Saleh Blog

By the end of November of 2008 the new board of 2009 was established. The Chair and Vice Chair position were chosen by a vote from the previous board members. It resulted on me to run as the Chairman and Mosa Alsulaimi was chosen as the Vice Chairman. All other positions were chosen by recommendation of previous board after interviewing only those whom applied for the board. We’ve ended up with the following board members:

Kuwait University ACM Student Chapter Board of 2009

Chairman: Saleh Alsaffar

Vice Chairman: Mosa Alsulaimi

Treasurer: Ali AlSahaf

Public Relation: Taleb Behbehani & Shatha Shameya

Media Coordinator: Areej Hamouda & Faye Altammar

Membership Coordinator: Mohammed Ghazall

Cultural Coordinator: Yacoub Dashti

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Mohammed Jeragh then Dr. Abdulla Mutawa

It took us time to organize ourselves and then we ended up with three events being held during the first semester.

Trip to KNPC

The plan was to do an education trip to KNPC’s I.T. department and gain more knowledge on how I.T. professionals work there. IT happened so fast and easily since a volunteer named Bader Alnaser has a relative who works there and which made it easy for us to contact them.

A very informative trip to Kuwait National Petroleum Company located in Alahmadi area.  At 12:30 we gather at the parking lot where the buses were waiting for us. Later on, at first sight, the building looks really astonishing and huge. We’ve started off with an introductory seminar about KNPC and the a quick glimpse of the I.T. infrastructure of the company that took about half an hour.

The seminar ended and there was a buffet where we had our lunch and in the same time they‘ve interviewed me for the local KNPC magazine. After we filled our stomach with tasty lunch they guided us to the upper floor where awesome servers were running in a room. They’ve divided us into three groups and showed us the aim of each server, how they are connected and lots of other information.

The going back trip was quiet and we have really enjoyed the trip. We were talking about it on the way back to the campus. Students were provided with snacks and drinks on the bus. By 3:30 we were back to the campus and the mission was a great success!

Trip to Kuwait Airways

We wanted this trip to be a technology demonstration of Kuwait Airway’s infrastructure but unfortunately they’ve decided to show us their safety measurements instead. We headed to Kuwait Airways and learned the types of planes in service and their safety which is, according to them, the reason why their tickets are expensive!

CCNA1 and 2 Courses

We provide student with an official CCNA1 courses almost every year but this time we added CCNA2 courses to satisfy the growing number of CCNA1 graduates. This is an official course from Cisco and has been introduced to Kuwait University by Dr. Fawaz Alenezi. The course costs only 30KD to 40KD which is cheap compare to the original price of 150KD. Of course, this course is only for Kuwait University students and staff.

Around 50 students were registered for the CCNA1 and 13 students for the CCNA2. First class kicked off by the Winter vacation of February 2, 2009. The course ended with the final exams being held by March 15, 2009 and all students who passed the CCNA1 and CCNA2 exams had their certificates printed and signed by Cisco.

There is no doubt in my mind that 2009 was one of the best years of my life. Not only was I a chairman in the ACM Student Chapter, I was also a Microsoft Student Partner, Adobe Student Representative for Rich Internet Application, Sun OSUM Leader and I also held the Vice President position of the DotNet Club. I’m going to start writing a series of post talking about the student club and our activities and by that I hope what we have done will still remain in the memory of students and in a tiny dot in the massive world wide web. For whom you may ask? For whomever is interested in whatever happens in KU or might find useful information

The History of Computer Engineering Societies

The ACM Student Chapter of Kuwait University is officially known as CpES, the Computer Engineering Societies, and we are the only student club for the Computer Engineering department of Faculty of Engineering and Petroleum. The society was founded in 1993 under the supervision of Dr. Imtiaz Ahmed with 6 board members but unfortunately, the chapter was engaged for only one semester because all members were at their senior year. I do not have any picture or publication that were published during that time nor that I have any more information about the members.

ACM is the world largest and oldest educational and scientific computing society founded in 1947 and serves all professionals and students in the field of Information Technology.

The chapter remained idle until 2000 and they managed pull one successful activity which is a trip to the Scientific Center of Kuwait to reestablish the chapter. The students who were involved were: Mohammed Al-Kanderi, Mai Al-Sharhan, Abdullah Al-Bloshy, Othman Al-Failakawi and Basma Al-Jenae.

