Eid with no friends

Another experience of this Eid-ul-Azha was that it was an entire Eid with no friends. I did visit my two friends Rahat and Samara on the Eid day. But it was more like a see-off visit before they went on their honeymoon to Malaysia that night. It was not like a Eid celebration visit.
And then the entire Eid was with family only. Five days straight at home with family. This was the first time I spent an Eid like this .
Not that this was something I did not want. I really wanted this. In fact, I really needed this. Usually, all my 7 days of a week goes busy with technically no weekend to relax at home. On the weekdays I have work Sunday-Thursday where I exhaust my brain into coding creativity (yes, I like to call myself a creative coder). And in the weekends, I usually do some unpaid emotional duties which only some of you will understand. :D
Thus, spending this Eid-ul-Azha entirely at home with family and cousins was something I was really looking forward to. Had a lovely Eid. And in my granny's house, I have like 5 cousins who are from 6 months to 4 years old. So out was really a great week with these little kids watching them play and cry and poo poo and grow up.
Really enjoyed this Eid with family. Alhamdulillah.

Eid with a make-up exam

This Eid-ul-Azha was one of a kind.

I missed the Eid prayer at the local masjid on time which was at 8am - same was the case with my brother. And out of all astonishment, we figured that there will be no second Eid prayer held at this masjid unlike other times. So it was really a guilt trip kinda thing to spend the Eid without having said the Eid prayer.

Then my father came with his word of wisdom. He said that Bayetul Mukarram (the central masjid of the country) had Eid prayers one after the other until 11am. Thus, Abbu was nice to drive us all the way to Bayetul Mukarram from Mirpur so that we could say our Eid prayers and celebrate Eid.

Trust me, it was so satisfying to be able to say the Eid prayers eventually. It's like you came late to an exam venue. Then you find the teacher won't take any makeup exam. And then you go to another teacher who agrees to take your makeup exam. Your degree is your satisfaction with no regrets. You can use this degree later when the time comes.

Test blog post from blogger app for Android.

This is a test content with 2 picture s on it - one from the camera and one from the gallery. This post could not collect GPS data - returned some error. Using Samsung Galaxy Ace.

GRE, Publications, CGPA - to have or not to have

I am a student of the Computer Science & Engineering department in BRAC University - actually i have graduated a few months ago :D. In one of our student forums that we are still very active with, we had an interesting conversation between the students and the faculties about the requirements, impact, necessities of GRE, SAT, CGPA, Publications etc in order to enroll for masters programs in foreign universities. Some of these students and faculties have gone for masters in such universities after going through the extensive application process. So their feedbacks and their input in the conversation was really beneficial and relevant for everyone.

I compiled a little log of the whole conversation, which i am sure is of great relevance for many students around. Thus, I thought of putting up the conversation on my blog - well, not the whole conversation; just the output of the conversation. Here it goes.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Sarwar Sir: Ok about the GRE. Here is the deal ... GRE isn't the only or the main factor for getting admitted to a foreign university. In fact, there are universities who don't even look at them (for example, UBC, where I am currently in). So to devote such a lot of time in one factor isn't worth it. However, having a good score is definitely a plus. 

So the advice will be, to practice ALL the factors including the GRE. And also to make a list of requirements of at least 10 universities you might want to go in the future. 

The other important factors are: (not in any order, random)

• CGPA, 
• PUBLICATIONS (Most important) [but I didn't have one] 
• STATEMENT OF PURPOSE (an essay about you, where you want to be, etc) 
• LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATIONS (at least three, should be good, position of recommender isn't important) 
• CV (work experience counts well) 
• TOEFL/IELTS score (this is just a pre-requisite, will not affect chances if you have, but will be rejected if you don't have!) 
• GRE (same as TOEFL, but only if asked for) 
• TRANSCRIPTS In any case, there are three parts of the GRE. One is Verbal, one is Quantitative, and the other is Analytic Writing. 

We (the men) love to love you (the women)

To all the loving wives out there.

I have seen several women sharing stories about how loving Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) was towards his youngest wife Hazrat Ayesha Radiallahuta'Ala'Anhu. I have seen several women sharing these stories to their husbands about how to be a loving man or a loving husband like our prophet Mohummad (PBUH). They would even gift these books of Hadiths etc where beautiful descriptions has been made about how a man and a wife can be very loving towards each other. And, most of the times, these women intend to share these stories with their husbands for the purpose of letting their man know how to be a loving husband towards their wives - something for the boys to learn from. And surely, the men of today need to learn a lot from these stories because the men of today are disgusting and unloyal.

