Abed Hamdan

Maybe some of you thinks that this post is out of date, but Im really surprised to read this thing regarding the “Danish Cartoon” controversy. I would like to say that I changed my mind, and I back off all my previous opinions regarding those cartoos. I was surprised to know that the Danish Press formally apologized for the cartoons. Our Media didn’t focus on this thing!! and maybe I was too busy with my exams, projects, assignments, bla bla. However, I read news daily, but i didn’t find such thing.

I found the apology on a blog called “Scand-Arabia”.Here are the links:

• The Link of the Apology(pdf format) “The Apology is written in Arabic”.
• Scand-Arabia
• The post on Scand-Arabia
• My Previous opinion regarding the Danish cartoon.

I beleive that people now have another concerns rather than the Danish cartoon. In Jordan, people are busy with the new delimma “Birds Flu”. I think it’s a main reason why they forgot about the Danish cartoon issue. It so funny how people here are always looking for something to talk about. I still remeber when the Mad Cow disease was the news of the season. Then Sars, Danish cartoons, and now Birds flu.
Can you predict what will the new delimma be ?? Who Knows.!

Finally, I finished my exams, yesterday I had a VLSI exam, anyway, finally i got the answer for Katharina question, it’s posted on Peace Root, here are the links:

• Peace Root
• Katharina Question
• The Answer

“If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”

-Albert Einstein

Microsoft has put back the consumer launch of its new Office software suite to 2007, to coincide with the delayed start date for Windows Vista.

Microsoft said on Wednesday it had to delay the launch of the consumer version of its latest operating system.

It had originally aimed to launch Vista - the first major update since Windows XP was introduced five years ago - in the second half of 2006.

But a version will be available for corporate customers from November 2006.

On Friday, Microsoft confirmed that the mainstream launch of its new Office 2007 system would also be delayed to January.

This will enable Microsoft to market it in tandem with Vista.

Microsoft is planning six versions of the next incarnation of its Windows operating system, three of which will be targeted at home users.

‘Enhanced leadership’

At the same time, Microsoft has reshuffled the management team at the division which oversees its flagship Windows operating system.

Changes include the head of security within Microsoft’s Core Operating System Division moving to a new job.

Mike Nash will be succeeded as head of the Security Technology Unit by Ben Fathi.

efforts to improve security in the new system were largely behind the delay to Vista, Microsoft has admitted.

Brian Valentine and Jim Allchin will be charged with delivering Vista later this year while Steven Sinofsky will become head of a new group responsible for planning future versions of Windows.

“We are enhancing the leadership team and structure across the division to ensure we have the right organization to support our technology vision,” said Kevin Johnson, co-president of the software giant’s Platform and Services Division.

Copied from [ BBC News ]

Let me tell you about one of the best blogs I’ve ever seen, this not an exaggeration.
This blog is from a mother living in Gaza under the Israeli occupation, guys you should read her blogs, she describes the situation in Gaza in a magnificant way, and It’s not surprising, since she’s a journalist.
so if you wanna take a look at what’s really happening in the palestinian occupied territories, away from the damned media, then Laila el-Haddad the Mother of Yusuf is the answer.

this is the link : http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/

Im really proud of you Mother Laila.

Hello everybody,
One of my friends called Katharina asked me a question about Islam, I’m so sad ’cause I didn’t know the true answer for her question, actually I’ve been asked that question before, and I forget the answer , please if somebody know the answer, and want to help us in explaining the Islam, then please come to
http://peaceroot.blogspot.com

This is the link of the Question: http://peaceroot.blogspot.com/2006/03/mad.html
This is the link of the Answers: http://peaceroot.blogspot.com/2006/03/unmadding.html

Katharina is German girl, and she’s a good friend of mine, im so sad she got a bad idea about Islam, please help us if you can.

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in dead birds on a private farm in northern Jordan.

Laboratory test results conducted overnight on Thursday showed that birds had died of the virus in the Ajloun district of northern Jordan. The strain has been detected recently in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

Health Minister Saeed Darwazeh is due to hold a news conference on Friday to give more details about tests and outline plans to combat bird flu.