The chapter went idle, again, until September 2001 were five officers (board membes) arise to lead the chapter. Those students were: Bashar Al-Finaini (Chair), Bashayer Al-Awad (Vice Chair), Nada Shishter (Treasurer), Ahmad Al-Qaoud (Secretary), Deena Rabee (Media Coordinator) and Dalal Hasan (Cultural Coordinator). The chapter during that time was under the supervision of Dr. Amar Al-Hosaini, and according to what I have found in the chapter’s achieves that during that time the chapter registered officially as an ACM chapter. I’m not sure if that indicates that the chapter wasn’t officially registered post 2001.

Their first event which was called "Computer Engineering Student Week of Information Technology" and followed by series of ‘special’ events according to the archives.

By Spring 2002-2003, there were seven officers and 50 members under the supervision of Dr. Hamed Alazmi. Two new positions were integrated to the board which were the Chapter Coordinator and the Webmaster. The officers were: Bashayer Al-Awad (Chair), Ahmad Al-Qaoud (Vice Chair), Dalal Hasan (Cultural Coordinator), Nada Shishter (Webmaster), Abdulla Al-Meer (Secretary), Abdulla Al-Qitifi (Media Coordinator), Mohammed Al-Meer (Chapter Coordinator) & Motlaq Al-Rahely (Treasurer).

And through the years, new positions were added and revoked and board members were changing constantly as follows:

Fall 2003-2004: Dr. Mohammed Al-Failakawi (Faculty Supervisor).

Spring 2003-2004: Bashayer Al-Awad (Chair), Ahmad Al-Qaoud (Vice Chair), Dalal Hasan (Cultural Coordinator), Abdulla Al-Meer (Secretary), Mai Al-Shayee (Treasurer), Abdulla Al-Qitifi (Media Coordinator), Anfal Meshari (Webmaster), Ahmad Al-Furaih (Chapter Coordinator), Mariam Bishara (Chapter Coordinator), Sadiq Torabi (Membership Coordinator) & Asmaa Al-Najem (Membership Coordinator).

Fall 2004-2005: Hamad Al-Ghemlas (Chair), Abdilhadi Jeragh (Treasurer), Maryam Bisharah (Secretary). (I can’t find anything more about this period so I don’t know the rest of the officers)

Fall 2005-2006:  Abdilhadi Jeragh (Chair), Hamad Alghemlas (Vice Chair), Malek Alrabea (Media Coordinator), Hesa Albalol (Cultural Coordinator), Yousif Alzanki (Secretary), Hisham Farahat (Treasurer), Majed Bassam (Webmaster), Huwai Aljurais (Public Relation), Asma Alosaimi (Membership Coordinator), Dr Mohammed AlFailakawi (Faculty Supervisor).

2007: Malek Al-Rabeea (Chair), Hessa Al-Baloul (Vice Chair), Bader Al-Khazi (Media Coordinator), Asma Al-Osaimi (Secretary), Ahmad Ashkanani (Treasurer), Bashayer Alarbeed (Membership Coordinator), Hamad Al-Meer (Public Relation), Duha Shubai (Cultural Coordinator), Amir Ahmed (Webmaster), Nosayba Abubakr (Cultural Coordinator), Omaima Al-Osaimi (W.E. Coordinator), Dr Fawaz Alenezi (Faculty Supervisor)

2008: Hamad Almeer (Chair), Abdulla Taha (Vice Chair), Taleb Behbehani (Treasurer), Mosa Alsulaimi (Public Relation), Ali Alsaffar (Media Coordinator), Ali Alsahaf (Cultural Coordinator), Dana Khalid (Membership Coordinator and WIE), Saleh Alsaffar [me] (Webmaster), Saad Alwatyan (Secretary), Dr Mohammed Al-Failakawi (Faculty Supervisor) then followed by Dr Mohammed Jeragh (also Faculty Supervisor). Total chapter members 115.

2009: Saleh Alsaffar [me] (Chair), Mosa Alsulaimi (Vice Chair), Ali Alsahaf (Treasurer), Taleb Behbehani (Public Relation), Shatha Shameya (Public Relation), Areej Hamouda (Media Coordinator), Faye Altammar (Media Coordinator, dropped by mid-term), Mohammed Ghazal (Membership Coordinator), Yacoub Dashti (Cultural Coordinator), Majed Alqabandi (Webmaster, dropped after first event), Dr Mohammed Jeragh (Faculty Supervisor) then followed by Dr. Abdulla Almutawa (Faculty Supervisor). During that term we had an outstanding 264 members within 3 months of registration.