Tweaks & Apps to pump up your Ubuntu

Some nice little tweaks and apps for your ubuntu. For some of the apps you might have to add the PPA via the apt lines into your ubuntu repository before you can download & install them. For others, you can just use apt-get install to get going :)

Clipgrab - an app to download videos with original (or your desired) encoding from popular video sharing sites like youtube, vimeo, dailymotion etc. 
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:clipgrab-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clipgrab

SysPeek - a system monitor indicator that displays CPU usage, memory usage, swap usage, disk usage and network traffic.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vicox/syspeek 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install syspeek
Seems to be discontinued since Precise

"This PPA currently publishes packages for Oneiric and Natty" - [source]

Zeitgeist Activity-Log-Manager - (now included in Ubuntu 12.04) - If you want certain files or filetypes from a certain location or application not to appear in Ubuntu dash history, then go with this.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:zeitgeist/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
zeitgeist-daemon --replace
sudo apt-get install zeitgeist activity-log-manager

Ejecter - an app indicator that gives you nice little EJECT button whenever there is an external mountable device attached to your ubuntu machine (mainly via USB)
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fredp/ppa
sudo apt-get update
# now included in apt-get since 12.04
sudo apt-get install ejecter

Shutter - one of the best screenshot tool for Ubuntu. Grab a region, section, window, popup, context menu or the entire screen as you choose. And then annotate, blur, add markers, objects, paint & draw on it as you like.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shutter/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install shutter

Gnome-Shell - an alternative to the Unity desktop environment which most of us are familiar with since Ubuntu 11.04. Gnome-shell is made from the new Gnome3 which is based on GTK3.0. Gnome3 has been rebuilt ground-up from scratch instead of adding new features to the Gnome2, thus, giving a very new, sleek and fast user experience. And it's really pretty too.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Unsettings - is a GUI based Unity tweak tool that comes with some unique features, like: disable the global menu and overlay scrollbars or easily add applications to the systray whitelist.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:diesch/testing
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install unsettings

LightDM-Manager - Want to change the default background picture and logo of the ubuntu login screen? You gotta have lightDM-Manager.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:claudiocn/slm
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install simple-lightdm-manager

PySDM - Storage Device Manager is what you need if you want to automount partitions at system startup. You get to customize a lot of partition related matters in a nice & easy graphical interface.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo apt-get install pysdm
It's also available in synaptic package manager

GRUB-Customizer - a nice bitmap as the background of GRUB Boot Loader, 3 seconds custom timeout, set default OS and normal/highlighting colors - previously I used startupmanager for all this. But i find GRUB Customizer does a way better job in terms of results & comfort.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer


Oracle Java JDK - I suddenly noticed JDK is not available in Synaptic anymore. Here is a workaround for getting started with Java Development Kit. This package provides full Oracle Java JDK 7 (which includes JRE and the Java browser plugin) - [caution: might not be updated with oracle's latest release]
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer
For removal:
sudo apt-get remove oracle-java7-installer

Ubuntu Tweak - Perhaps the BEST (in capitals) ubuntu configuration manager tool ever made. It's hectic to configure ubuntu behaviors by editing config files or text files. From cleaning up obsolete packages to pimping the visuals of your ubuntu, with ubuntu tweak you get to do all that in a nice and intuitive Graphical User Interface. In my experience, I got a nice Mac OSX like behaviors on my ubuntu by using ubuntu tweak.
- Launchpad
- Review
Enter the following in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

How to partition for dual-booting Windows and Linux

ALWAYS INSTALL WINDOWS FIRST - this is the most important and most common suggestion everywhere. It's not like you cannot install windows AFTER you have installed linux. But installing windows BEFORE installing linux saves you from a lot of sweat while configuring the GRUB boot loader as linux installer takes care of that part quite effectively by itself.

Now the following is the recommended way to partition your hard drive if you are planning to dual boot linux with windows.

High Definition is WAY over-rated

I JUST DONT UNDERSTAND why are people so overly obsessed about HD - as if HD is something new and it is truly revolutionary to have in your living room. HD has always been around - but just in different branding or among the different scope of people.


The SDs (Standard Definition - as in the non-HD) of today were referred to as HDs of 1936 and were used by the BBC...... because in those times, the SDs of our current time were far superior than the SD of their old times......... but it was just not *CALLED* a bloody HD during that time.


HD is nothing guys...... it's just another screen resolution like 640x480 , 800x600 , 1024x768 where HD fits in 1280x720 (for 720p) and 1920x1080 (for 1080p)....... and this is bound to improve further with time like it has been improving over the last decades...... there is nothing so uber-revolutionary about a HD thing.

