The SpringerLink pdf manipulation scripts are now up on github. You can get them at http://github.com/alaasalman/pdfmaniputil.
I am slowly moving most of the public projects and code over to github so that people can use it and change it more effectively.
Something interesting that i heard certainly qualifies to be quote of the week. “Server administration is very easy because all the answers are found via Google or forums.”
Would you say this is funny or sad?
Wikipedia has been a vital source of information for me and hardly a day goes by where i don’t use it to read up on something. Amazingly, topics covered on it range from the down right silly to the most advanced technical topic. All reviewed and scrutinized by the mass public.
I just donated today as part of the “put your money where your mouth is” campaign. Although my donation is small and something i should have done a long time ago, I think that every bit helps and its always better late than never. This urge to donate came after reading up today on such topics as I2C and SPI and realizing that a regular medium(ie encyclopedias in the form of books) can never accommodate such knowledge especially now that human knowledge is moving at an incredible pace of change.
Speaking of human knowledge; there is one other organization that claims to want to do the same thing; albeit in a different manner. Google officially states that it has a mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” So i believe that the world will be a much better place if Google and the WikiMedia foundation worked together.
In summary, I can not imagine living in a world without Wikipedia and look forward to the day where “every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.”(quote from Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia) I urge you to consider supporting this organiztion through a donation, if possible. I am doing my part, are you?
Last week, i sat through a demo of a certain document management system provided by a vendor. The system in itself is pretty good. Although if it was up to me, I would never choose a proprietary system for a vital project. Since you essentially would be putting yourself and your data at the mercy of the provider.
What was interesting though was their licensing terms. Aside from the system itself, you have to buy “modules”. A module in their case is a set of grouped functions. And their selling point was that this would actually be much cheaper for the client than any alternative since the client would only buy what he needed. And at this is music to a manager’s ears.
Among the “modules” that a client has to buy is something called “storage module” and a “retrieval module” which basically means you’re paying for the right to write and read from the database. Now, if you’re thinking that this sounds silly, then you’d be right. It does. And it is. Of course, from the vendor’s perspective it makes total sense since all their licensing is per user.
I don’t know about you, but i prefer the approach taken by the free/open source software world. That approach basically eliminates the idea of selling licenses and instead gives you ownership over the product but offers support contracts for people that need them.
When you buy something like Microsoft(MS) Windows, for example, you’re not actually buying Microsoft Windows. What you’re buying is the right to install and use MS Windows on one machine. And even your use of MS Windows is governed by the EULA that you agree to before installing it. You know which one…that 100 page legalese document that nobody reads.
However, when you buy free/open source software such as Ubuntu, you get a completely different experience(Ubuntu happens to be free, but this isn’t always the case). What you get is the product along with source code. You also get the right to change that product anyway you see fit or pay someone to do that for you. You can even redistribute or sell those changes. The only requirement is that you pass on the same freedom that you got when you first acquired the product.
For my own products, i much rather go the free software route. So you’d pay a one-time fee to buy the application and then there would be support contracts for people who need it. Even from a pure business point of view that sounds like a much better approach and one that clients would appreciate more.
What do you think readers? Am i way off base? Don’t people mind when vendors have ridiculous licensing terms? Or does it depend on the vendor?
Dear Ati and Ati’s daddy AMD,
A week ago, i needed to replace my graphics card and so after being an Nvidia customer for several years, i decided to go with an Ati card this time to support the company for choosing to open source their graphic drivers. I am a GNU/Linux user, and although Nvidia has worked great on this platform in the past, it has not kept up with the times and still chooses to withhold specs from the free software community trying to help them implement open source drivers for their cards.
Now, i realize that the open source driver for your cards is still not ready, and that’s ok. Just making the jump is a great effort on your part. However, your
proprietary
driver sucks. And hence, under Linux, your cards suck too.
You want some details? Here goes.
- The “Catalyst Control Center” is a joke. I mean i used to write interfaces like that too…when i first started programming… Ok, so maybe aesthetics in interfaces is not your thing(although you do manufacture graphics cards!), even in terms of functionality it hardly works. Trying to change any configuration using the control center produces an xorg file that messes everything up. I had to manually re-write it myself. Either implement a proper “control center”, or ask the community for help.
- Switching between virtual terminals produces transient weird graphic artifacts using driver 8.53.4. Using an earlier driver, X just locks up.
- Hibernating or suspending the computer causes X to also lockup. This seems to still be a problem even in the latest driver(8.53.4).
- Performance wise, the driver is terrible. I mean absolutely horrible. World of Warcraft runs with 10-15 fps on this thing. Definitely not what i would expect from a midrange sub-$200 card(i actually paid $160). Luckily, i still dual boot for when a windows VM does not do the job and under windows xp sp2, the performance is pretty good. So please, please fix your driver. I do not wish to change platforms just to get your stuff to work.
- The Ati bugzilla appears to be abandoned with tens(hundreds?) of unanswered bug reports. That is simply not acceptable, even if it is an unofficial bug database. You either want the community to help you, or you don’t. This just looks like you’re taking advantage of us.
- Oh, and this one is for Sahpire. Have you ever actually used one of
your products? It sounds like you’re sitting next to a blender…
I have a lot more, but i think you got my point. I want to support you, i want to give you my hard earned dollars. But you’re making it very difficult. So please start acting like a good citizen or ask for help. Spend more time on your products, and less time on pretty PowerPoint presentations. Those do not impress us.
A couple of months ago, we started working on a project, code named firemote, to help in the detection and prevention of forest fires in Lebanon. I didn’t say anything about it because i was waiting for it to be announced, and the announcement was finally done a few days ago. The press coverage(in english) is at The Daily Star – Politics – AUB team invents new tool to help battle forest fires
Sadly, the coverage doesn’t really do justice to the project and its potential impact on the devastating forest fires that eat up a substantial amount of forests each year. But i think this will be addressed when the pilot is under way and we have some results to show.
The project was a collaboration between the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Association for Forests, Development&Conversation(AFDC). I was one of the researchers at AUB.