeka right here in Pakistan. This local Amreeka is better than the actual one, because this one comes with a "get out of jail free" card so they don't have to follow any rules. That's why you see them still living here with their dual and triple nationalities. They can buy anything here. I'm sorry about this blanket statement here, many rich people are responsible people, too, I'm sure. But this is the overall picture that you get in the society.<br />
<br />
So, if you're planning on going to a concert or a not-so-underground-anymore farmhouse dance, drugs, drinks and sex party ask yourself this question: Do you have a different choice? How about planting some trees in public places? How about talking to your neighborhood marketplace shop owners to coordinate on keeping the area clean and green? How about visiting your neighbor and asking how they're doing? How about sitting with your parents and asking how they are doing? How about collecting sweaters for schools children's uniforms who can't afford them? How about fixing some street lights? If you're so full of energy and you've got so many similar friends, how about taking some cartel-ing traders to task who are charging unreasonable prices for stuff?<br />
<br />
Is there something worth your while in that list? If not, I'm sure I've missed quite a few good deeds that you can do and it will be fun in it's own way and much more rewarding. So, what will it be? The red pill or the blue pill? Choose wisely, for your choice will have ramifications not just on a few hours of your life, but on the lifetimes of our generations to come.</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-85354634510787563932012-11-19T20:14:00.001+05:002012-11-19T20:14:35.922+05:00Ubuntu 12.04 server crash and recovery<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Wow, my last blog entry was over an year ago. I've been real busy. Anyway, I had a server crash last Friday night and I had to work hard and careful (yea, right!) to recover it to a good state. I found a few useful resources on the web for this task, so I thought I'd blog about it so that the method is handy for my future use as well as for others. Let's look, first, at what the problem was.<br />
<br />
The server is being used for course labs, assignments and exams. Students write, compile and run C++ code on this machine. The server had accumulated some updates and needed to restart to apply them. Friday night, we had a midterm exam where students worked live and interactively on the server to solve the exam questions. After the exam was over, we decided to shut the server down for a few minutes so that the exam end time could be policed and students wouldn't be able to continue working on the problems. After shutting the server down, I came back to my office and turned it back on. But the server halted during the bootup process. I had to recover the server to a working state. I had to do it without losing data. It would be nice if the user account information (passwords) would remain intact. So, those are the parameters of the job. Now let's see what went wrong and then at how I fixed it.<br />
<br />
When the server rebooted, it stuck during the boot process complaining about something like "cifs_mount failed with exit code -101". I knew that there is a NAS that I am mounting over SMB through /etc/fstab, so that must've been the culprit. But how do I remove that line from /etc/fstab when the server wouldn't boot up. After googling, I determined that one get the system to drop me at a root shell prompt by editing the kernel arguments at the GRUB boot prompt. So, I hit 'e' to edit the kernel parameters and typed "init=/bin/bash" at the end of the kernel line. The machine started and dropped to the root shell. But when I tried to edit the /etc/fstab file, it was read-only. Of course, the hard drive hadn't been mounted in read-write mode, yet. Some more googling revealed that I should do a "mount -o remount,rw /". Having done that, I was able to get the line that mounts the NFS commented out of /etc/fstab. Reboot, but still, the boot didn't complete and the server was stuck at an error message which complained of pre-start process terminating with some error code. I did some more googling which led me to a bug report about upstart in a past versioin of ubuntu. But apparently, that bug didn't apply to the version I am using (12.04).<br />
<br />
So, it seemed that recovering without a reinstall was out of the question. To get data backup, I booted with a Ubuntu desktop live CD. But how do I mount the server's hard drive. For that, I followed the steps on <a href="http://linuxwave.blogspot.com/2007/11/mounting-lvm-disk-using-ubuntu-livecd.html" target="_blank">this page</a>. Then, I connected my NAS on a USB port and did the following:<br />
<br />
sudo mkdir /mnt/lg<br />
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/lg<br />