How to Uninstall Applications from the Mac

Uninstalling application on a mac is easy....... but they can be either one-two-step long.... or they can be about fifteen-twenty steps long


Using the applications's built-in uninstaller
Some Mac applications come with their own uninstaller programs. If your mac application does come with its own uninstaller, then that's  the best way to uninstall your app .


Trashing the .app bundle using Finder
An app can be uninstalled by going to the /Applications folder using Finder and then, simply  moving a .app bundle (or an application folder) into the trash  like this:

Uninstalling from the Launchpad
Or you can do it from the OS X Lion (10..7) Launchpad.
In the launchpad (or in a launchpad app drawer), long-click an application icon until the app icons start to wiggle. If the app is removable from the Launchpad, then tiny 'X' should appear on the top left corner of the removable apps.  Click on the 'X' to uninstall the app  from the Mac - just like the way iOS does it.

Calling Android Resources Dynamically by passing String names

Suppose you have 3 types of resources (String, Drawable and Raw) for 50 kinds of animals like the following:

And suppose you want just 3 resources (String, Drawable and Raw) to be loaded for the ONE specific animal which the user will choose ONE at a time - that's gonna be like 50 if-else conditional statements with 3 resource definitions each = 150 lines of code.

With the following example, you can reduce it down to just about 36 lines of code to do exactly that.

Calling Java methods dynamically by passing a String of the method name

Imagine you have 99 distinct methods:

• method1()
• method2()
• method3()
• method4()
• ...
• ...
• ...
• method99()

and each of these methods are distinct methods with distinct functionality which will be executed for the 99 distinct return values of your getID() method.

So typically you would have to write 99 if-else condition statements. What if you could simply do the same thing in one line instead of defining 99 if-else condition statements.

call_method ("method" + getID());

The following code snippet is a simple tutorial of how to use STRING parameters for calling methods dynamically in java.

Enable Icons, "Open in Terminal", "Open as Administrator" in ubuntu context menus

This article describes how to add some useful extensions to your context menu on Linux ubuntu...


Usually in ubuntu, you don't get to see "icons in the context menu items" like the following.

To enable this in the context menu like above, execute the following in terminal:

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /desktop/gnome/interface/menus_have_icons true

10 for women to be safe in the society

and this landed into my inbox from my dear friend 
Tasfia Rahman


In daylight hours, refresh yourself

of these things to do in an emergency situation...

This is for you, and for you to share with your wife,

your children, & everyone you know.

After reading these 9 crucial tips,

forward them to someone you care about.

It never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in.

1.Tip from Tae Kwon Do :

The elbowis the strongest point

on your body.

If you are close enough to use it, do!

2. Learned this from a tourist guide.

If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse,

DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM

Toss it away from you....

Chances are that he is more interested

in your wallet and/or purse than you,

and he will go for the wallet/purse.

RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

Thank GOD some one finally thought about it! :))

Thank GOD some one finally thought about  it! :)) 

- Yet another forward mail that landed in my inbox
DISCLAIMER: pictures used in this post are NOT my Intellectual Property; these are pictures which this forward mail came with.

========================================

I think everyone might have read about Mom's, Wife's and Girl's... 

 
Its time to learn something abt Men...
 
Who is a boy / man ?
 
 A boy/man  is one of the most beautiful creations of God.
 

 
He starts compromising at very tender age. He sacrifices his chocolates for his sister.
 
     
 
 
 
Later he sacrifices his love for just a smile on his parents face. He sacrifices his love for his wife and children by working late nights.
 
 

 
 
He builds their future by taking loans from banks and then repaying them for the life time. Thus he sacrifices full youth for his wife and children without any complain.
 
 
   
 
Believe me he struggles a lot but still has to hear the music (scolding) of Mother, wife and his boss. Yet every mother, wife and boss tries to have control over him.
 
 
 
                                       
 
 
Finally his life ends up by compromising for others happiness. He is that creature of God who no one can compete with.
 
 
   
 
Respect every boy/man in your life. You will never know what he has sacrificed for you.
 
 
 
 
 
Just extend your hand when he needs it and you shall receive twice love from him.
 