2010: Majed Alqabandi (Chair), Mansi Elenezi (Vice Chair), Mohammed Rajab (Secretary), Mishari Alomran (Treasurer), Bader Alnaser (Public Relation), Fatema Abdulkareem (Public Relation), Mahmood Shaban (Media Coordinator), Sara Fahad (Cultural Coordinator), Shefa’a Ahmad (Membership Coordinator), Hussain Buhamad (Webmaster), Dr Abdulla Almutawa (Faculty Supervisor).

Activities

I’m going to list all events we have done during the 2008 and the 2009 terms. I don’t have the list of all events before the 2008 period. I’m going to update the post when I have the full list of activities that have been done before the 2008 term.

2008 Events

1. Notes and files handout day
2. Web design tutorial
3. CCNA1 and 2 courses
4. Global Awareness seminar
5. Trip to Wataniya servers in the Liberation Tower
6. Trip to Ministry of Communication in Liberation Tower
7. Graduating Adivising Sessions with CpE Department
8. cPanel workshop
9. Open Day at KSE
10.   HTML Workshop
11.   Javascript Workshop
12.   Informatics Day 2008
13.   Islamic Day Seminar
14.   Trip to Kuwait’s smartest building: Permanent headquarters of the Arab organizations
15.   Web design workshop
16.   Distribution of the Year Book.

2009 Events

1. Trip to KNPC
2. Programming contest
3. Intel i7 Processor Architecture seminar
4. cPanel session (twice)
5. CCNA1 and 2 courses
6. Entertainment Day
7. Trip to Kuwait Airways
8.   Petroleum company session
9. Ramadan Open Day with KSE
10. Session with freshmen in association with the CpE department
11. Alternate Energy conference
12.   Java Beginners session
13.   Java Intermediate session
14.   Informatics Day 2009
15.   Installation Festival
16.   Java Advanced session

So I have listed the events during the 2008 and the 2009 periods. Of course we did have some other activities we have done like handouts and participating in CpE department events.Coming up a blog post with details about each event.

Ever went to have lunch peacefully but then suddenly, while eating, a joyful music comes up then spontaneously a girl starts singing then the scene gets even more crowded with more people signing in public?

What about going to a subway and waiting to reach your destination then people start pouring in to the subway train with no pants?!

Those are the kind of scenes that Improv Everywhere does. They are based in New York but because their popularity, their missions inspired many groups world wide leaded by undercover agents like the Sydney Flash Mob Freeze and the Michael Jackson tribute flash mobs.

Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.

One of their most known scenes is the No Pants Subway Ride. My favorite prank is the Food Court Musical.

There are many great flash mobs being done globally and historically it being done since decades ago. I’d like to share some flash mob videos: Michael Jackson tribute in Stockholm, The T-Mobile Dance in UK, Sound of Music in Antwerp, Supermarket Flashmob and Consider Yourself.

Enjoy your weekend with this playlist. 

Ever wanted to create a beautiful Flash website? Wix is a great place to start. It provides a set of flash layouts that you can customize and build your website to the final touch. It’s simple, easy and fast! Best of all, you do not need to have any knowledge in Flash.

(I’m sorry I won’t be able to continue with the next post)

I’ve decided to buy a high performance PC for gaming and heavy tasking that would last as long as possible and could play the latest games with the highest graphic settings. And since I’m from Kuwait I have limited choices as the online markets are off-limit because of the customs here and the extremely slow mailing system. After purchasing all parts and finish building  the PC all by myself, I’ve decided to share my experience for whoever is looking to buy a new gaming PC in Kuwait.

Since I went to college my need for better and faster PC grows at a greater pace. For the second year of college (2005) I bought my second laptop which is Fujitsu Siemens M4348G for the pure purpose of gaming. It was a big mistake because it was heavy and bulky and it is pain to carry even for short distances venturing within the college walls. And the 17 inch laptop looks stupid on me since I’m a short guy.

The year after that (2006), I’ve learned from my mistake and bought an Asus A8js which was the best laptop performance and graphic wise within the 14 inch range and it weights around 5.5 pound which is considered great for travelling or, in my case, the need for the laptop almost all the time in college. I was able to stick with this great laptop for 2 years which is the average age of laptops nowadays.