<br />
Then, I copied all user folders to the NAS:<br />
<br />
cd /home<br />
tar /mnt/lg/homes.tar.gz *<br />
<br />
Having done that, I also backed up all contents of the /var/log and /var/www folder onto the NAS. To get backup of the user accounts, I followed the steps outline on <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-move-migrate-user-accounts-old-to-new-server/" target="_blank">this page</a>. Note that you'd have to intersperse sudo with most commands on that page. Also, where the page talks about piping one command's output to another, I had to use a sudo at the beginning of the command as well as somewhere in between. I guess we can do a hit and trial next time, too, until we stop getting a permission denied.<br />
<br />
Finally, I unmounted the NAS<br />
<br />
sudo umount /mnt/lg<br />
<br />
and rebooted the server with the 12.04 server install CD in the drive. I re-installed the server and selected to use the existing LVM partition on the hard drive without formatting it, so all data was safe anyway. I decided to turn off automatic udpates this time. Then, after the server booted up successfully, I connected my NAS and mounted it. Then, I followed the restore instructions at <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-move-migrate-user-accounts-old-to-new-server/" target="_blank">this page</a>.<br />
<br />
That's it! The server was back online, with all passwords same as before and no data loss. Of course, I had to install g++ and ncurses again. Plus, I made a few mess ups in between so I had to follow the same steps as above one more time almost from scratch. Also, when the server crashed and I had the path traced out, it was 11:30 pm before I could do anything useful and I had a class early morning for which I hadn't even started preparing, so I left for home and only started working on the server recovery at about 2 pm next day. So, the server was offline for about a full day.</div>
Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-32710490156663041662011-09-17T15:12:00.002+05:002011-09-17T15:16:42.081+05:00New provinceYou might have heard the complaints of how the southern Punjab is far from the Takht-e-Lahore and hence the former must be made a separate province. This is a very bad and dangerous reasoning for doing something that might be legitimately necessary. Unfortunately, it is being used as the prime reason to do so.<br />Can't you take this same argument and apply it in the context of the Balochistan province, for instance, being far from Takht-e-Islamabad. Hence, I presume that the federal government should feel that just as Southern Punjab should be separated from Takht-e-Lahore, Balochistan should also be separated from .....<br />A very dangerous precedent is being set here.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-21345668032285963752011-06-27T18:59:00.002+05:002011-06-27T19:04:55.498+05:00TeXnicCenter and Adobe Reader 10I have recently installed the free <a href="http://www.texniccenter.org/" target="_blank">TeXnicCenter</a> IDE for working with LaTeX documents. It is a nice frontend. However, getting it to produce PDFs and preview them in Adobe Reader 10 wasn't a breeze. I easily found help on how to configure it to produce PDF documents on some forums (google around, if you're stuck at that stage). But the preview was broken. I would get failure when the DDE command was run. Adobe Reader would open but sit at it's main splash screen. <br />I opened Adobe Reader's preferences (ctrl+K) and set the "Show splash screen" (not sure if that one helped), and unchecked "Enable protected mode on startup" on the "General" tab. That solved the problem.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-82133772869172455182011-02-26T21:11:00.001+05:002011-02-26T21:12:43.349+05:00A very good resourceA very good <a href="http://www.ihas1337code.com/" target="_blank">resource</a> for interesting problems and their efficient solutions.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-58183647450003326182010-10-08T12:16:00.002+05:002010-10-08T12:20:45.764+05:00Air qualitySpace and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) has this <a href="http://www.suparco.gov.pk/pages/environmental-pollution.asp" target="_blank">Air Quality Monitoring program</a>. I've been seeing a truck parked between the girls hostels and faculty apartments at LUMS for several days. A couple of days ago, it moved to a different place on campus, between REDC and the physical plant. <br />The quality being monitored is neither "space" nor "upper atmosphere." I wonder how they can justify the millions spent on that truck. Maybe they have more of those. I'm glad they're doing it, but I wonder if it will result in some positive impact. It makes no sense, however. I'd be happier if the EPA or some such agency were doing this work, and SUPARCO were concentrating on what their real job is.