 
 
Enough Of Girls /women / Wife Emotional Mails Now…  Boys also Have Emotions and respect it.  PEACE  
 
If you are a man be proud and if you are a girl kindly forward to the men/women so that they can understand what you have understood J

---

let the light pour in through the window JUST ONCE

just when the time was right,

things are not the same anymore

just when the time is plenty,

things are not the same anymore

just when the doe is there,

things are not the same anymore

just when the load is off,

things are not the same anymore

just when the summer days started getting longer

things are not the same anymore

just when the effort took its pace,

things are not the same anymore

just when the readiness came along,

things are not the same anymore

just when the plan started to fall in place,

things are not the same anymore

just when the house was getting ready,

things are not the same anymore

just when the path came near,

things are not the same anymore

just when some expressions were made,

things are not the same anymore

although the F n' F are there,

things are not the same anymore

all we needed was to look at the other side,

but all that i am reminded of is i lack perfection

all it would have taken was just ONCE

all it would have taken was just ONCE

all it would have taken was just ONCE

..... let the light pour in through the window

just ONCE

how to get width and height dimensions of a customView (extends View) in Android

So what I was trying to do is get the following dimensions of ONE out of the TWO framelayouts that I had put on my android application.

As obvious as it is, I went to the Android Developer's website to look up the available methods for finding width and height. And it said android.view.View.getWidth() and android.view.View.getHeight() will do just the thing. But..... it did NOT do the thing that way.


I had been looking around all over the forums and sites to find the solution.... LOTs of people are asking this questions, but i couldn't find that absolute solution from any of the forums. So, once I figured out the way, I thought of putting the solution up on my blog.

Did Paris Hilton REALLY convert to Islam? Really?

i have JUST done some studies about this matter........ and this is MOST easily looking like a media hoax........ but don't fall for my statement until you have understood why exactly i am saying this.

almost every single news article around the web says that the source of this "Paris Hilton converts to Islam" story is from http://dailysquib.co.uk/entertainment/2636-paris-hilton-converts-to-islam.html - meaning almost every single news article around the world reporting about this story, knows whatever is informed by www.dailysquib.co.uk. Moreover, a search in news.google.com about "Paris Hilton Converts to Islam" on February 8th 9pm (GMT+6) has, surprisingly, returned ONLY ONE RESULT... it's the story from www.dailysquib.co.uk - screenshot is below. Now the question is, with almost all the web news portals depending on the information provided by www.dailysquib.co.uk regarding this story - how much can you tell about this particular news portal.

search returned only this specific result

The Lady in Red

I had fallen in love with the lady in red... and today i learn that it has a whole different meaning...... i have always loved the sight of couples wearing guys in black and girls in red.... and today i learn that it has a whole different meaning..... and when i look back, they all point to real incidents which have taken place over the years - the Devil's Advocacy......... this is certainly not good

http://www.arrivals.technocrazed.com/episode-13-lady-in-red


just to share with you all, here is a snippet of the Facebook conversation i have had with my friends on my status

just fascinated with what QR codes are able to do

maybe this article is very 1950s for  you..... although the birth of QR code has been actually in 1994...... but for some of you, this can be VERY 2011.

scan this QR code using
a bar-code reader application in
your smartphone and see what
it gives you in return

• making a video commercial for your new product and looking for ways to make it viral?
• spreading around a web URL of a issue-based campaign which you are running in your community?
• trying to motivate people to send a text msg to your company for your new promotional deal, without having your customers to type out a single thing?
• making a new texture for your t-shirt which will take the mobile users to your personal blog site?
• inviting guests to your brother's wedding ceremony without having to print out the expensively eco-unfriendly paper cards?
• promoting a WE HAVE MOVED address location of your office/showroom without any text but of course with an interactive googleMap?
• making a one-snap access for your coffee-shop customers to log into your wifi hotspot without having your customers to go through the hassle of device authentication?
• driving traffic to your blog........... or facebook profile..... or twitter profile....... or youtube channel....... or any social network profile?
• spreading out the link of a new iPhone application you have just released in the appStore?
• or simply using your cellphone screen instead of carrying business cards, to exchange contact information with new people you have met at a business conference?

the answer is QR code.

The favorite old Duck-Hunt

this was probably my most favorite TV game during the 90s.
it's awesome to see old school stuffs back in the web

http://www.wiiplayable.com/play1/duckhunt.swf

You always have the choice in life

Once again an inspiring email from Buddi, a friend from AIESEC in Sri Lanka whom i met in AIESEC International Congress 2009 in Malaysia


---------------------


John is the kind of guy you love to hate.   He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.  When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, 'If I were any better, I would be twins!' He was a natural motivator.  


If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, 'I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time.  How do you do  it?'  


He replied, 'Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have   two choices today.  You can choose to be in a good mood or...you can choose   to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.'  


Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it.  I choose to learn from it.  Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or...I can point out the positive side of life.  I choose the positive side of life.  


'Yeah, right, it's not that easy,' I protested.