Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Votebangla.com

http://www.votebangla.com/ is an excellent apolitical website with latest news and funny satirical cartoons. The news are of good quality. Hope the site will add many more features in future. It has just been launched. The site deserves a visit by you!

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

10 minute mail!

A simple but amazing solution to avoid spams. Many websites require to register before viewing some page or message board. Once you give one of your valid email addresses, that inbox is gone. You can expect lots of spams coming there from the next moment. I have so many such incidents. My gmail account now gets one spam mail per five minutes, sometimes more frequently. This 10 minute mail solution will help avoid such annoying problems. This site gives a temporary email address only valid for 10 minutes. You can check mail with web interface in that time. But you can only send mails to addresses where an email has come from. Once you get the verification mail for the registration there, forget that email address. Because that will be no more after 10 minutes. No more worry about spams! What an elegant solution!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

It is coming at last

At last, the 14 party alliance declared to go for the old coward in case he fails to meet their demand. And after today's news of appointing two more election commissioners, it has become inevitable. I wonder why a man of 76 has no self-dignity. What will he get by being an accomplice of election engineering? He and his retarded friend in the election commission are trying to implement a blue-print of vote rigging, it is no more a secret now. He is losing ground everyday by his inexplicable behaviors. He is playing on people's tolerance, which has a limit. A sudden outburst from people is imminent now. I feel pity for the pigeon-hearted man.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

What's happening???

What are these two stooges doing? I am surprised to read in bdnews24 that the President and the C.E.C. are discussing about groundwork for election and a poll schedule. It can be noted that this discussion took place right after former prime minister's demand for an immediate schedule for a poll. So, it is obvious that on command of their master, the slaves have started to work. I think the ongoing people's movement should immediately be redirected to the old scum sitting at the throne. He deserves no respect. People are only showing him respect due to his age and teaching career despite he has an active political background. The teaching background should have been discarded way before as I do not consider those who indulge in cheap politics to get promotion and illegal benefits as any ideal teacher. And now, it is proven that age alone does not purify a man. Despite all the sufferings of people, the weak-hearted (literally) gutless old man is still taking orders from his lady master and the prince. Enough blood is shed. To remove the puppets, it is not practicable to do one movement per person. My suggestion is to leave C.E.C., go for the old wicked. Strip him from all his offices. Appoint a really honest, unbiased, highly qualified Caretaker Chief. Then let him purge the whole corrupt administration. In my opinion, this is the best way to achieve the goal, optimal in the point of view of least bloodshed and suffering of people.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

A Prime Minister we should be ashamed of!

Here is a report on unimaginable corruption of the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Khaleda Zia. I wonder, how on earth after achieving so many things (e.g. two times being P.M.) a person can have so much greed? Doesn't their greed have any limit? Suppose, after death, they are placed in heaven, will they be content with what they will have their?? After how many times being P.M. their hunger for money will be satiated?

As the content of the website is continuously changing, I am pasting the report here:


 
Dhaka, Nov 05 (bdnews24.com)— Former state minister for power Anwarul Kabir Talukder Saturday alleged that 'Hawa Bhaban-bureaucrat-business' syndicate had sucked Tk 8,000 crore from the power sector during the last five years.

The immediate past government invested Tk 17,500 crore in the power sector, but could not produce one megawatt of electricity during its tenure.

He alleged that the immediate past Prime Minister, her Principal Secretary and the present energy secretary had been 'directly involved in massive corruption' in the power sector.

In an exclusive interview with bdnews24.com Talukder alleged that 'hired goons' of the present Energy Secretary A N H Akhter Hossain ransacked the power offices in Uttara, Mirpur, Pallabi, Sabujbagh and other parts of the city and provoked people to go on the rampage on September 26.

The 'ploy' had been designed to discredit him and tarnish his 'clean' image, Talukder claimed.

"Following the September 26 incidents, former State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar was given the charge of Power Ministry on September 28 on a verbal order from the then Prime Minister," said Talukder, who was reportedly sacked as State Minister for Power during the last government. Talukder had, however, claimed he resigned.

ANH Akhter Hossain while talking to bdnews24.com Sunday denied Talukder's allegations terming them 'false and childish'. He said: "Regrettable; a senior person like him (Talukder) should not talk in such a way."

Talukder, the former BNP lawmaker of Jamalpur-4 constituency, and now a leading figure in the newly formed Liberal Democratic Party of former President A Q M Badruddoza Chowdhury, said the power situation in the country would aggravate further.

"It would take three years to maintain status quo in power sector even if improvement plans were implemented with honesty and efficiency", he said.

He said he referred the cases of corrupt practices to the Anti-Corruption Commission and would testify in the court, if necessary.

Regarding demand-supply, Talukder said daily demand of electricity was 5,500 mega watts against the production of 3,000 mega watts. The Power Ministry used to produce false statistics on electricity, he disclosed. Even, false statistics were placed at the meetings of the parliamentary standing committees, he said.