On Thursday, Mr Darwazeh issued a seven-day deadline for “people raising domestic fowl to get rid of them, after which the competent authorities will have them killed”. He said that the Jordanian authorities had raised their state of preparedness to a “maximum level”.

Officials are concentrating on inspection operations of chicken farms in the Jordan Valley.

The H5N1 strain of the virus has killed more than 100 people worldwide.

It does not pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it does not pass easily from one person to another at present.

However, experts fear the virus could mutate to gain this ability, and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.

Copied from [ BBC News ]

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, “What does love mean?” The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.”
Rebecca - age 8

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
Billy - age 4

“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” Karl - age 5

“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”
Chrissy - age 6

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”
Terri - age 4

“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.”
Danny - age 7

“Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss”
Emily - age 8

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”
Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

ýIf you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,”
Nikka - age 6 (we need a few million more Nikka’s on this planet)

“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.”
Noelle - age 7

“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”
Tommy - age 6

“During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Cindy - age 8

“My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.”
Clare - age 6

“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.ý
Elaine - age 5

“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.”
Chris - age 7

“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.”
Mary Ann - age 4

“I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.” Lauren - age 4

“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” (what an imagination) Karen - age 7

“Love is when Daddy sees Mommy on the toilet and he doesn’t think it’s gross.”
Mark - age 6

“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
Jessica - age 8

And the final one — Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,
“Nothing, I just helped him cry”

There’s no doubt that Silicon has changed our life in so many different ways. The 20th century technology was built on the evolution of the Electronic devices which are basically semiconductors composed of Silicon.

Now the technology has reached a point where Millions of transistors are integrated on one small chip which is one of the greatest achievements of the human being.

On the other hand, from the “full utilization” engineering point of view, Silicon now is fully utilized! Although it might make life harder, but still it’s another great acheivement. We should be proud of it!

1. Women: Who can live without them?!
2. My Cat: I love her
3. My Family
4. My Friends
5. Praying: It makes me feel better,if i don’t pray i’ll burst!
6. My Computer
7. My Cell phone: I can’t live without SMS !
8. Irbid Restaurants: Who will feed me then ??
9. Working out: It’s part of my life
10. Money: We can’t skip this one; Money talks!

Inspired by [ Moey ]

Song Name: “Too good to be true” by Frank Valli and the Four seasons, It’s one of my best of the best classics, I really adore this song, It takes me to another time and place..!!
Frank Valli is such a great artist…

This is a very important semester to me, It’s the semester of Phase1 of the graduation project. some of you already know that my graduation project is about designing and implementing a real Robot, it’s a challenging project, but nevertheless, we gonna kick some ass!

First of all, let me introduce you to my team mates: Waleed, Muhannad, and Ghassan. We’re a group of four phreaks !! Im not sure if we really gonna finish this project, but there’s no doubt that it will be fun !! those guys are really maniacs, you should meet them

Now let me tell you about our first meeting. We developed an initial design document. We went to Ghassan’s place, we had tea(I don’t like tea, i prefere coffee, but tea is cheaper, that’s why it’s Ghassan’s best choice!), discussed the work developed by each team member, nothing was out of ordinary untill we left Ghassan’s apartment. There was a strange smell coming from the apartment next door..!! actually it smelled like stinky weed..!! then we saw gaz coming out of the apartment!! we tried to open the door, but we couldn’t, all neighbourhood came to see what’s going on. Five minutes passed and we still can’t open the doors..it’s was damn horrible, we thought that the apartment put on fire and somebody might be inside. Then we called the firemen, while we were trying to break the door, suddenly a guy wearing a green panties came out of the apartment !! HE WAS SLEEPING WHILE HIS APARTMENT WAS BURNING !! And thank god we helped him just on time, if we were late that guy would be dead now!! we Saved his life !! We saved the green panties guy life !!

Now we’re national heros!! we decided to call our team : The Heros.

That was our first meeting…It’s a good beginnig Heh!