By 2008 I’ve decided to buy the Vaio Z laptop which is according to my research, it is the best suitable laptop for me! Great specification for such a small laptop (13.3 inch). Decent graphic card, 6 hours of battery life, very lightweight, core 2 duo and 2 GB of RAM… what more could I ask for? Luckily I was in Toronto, Canada, that time and they do sell new Vaio PCs early at a good price compare to Kuwait’s prices. I grabbed a laptop from the store few days before it was displayed in the store… and I lived happily ever after!

By December of 2009 I was about to explode of anger due to performance problem I’m facing playing new games and with my regular usage of a computer. I’ve decided to get a new PC and my aim was to use it for the following:
 

1. Gaming, thus I need a better graphic card.  The Geforce 9300 GS for my Vaio Z laptop wasn’t able to play even some of the old games with decent graphic settings which really suck. I’m a heavy gamer and I love games and my laptop isn’t nearly enough to satisfy my appetite for new games. After playing Dragon Age: Origins for awhile tweaking settings and all it wasn’t a pleasant experience. The bad frame rate even with the lowest settings and it still go for 10 FPS or less. I had to go for a new PC with better graphic card, I don’t want to play the upcoming games like Supreme Commander 2, Command and Conquer 4 and Final Fantasy XIV with low frame rate.
    
2.  Browse smoothly! Nowadays websites are more complicated and requires more resources than old days with all the Flash, Javascript and rendering duty it perform. Google Reader is a performance hug when there is hundreds of articles awaiting in the stack. Working with multiple browsers is required for an I.T. professional.
    
3. Multimedia. I can’t complain about Vaio Z when it comes to play HD content even in stamina mode. I’m an HD freak and I watch every show and movie in HD and Sony geniously created this laptop to fit a heavy multimedia user. Amazing HD playback capabilities, built-in Toslink/Optical audio output, decent speakers and full HD HDMI output port.  The only drawback is that I only have 240GB of HD space which get filled with the basic applications and music files that I install as soon as I format my machine. So, with the new PC I need to go up one more level of home entertainment with enough amount of disk space.
    
4. Virtualization… RAM killer! Virtual machine eats a lot of memory and when you’re only with 3GB of memory, you won’t have enough memory left to work within the main OS smoothly. Windows 7 comes with a new feature called Windows XP Mode which allows you to run Windows XP on top of Windows 7, it could be helpful when you are running applications that are compatible with Windows XP only but you’ll need a chip-level virtualization which is supported in the Vaio Z.
    
5. I’m a programmer. Programmers and web developers generally do not need cutting edge CPU and high amount of RAM except in some situations, however, a smooth working environment for a programmer is certainly a big plus. It is not like I’m developing a game or something big but it feel more comfortable to work when you run your website on a GlassFish or MAMP local server and it executes fast enough to do a fast testing and get done with your work quickly. Some big IDEs like Netbeans and Visual Studio 2010 requires more resources when you start developing a mid-sized applications because of all the background processes happening during the development period. I know some programmers still uses Pentium 3, but I’m not really patience when my fingers start writing codes.
    
6. Designing. I use Adobe Flash, Flex, Photoshop and Swift 3D. Photoshop is pain in the ass when I start creating posters and flyers. It starts getting slow when I go to large designs and as deep as 300 DPI and beyond. Certainly a memory of 3GB is not enough with all other applications working on the background. Also rendering is freaking slow on my Vaio Z which is another drawback.

To be continued…

I’d like to share some great and funny videos about working at Microsoft.

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3

As mentioned before, TechED is coming to the Middle East and now the public website is live for registration for $595 US for early registration which is $230 cheaper than the standard fee.

That’s around 170KD which I think is still expensive. There should be a student registration with cheap registration fee or maybe make it free since Microsoft are marketing their products after all!

I’ve been trying to install Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 but I keep getting a message saying that I don’t have SP1 installed even though I do have it installed, and it won’t allow me to install it. I tried to uninstall everything and reinstalled Visual Studio 2008 and updated it to Service Pack 1 but the same error keeps showing up whenever I executing the Silverlight 3 Tools installation. Here’s the error message I keep receiving:

Installation Requirements:

Build 9.0.30729.XX of Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or Visual Web Developer 2008 SP1 must be installed before installation can continue.  See <A HREF=”http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=122094″>http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=122094</A> for download information.