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-34610816242059087352010-10-07T10:27:00.002+05:002010-10-07T10:31:07.054+05:00German muslimsI agree with the German premier on <a href="http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/06-german-muslims-must-obey-law-not-sharia-merkel-rs-06" target="_blank">this</a>. What she and most others don't know is that according to Islamic sharia, obeying the law of the land is part of one's faith. And unfortunately, most muslims don't appreciate this either. <br />So, muslims in Germany should follow the law of the land. If they find it in contradiction with Islam, then they can either legally influence rationalization of the laws or migrate somewhere else.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-66868317423019199022010-10-07T10:16:00.003+05:002010-10-07T10:28:19.872+05:00AccountabilityThe whole point behind accountability or any law for that matter is to maintain a balance in society. That is the whole point that our premier forgets when he wants us to <a href="http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/gilani-asks-na-to-leave-musharraf-to-himself-700" target="_blank">leave Mush to himself</a>. That is the point that he forgot when he let him go. They had other stabilizations in mind. Society can go to hell. <div>Sure, try all the past culprits. By all means. And not just the corrupt, the killers, too. But here's one example that we could have set. Here's one example that would've set the stage for accountability in days to come. Here's one example that would've deterred the worst of plunderers, and yet, we should leave him to himself. To borrow from "Scent of a Woman"</div><div>What a shame! What kind of a show are you guys puttin' on here today....</div>Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-33697400635206270132010-10-05T19:06:00.002+05:002010-10-05T20:25:58.675+05:00Addendum<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2CCbLZ1jec12T-B5DYALp0I-Vked80WGeQkIHJ_8NzvzmFWUzPrAFAfxD9lZzRqRXbfeR0ivOdfTPwCT98MhHFVFR1M-DvK6DKwZE3ekErVGOdru-X1dAqxH9co_2m2S6HgnJA/s1600/P9264386.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2CCbLZ1jec12T-B5DYALp0I-Vked80WGeQkIHJ_8NzvzmFWUzPrAFAfxD9lZzRqRXbfeR0ivOdfTPwCT98MhHFVFR1M-DvK6DKwZE3ekErVGOdru-X1dAqxH9co_2m2S6HgnJA/s320/P9264386.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524563368152325010" /></a>I wanted to post one more photograph from the Namal trip mentioned in <a href="http://msaqib.blogspot.com/2010/09/meeting-with-celebrity.html" target="_blank">my earlier post</a>. This is relevant because Mr. Umar Suleman (extreme left) was not visible in any of the photographs I had uploaded earlier on. The reason was obvious. He had taken all of the photographs that I had uploaded in the said post, himself.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-44118493167487970262010-10-01T15:05:00.002+05:002010-10-01T15:13:19.720+05:00Reality or perceptionI was thinking last night. What is reality? Whatever is "really" happening anywhere in the universe has only one reality, right? And yet, different people will perceive the same situation differently. They will debate over it and give convincing arguments about it. Are they all correct? Are their multiple realities? It can't be, unless their are simultaneous overlapping, yet parallel universes, each with it's own reality. <div>ARGGGGHHHH, I'm confusing you, right? Let's take an example. Two cars collide on a Pakistani street, something really common. One incident, one reality. The two drivers will disagree and present their own version of reality. But there is only one "true" reality. One side note: both drivers could be arguing for a false version of the reality.<br /></div><div>Why does this happen? Bias! All of us have our biases, no matter how neutral we may claim to be. Our biases make us perceive reality differently. Enough philosophy. Let's leave it at that.</div>Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-63666927713261715822010-10-01T14:50:00.002+05:002010-10-01T15:00:10.823+05:00Mobile Internet and the trouble with filteringYou might recall some recent attempts at Internet filtering in Pakistan. You might also have heard that some users reported were still able to access the blocked websites even though PTA had ordered ISPs to modify their access control to restrict access to these sites. You might also recall the complaints that Blackberry users made about Blackberry browsing not available at all. Why did that happen?<div>Well, Blackberry devices use what is known as Blackberry Internet Services (BIS). The device does not fetch the Internet resources using the service provider's network (such as Telenor or Mobilink). It sends the request to RIM's (the company that designs and makes Blackberry devices) servers. These servers fetch the resources for the device, does any preprocessing that may be required and compresses the response before sending it back to the device. Everything travels on the Internet, sure, but you can't do anything about it, because the requests are not destined to any "blocked" website. All you can do is block all access to RIM's servers, resulting in a complete blackout of Blackberry Internet access.