It becomes very obvious that we’re living in a CRAZY world, where cows got mad, Chicken are sneezing and suffering from “Birds flu” !! so what da heck ?!
Are we gonna to see Kitten got HIV (Aids) ?? who knows !!
Away from animals and their freakness, let’s take a look at humans, It seems that we have new haircuts…

It seems that the bogy monster of the world of computing is still dominating every part of our life. MS-DOS was the beginning. Then comes the Windows, which changed the world of computing and redefined the concept of personal computers.
The legend ain’t over yet, a new version of Windows is coming!! They call it “Windows Vista”, that’s how they introduce it (copied from Windows Vista homepage):

Introducing Windows Vista

We live in a digital world that is filled with more information, more things to do, and more ways to communicate with others than ever before.
Every day, millions of people around the globe rely on their Windows-based PCs to manage the increasing amounts of digital information in their lives. While the tools we use for managing this information are powerful and familiar, today’s world requires more. You want your PC to adapt to you, so you can cut through all the clutter and focus on what’s important to you.

Windows Vista brings clarity to your world, so you can more safely and easily accomplish everyday tasks and instantly find what you want on your PC. Explore entertainment, such as TV and music, on your Windows Vista-based PC like never before. And with Windows Vista, you’ll more conveniently stay connected to the people who are important to you, from home or while on the go.

Windows Vista puts you in control of what you want to do.

Im not in a position where i can judge the products of Microsoft, or comment on the religious war between Microsoft and the “anyone but Microsoft”; we all stand on the shoulders of giants.
but one might wonder,
Is this new version of Windows really have new features ?? or Is it just a copy of Windows XP ??
Will this new version change the “bad” reputation of Microsoft ??
Who knows!

It’s worming up in Irbid tonight, the worm wind just reminded me of those old summer nights, three years ago, when my friend “Nabeel” was my room mate. He graduated last semester, and he’s back to Kuwait. I still remeber those nights as if they were yesterday, he used to sleep early, and I used to -and still- go for a walk every single night, propably at 1:00 am or 2:00 am. The silence of the night and the magnificent magic of the city of Irbid stirred a whirlwind of confusion and feelings in my heart tonight. I was thinking of the future, the unknow future.
What next ? school is over, and university years will be over soon, and then ??
I was born lonely, and lived lonely. Am I going to spend the rest of my life lonely?! Why do I always have to care about everything , while nobody cares about me ? Why do I always have to act as Mr.Perfect ?? Why do I always have to do everything right ?? Why Im always have to be the “Good Guy” ?!
Sometimes I get sick of holding the responsibility of “making the world a better place”. Im sick of this selfish world, Im sick of people; they are selfish, greedy, and evil. Im not sure if I can stand being the good guy. Im not really sure anymore!

Katharina and I had a discussion two days ago about the Danish cartoon controversay, the discussion was really interesting, click on the comments of the journal titled “Racism against Islam : Danish cartoons” if you want to read the whole discussion. We had different point of views, and it make sense cuz both of us came from completely different culture, but however, we have one essential thing in common; both of us are seeking peace and love, and nothing but peace and love. There’s a big hole between muslims and westerns, the there are many things need to be explained, and unfortunately, propaganda increased hatered between each side.
We thought that we should start a blog of our own to talk about our fears, differences, thoughts, and to reduce the whole between the two worlds. Katharina and I are the first members of that blog, we’ll invite some of our friends from both worlds to participate in the discussion. Everyboy is welcome to share ideas and to talk about his/her culture.
join us now !
http://peaceroot.blogspot.com

please help us so we can make a difference together!

LOL !!

As an engineer(to be nshallah), you usually have no time to think about fitness, you spend your life reading, working, and enjoy life as a typical geek !! so let’s take a look at our health. Today, after logging off my hotmail account, an interesting article on micro$haft MSN just knocked off my screen, it was saying “Abed, im a good article, please read me , I can be useful, im bug-free !!”.. and fortunately it’s useful. This is the link:
http://www.arabia.msn.com/Family_Home/health_fitness/2/

This is our lucky “bug-free” article..