I’ve done much research to resolve this problem but I couldn’t find any helpful information. However, I’ve been able to find some hints here and there and I’ve came up with the solution after playing around with it for awhile. But first I should clarify few things before I continue with the solution:

• I’m using an early version of Windows 7 Professional since it was released 3 weeks ago by the time I’m writing this post.
• I have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Professional Edition and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed.
• The VS2008 build is: 9.0.21022.8 RTM which is the latest update I can get from Windows Update and it cannot detect any more updates for the VS2008.
• I have Expression Studio 3 already installed.

Okay, so now to overcome the installation error of Silverlight 3 Tools follow up these few steps:

1. Download Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 from here. The download file name should be: Silverlight3_Tools.exe by default.
2. Download WinRar from here. Winrar will be used to extract Silverlight3_Tools.exe since it is an archived file. The reason I mentioned Winrar here is because I’m not sure if there is any other application that supports extracting EXE files. Feel free to use any other app that could do the job.
3. After installing Winrar or any equivalent application, right click on Silverlight3_Tools.exe and extract the archive file.
4. Finally, go to the location where you have extracted the file and execute the file VS_SilverlightTools_Setup.exe to install the Silverlight 3 Tools.

There was once a young warrior called Anrier standing still and firmly in the front rank of the army. The rain was dropping hard that clinking was everything he can hark from distance… waiting… and waiting patiently. He was surrounded on his left and right by men of old age wearing ragged cloths under their light armor. He saw the dreadful look in their shrunken faces and the agony glimmering from their eyes.

After hours of waiting for the battle to come in the midst of an army of farmers and villagers watching the horizon in vigilance, he spied out a spark of fire over distance of hazy and rainy climate. He yawned and starred back at the spark then at an instance tens of torches are starting to glimmer. As he stirred to shout, the captain lifted the blade and gave a great cry.

Men of Ijulia, warriors of the free world of Esio…

Arise, arise.

Today we embark upon a mighty battle.

Ominous fate awaits us.

Swords shall be crossed. Blood shall be spilled.

Honor yourselves.

Knights and warriors of Ijulia.

As these words were being cried out, the enemy army loomed in the horizon. At that moment, a lightning erected from the sky and the enemy’s army was beyond imagination. Enormous number of orcs were sighted, strong and violent in heavy armor. In a second, he thought of what peril he brought to himself fighting in a losing battle. He thought of his home, a small cottage in the outskirts of Numenion village. How beautiful days of summer were, the enjoyment of polishing his farming tools, the delicious porridge for dinner, the sight of the wood at dawn, the sound of twittering in early morning of spring, the slosh of water as he throw pebbles into the river, the sound of his father calling him, the smell of his mother’s cook, and the sight of his sister dancing in her ball gown. Suddenly he snaps back into reality.

Warriors, we march now!

For God, King and Ijulia.

A blast of horn has sounded. The men have started to move forward, leaded by the captain and his banner-bearer. Anrier took a grip of his sword which was still in the sheath, lifted it high by his left hand,  covered with a scarlet gauntlet. The pace has quickened and men were crying from all over and the sound of swords drawn was dense.  Arrows were falling asunder and many men were falling dead or wounded around him and one arrow blew close to his head. At a close distance to the enemy he held his sword with both hands, raised it up high as his hands leveled with his forehead, shimmering by moonlight reflection.

Anrier stroke the first orc into the neck and continue running deeper to catch sight of a huge orc. He stroke but the orc was ready and the sword clanged with the orc’s shield. The ugly orc winced then scarcely the orc stroke with the axe on his other hand but failed to hit Anrier due to his fast reaction, suddenly he felt a sudden punch into his face by the orc’s shield and it was strong enough to drop him back few foots away. Dazed and dazzled searching for his sword by the palm of his hands without any delay he stood up as soon as he grabbed his sword and swerved to break the next attack and quickly pierced the orc into his belly and fell dead instantaneously.

Momentarily, he felt heavy weighted mass piercing through his chest and the sound of the bone shatter. He looked down and saw a spear off his chest and blood begins to rush. He stood still, shivering and suffering from immense pain, then drifting into his own imagination of his family’s current condition, and went into a complete blankness.

Not all of us can tweet all the time for many reasons. I’m one of those who can’t tweets all time even though I own a PDA with a Twitter client. This is when scheduling your tweets could come handy.

There are many online services that schedule your tweets. The one I’m using and might interest many of you is FutureTweets. It is easy to use by writing your tweets on a form then select the date and time you want it to be published. You can also see all previous tweets you have scheduled.