</div><div>A similar approach is taken by the Opera Mini web browser, which is resident on most cellular phones. The Opera Mini web browser sends web requests to Opera's servers, which fetch the resources, preprocesses and compresses the resources before sending them down to the cellular phone. Again, can't do much about filtering such web requests, unless you block access to Opera's servers altogether, which would mean total blackout for Opera Mini's users.</div>Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-80814894130707199682010-09-30T15:10:00.002+05:002010-09-30T15:22:10.512+05:00Saving simulation resultsRecently (now that's a big lie, but, oh, well...) I've been running long running simulations on a remote machine. I used to connect to it using an SSH client. The trouble was, that due to intermittent faults in our Internet connectivity, the SSH session often gets disconnected. When it does, the simulator process is history. I couldn't see what output it produced to the console, because there isn't any console anymore, and the process itself is killed due to the sad demise of its parent. <div>So, one solution suggested to me by <a href="http://suraj.lums.edu.pk/~zartash" target="_blank">my advisor</a> was to prepend the simulator invocation command by "nohup" and append an "&" to it. That will ensure that the simulator keeps running even if the SSH session dies. I put in statements to write simulator results to a file. Now I can periodically poll the simulator using a "ps aux | grep" command and when I see that the simulator is no longer working, I can access the results in the results file.</div><div>A neater solution was suggested to me by my collaborating researcher in the US yesterday. He advised me to start a VNC server on the remote machine using the command "vnc4server :x" (where x is an integer) and then use a VNC client to access an xWindow session on the remote server. You just need to point your VNC client to "remotemachine:x" (where remotemachine is either your remote machine's IP address or DNS name, and x is the same integer used in the vnc4server command). This is much neater.</div><div>But the story doesn't end there. I had an interesting problem. My VNC client keeps telling me that "no password configured for vnc auth." I kept scratching my head and noticed that there is nothing in "$HOME/.vnc/passwd." At that point, I sought help from my collaborator who told me that we're running out of disk space on the remote machine. I deleted several debug files from my home folder and that fixed the problem. Now that was hard to figure out. No error messages and nothing to suggest that it could be a disk space issue.</div>Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-84842841754970494652010-09-30T09:59:00.005+05:002010-09-30T10:36:07.016+05:00EnthusiasmDuring my recent trip to <a href="http://msaqib.blogspot.com/2010/09/meeting-with-celebrity.html">Namal College</a>, I learnt quite a few things that I've been wanting to blog about. Some of them, I've already covered, and others I will cover in this and some future blog posts.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUoIKmVqxrp50Mt10dt86WIl5VtEdnTHfhFkG7PRzvPSVe1oInJTB1aY0oggwQA4_7ath6rHrKuAt-vKnZRoptxys1PUIBOyWGsFsmVb6JGAyC52eqP_2cxytj2vZIV6uBsRZm9Q/s1600/P9264388.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUoIKmVqxrp50Mt10dt86WIl5VtEdnTHfhFkG7PRzvPSVe1oInJTB1aY0oggwQA4_7ath6rHrKuAt-vKnZRoptxys1PUIBOyWGsFsmVb6JGAyC52eqP_2cxytj2vZIV6uBsRZm9Q/s320/P9264388.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522574721101574706" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQgbbWO47fHWH0jk5EiBqY6j9QmXCXnKXiHEBxnUNrk_MryN43n62PysPmYfhZ1WZzOtP9Muo9PfBKq_eNq05sU0MRV7f5nDLwAbx5M0-3A0-aTPn4o1aU_AKB5ENjqLf2Ueys8w/s1600/IMG_2509.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQgbbWO47fHWH0jk5EiBqY6j9QmXCXnKXiHEBxnUNrk_MryN43n62PysPmYfhZ1WZzOtP9Muo9PfBKq_eNq05sU0MRV7f5nDLwAbx5M0-3A0-aTPn4o1aU_AKB5ENjqLf2Ueys8w/s320/IMG_2509.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522574713349591650" /></a><br /><br />This post is about the excitement and enthusiasm that I saw at Namal College. The student's excitement is quite obvious. Some of them probably couldn't have continued their education, had it not been for <a href="http://www.namal.edu.pk/" target="_blank">Namal College</a>. You see, Namal College waives all or part of the students' fees on a need basis, and focuses on remote areas where education is really lacking. Namal itself is in such a locality, making it accessible to a large section of the higher education deprived community. But I'm drifting from the point, here.