Many of us constantly complain of fatigue and lack of energy and we blame our bodies and ungratefully accuse them of betraying us in times of need, when in reality we hardly provide our bodies with what they need to perform the daily tasks we demand of them. Maybe it’s time we start eating for energy and give our bodies the right kind of food at the right time.

Contrary to what most people think, evidence has shown that the more frequently you eat, the more energy you’ll have. Five to six meals a day is a better diet for increasing and maintaining energy than a three-meal or a one-meal diet. This is because blood sugar levels decrease after only four hours of eating. Frequent meals increase the rate of metabolism and adjust the levels of insulin. This not only diminishes the need to have high-fat and sugar-loaded snacks, but also allows the body to function at its optimum efficiency.

One of the key secrets to having more energy is eating a healthy breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It provides you with an energy boost that reduces mood swings and food cravings for the rest of the day. Breakfast-eaters enjoy a higher intake of the essential vitamins and minerals the body needs. Eating breakfast is a guarantee to feeling better both physically and mentally. For breakfast, try to have at least one serving of fruit and stick to high fiber foods, such as high-fiber cereals, oatmeal or whole grain bread. It’s better to avoid sugar and limit caffeine to one cup only.

To eliminate the feeling of sleepiness after lunch, avoid overeating. While having lunch, stay away from high-fat foods, because they lead to fatigue. Try to eat pure protein because that would increase the levels of energy and alertness. Remember to keep lunch light - 500 calories or less.

As for dinner, it should always be kept light. That’s when you should eat less meat, chicken, or other proteins, and eat more fruit and vegetables instead. Right before going to bed, avoid high sugar foods or fat. Eat carbohydrates such as low-fat yoghurt, a fruit salad, or two or three crackers, with a glass of skimmed milk. These types of food should help you relax and sleep peacefully.

As for snacks, try to avoid sugar (cookies, candy, sodas, etc…) and include at least one fruit or vegetable. Snack on high fiber foods instead of carbohydrates and sugar.

Kinds of food you should avoid or take in less amounts include:

Sugar
Cookies
Baked goods
Candy bars
Sodas
Fruit drinks loaded with sugar
Caffeine
Carbohydrates

Shortly, a healthy diet is one that includes a combination of vegetables, whole grains, low fat dairy products, fresh fruit, nuts, fish and lean meats, which should spread out over five to six small meals a day. It should be low in animal fats, sweets and highly refined products or foods with additives.

Have you every heared of the “batch” or “batch process” ?? Wanna get some knowledge about it ?? so here we go…

Batch processing is the sequential execution of a series of programs (”jobs”) on a computer.The term, “batch”, originated in the days when programmers wrote code on paper forms which would be keypunched onto 80-column punch cards or paper tape. The cards or tape would then be passed to the system operator (”sysop”) who would schedule the task, and at a later stage feed the program into the computer. Because a number of tasks would be ‘batched’ together rather than be put into the system immediately the tasks were referred to as “batch jobs”. Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without human interaction, so all input data is preselected through scripts or commandline parameters. This is in contrast to interactive programs which would prompt the user for such input. Batch jobs are not thought of as interactive, but transaction processing systems such as IBM’s CICS may run from a technical perspective as batch jobs, although this is typically obscured from terminal users. Batch processing has these benefits:

• Allows sharing of computer resources among many users
• Time shifts job processing to when the computing resources are less busy
• Avoids idling the computing resources without minute-by-minute human interaction and supervision
• It is used on expensive classes of computers to help amortize the cost by keeping high rates of utilization of those expensive resources.

The batch processing historically been synonomous with mainframe computers. Since this class of computer was so expensive, batch processing was used for the reasons listed above. Also, in the early days of electronic computing, interactive sessions with computer terminal interfaces (and later Graphical user interfaces) were not yet widespread. The term batch has now become synonomous with the UNIX operating system, it has strong utilites within the Operating System that allow various computing tasks to be run in a controlled and orderly manner.

Copied from [ Wikipedia ]