<br />Like I said, the students are really excited. One of them was telling us that when he first came to Namal College, the other batches were on vacations and their was not much activity on campus. After his first visit, when he went home, he complained to his parents that they had sent him to a place where he feels really lonely. But when he returned from that visit, the older batches had returned. The activity on campus excited him and he no longer wants to go back home. Many undergrads at other institutions also share this sort of feelings, but I found that the level of excitement at Namal College was quite high.<br />But that's not all. It's not just the students at Namal College who are excited about it. The feeling is shared across the board all the through the staff, the faculty and the Board members. The senior most faculty were telling me that due to malfunction in the water supply system, the previous day they had carried buckets full of water to the dorms, and washed them with wipers themselves. I can relate to that kind of enthusiasm, because I had my first job at the Department of Computer Systems Engineering, <a href="http://www.neduet.edu.pk/" target="_blank">N.E.D. University of Engineering and Technology</a>, right after it was formed. Nothing was on the ground, just like Namal College. No processes were defined. We felt no separation between ourselves and clerical and janitorial staff members. We worked shoulder to shoulder with them, never shying away from laborious work nowhere in a faculty member's job responsibilities. Now Namal's situation is amplified over ours. They have higher bars to jump over, simply because we were in Karachi, they are at Namal and because we were part of a larger university, and their university is only as big as they are. Everyone there is ten times as enthusiastic as me and my colleagues were at the Computer Systems Engineering Department at N.E.D. You should go and see them. You'd feel the urge to share the hard work with them.<div>In addition to being incredibly excited, the students at Namal College are really intelligent. They area also not shy and come forward with their questions to you and you wouldn't be able to leave them without a satisfactory answer. Some people would be surprised to see that kind of openness and sharp intellect in students coming from such remote areas where primary education is, supposedly, really lacking. But, the reason Namal was envisioned was the abundant presence of such brilliant minds in the remote areas and the relative shortage of higher education facilities for them.<br />Namal College has progressed very rapidly. I wish them plenty of success in the future and pray that they realize their dreams.</div>Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-59651945229444610242010-09-27T17:48:00.006+05:002010-09-27T17:54:06.564+05:00Van powered by CNGOn <a href="http://msaqib.blogspot.com/2010/09/meeting-with-celebrity.html" target="_blank">yesterday's trip</a>, we traveled on a rented chauffeur driven, Nissan Caravan. I didn't get the make year, but here's the interesting thing. The 9-seater van was running on CNG. That, with the airconditioner running full speed ahead. For a vehicle on CNG, it was running quite well. We could never have guessed its fuel source, until the driver stopped at a rest stop on the motorway and headed towards the CNG station. We thought such vans were almost invariably on diesel. I guess rising diesel prices have made the switch over to CNG cost effective. For a CNG-driven vehicle, it was running pretty nicely.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7465412.post-16198117591351044962010-09-27T17:42:00.003+05:002010-09-27T17:48:47.879+05:00Speed breakers on Lahore Ring RoadI had earlier blogged about the dangerous <a href="http://msaqib.blogspot.com/2010/09/u-turns-on-lahore-ring-road.html" target="_blank">U-turns on Lahore Ring Road</a>. Yesterday, during <a href="http://msaqib.blogspot.com/2010/09/meeting-with-celebrity.html" target="_blank">the trip to Namal College</a>, I noticed something else. This time, unlike my previous outings on the Ring Road (on my way to Sialkot), we did not get off the Ring Road near the Ravi bridge to head on to GT Road. Instead, we went on towards the Motorway. We were obviously travelling fast when all of a sudden the driver noticed a speed breaker. He braked hard and managed to avoid a dangerous take off. We noticed several speed breakers along the way on our return trip at night. Wouldn't these cause road safety issues? I know that otherwise pedestrians would be endangered, but they aren't using the overhead pedestrian walkways anyway, and not adhering to crossing the road near the speed breaker.Muhammad Saqib Ilyashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06545882455769099931noreply@blogger.com0