He said the former Prime Minister and her Principal Secretary Kamal Uddin Siddiqui 'directly patronised corruption' in the power sector. Talukder said being instructed by Prime Minister, an 'unconstitutional' committee comprising bureaucrats were formed at the Prime Minister's Office.

The committee's status was between the power minister and the state minister. This committee used to intervene into the ministry's affairs and patronised corrupt practices, he said.

Of the total government fund of Tk 17,500 crore invested in the power sector during the last five years, he said, Tk 2,500 crore was spent as establishment cost.

"Of the rest Tk 15,000 crore, Tk 8,000 crore was looted by the Hawa Bhaban-bureaucrat-business syndicate. Some Ministers and MPs were also involved in it," he said.

Talukder claimed he tried to purge the power ministry of corruption—part of the reason he was removed from the job.

He said the outgoing government's only project Tongi Power Plant, with 105 mega watts capacity, was yet to go into production because of corruption and use low standard of equipments.

"The standard of the booster compressors was downgraded to Chinese standard from the internationally recognised standard resulting in lowering of the capacity, but interestingly the price went up," Talukder said.

He pointed fingers at the Hawa Bhaban, PDB's board of directors and the dishonest officials of the Power Ministry for the 'corruption'.

He said he could have purchased 200 mega watts of electricity at the rate of less than Tk 1.9 per unit from the private sector, but he was not allowed to do so.

"If I purchased that 200 MW electricity from private sector, setting up of eight captive power plants with 240 MW could not be justified," Talukder said. Those eight plants were yet to go into production, but they had been paid, he said.

"The state will have to pay Tk 8,000 crore to those eight captive power plant owners as subsidy during the next 15 years. But this money could easily be saved by purchasing electricity from the private sector," the former State Minister said.


bdnews24.com/krc/rm/ad/1921 hours

Source: http://bdnews24.com/details.php?cid=0.03&id=49814#tp49814 (may not work)

Friday, November 03, 2006

Soldiers' stress

Here is a video of some soldiers telling how much stress they are in in Iraq. The job is not easy at all.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

MuhammadYunus.org launched

A comprehensive site on Dr. Muhammad Yunus has been launched: http://www.muhammadyunus.org/. Thanks for the people who have put it up. I think it is one of the top web resources on the Nobel laureate.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

A website about scientific revelations in the holy Qur'an

http://www.speed-light.info/ is a mind boggling website. It deals with scientific revelations in the holy Qur'an. It shows how the holy Qur'an provides scientific facts which were unknown at that time and many of them are still to be proved by modern science. In some sites ( e.g. wikipedia), I found an argument that knowledge similar to some revelations were prevalent in seventh century Arab world. It may be true for only a very few cases but certainly can not be true for the examples given in this site. Though I have read a book (a series of two parts; does not have any electronic version) which had many more such interesting things, I liked this site for being very concise and to the point.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Quadir Prize

Quadir Prize is an Annual Global Contest to Strengthen Bangladesh hosted by the Center for International Development at Harvard University . One has to propose an innovative and practical idea that would improve the lives of low- and middle- income people of Bangladesh. Proposals will be judged by four Harvard University faculty members, in consultation with scholars familiar with Bangladesh.The author of the winning essay will be awarded the Anwarul Quadir Prize, USD $25,000. Deadline for submission is December 31, 2006. This contest is sponsored by the Anwarul Quadir Foundation.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Dr. Muhammad Yunus: First Ever Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate!

Like many said, the Nobel prize of Dr. Yunus is the greatest achievement of our nation since independence. Today, one Chinese colleague in my lab was congratulating me. He was very amazed to see that a small country like Bangladesh can have such people. He told that none from his country ever got a Nobel prize (actually, one person with Chinese root got but he is not recognized in China). I cannot express how I felt at that moment. A Bangladeshi could achieve what no one from a big prosperous country like China did not achieve (no offence to Chinese, I am just giving example). Ours is not only a poor and small nation but also we can produce Nobel laureates. It is a proof of how much potential we are. Today is a great day for our country. Dr. Yunus, we are so proud of you! May your dream of alleviating poverty from the world come true!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Corruption in Biman

While reading this article, I was feeling so depressed that I could not read through the end. I was being torn apart while going through it. Isn't there any end to this insanity? All these started during the time of our former dictator Ershad and was subsequently exacerbated in manifolds by some very high ranking politicians of a leading party of our country. This coterie is systematically destroying Biman, once the pride of our nation. I still remember how my parents preferred Biman over other airlines, not because of economy but because of hospitality and homely feelings. I wish there would be a magician who would stop all these absurdity of our country!

Interview of Tarek Rahman

I just came accross the following clips of an interview of Tarek Rahman a.k.a. Tarek Zia, senior joint secretary of Bangladesh Nationalist Party. It is believed that he will be the Prime Minister of Bangladesh sometime in future. If ten percent of what he promised to do in this interview becomes true, then I will be satisfied.



Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Unbelievable idiocy!

I can't believe this. Beating national shooters after entering the shooting complex just does not make sense to me. Commonwealth games gold medalist Asif and another national shooter Shoebuzzaman are seriously injured and will take weeks to recuperate and get back to practice. This is insane. These sycophants of corrupt political leaders have crossed their limits way ago. Now, who can bridle these unscrupulous people of the most corrupt institution of Bangladesh?

Saturday, September 30, 2006

One fine example

The state minister for power resigned today. He admitted his failure and said that his conscience made him take the decision. Though I seriously doubt whether he actually failed as he was in charge for only four months and it is very tough to implement anything good in that sector because of a coterie close to PMO, I salute his decision. At least he showed that ministers should have some conscience and enough selflessness to take such decisions. This should be a great example to some shameless ministers of present government who amassed over million dollars in this term but could do no good to the country. I think they buried their conscience deep underground long before joining politics. Otherwise, how could they become ministers? Shame on them!!!

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Why Countries Like Bangladesh Remain Poor

This is a great article by Professor Mahfuz R. Chowdhury. It summarizes some causes of our poverty. Though the facts are well-known, the article is worth enough to go through.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

CAN'T WE THINK SAME WAY FOR BANGLADESH

This is a mind boggling article which I got from bdresearchers group. After reading it, I can't help sharing it with all. I always had a high respect for Indian president, the article justifies it. If you have time, please go through it.

An article By Dr. Abdul Kalaam (PRESIDENT OF INDIA)
======================================================
"I have three visions for India. In 3000 Years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds.  From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and Looted  us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation.

We have not conquered anyone.  We have not grabbed their land, their culture, and their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM.

I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture  and build on.  If we are not free, no one will respect us.  My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation.

It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most Areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being  globally recognized today.  Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self- reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?

I have a third vision. India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that, unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only STRENGTH respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept of space, Professor Satish Dhawan who succeeded him and Dr Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material.  I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life.

I see four milestones in my career: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for India's first Satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years  played a very important role in my life of Scientist. After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994. The Dept of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation  but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A very light material called carbon-carbon.

One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kg.  each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients .  In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300-gram calipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The children didn't believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs,  they could  now move around. Their parents had tears in their eyes.  That was my fourth bliss!

Why is the media here so negative?

Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements?

We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them.

Why?

We are the first in milk production.

We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.

We are the second largest producer of wheat.

We are the second largest producer of rice.

Look at Dr Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit.

There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid  and a granary.

It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of  killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried  among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.

Why are we so NEGATIVE ?

Another question : Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things?

We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?

I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed IndiaFor her, you and I will have to build this developed India.  You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation .

Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.
Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.

                     YOU say that our government is inefficient.

                     YOU say that our laws are too old.

                     YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.

                     YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke,

                     The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their Destination.

                     YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

                     YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?


Take a person on his way to Singapore .

Give him a name-YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS.

YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best.  In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores.

YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are.

YOU pay $5 (approx Rs 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM.

YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity.

In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU?

YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai.

YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.

YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs 650) a month to, "see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else."

YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then
tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?).
I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost."

YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?

Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston???
We are still talking of the same YOU.YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground.
If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr. Tinaikar, had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place ," he said.  "And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do?
Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels
?

In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job.  Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He's right.  We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative.

We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public.  When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room  protestations and continue to do the reverse at home.

Our excuse? " It's the  whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my  sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change the system? What does a  system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a  safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government.

Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country . Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too.... I am echoing J F Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians????

"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA  WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"

Lets do what India needs from us.

Forward this mail to each Conscious PPL who really feel of their mother land for a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.

Thank you,
Dr Abdul Kalaam
(PRESIDENT OF INDIA)
 
 
 
  'CAN'T WE THINK SAME WAY FOR BANGLADESH'

Sunday, September 17, 2006

An encouraging article on Russian Air Force

Though it is old, it gives some useful insights about Russians which does not change over time.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

58 GB of Downloadable Bangla Songs!!!

Thanks Rony for the wonderful website. It has tons of Bangla songs, at this moment 13304 songs to be precise. Anyone can download and upload songs to it via ftp. The ftp address is ftp://bangla.homeip.net:2121. You have to create an account before loggin in which is free.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Mahfuz Anam's apology to Tarique Rahman!

This is an excellent riposte by the revered editor of The Daily Star, Mahfuz Anam to the leading corrupt of the nation Tarique Rahman. Mr. Tarique has grown so big in power that he seems to interfere in anything now. Though I do not know the incident exactly, going through the editorial, it is easy to understand that the ongoing "Joggo Prarthi Andolon" has disturbed him so much that he spoke out against it. I think what he thought was he is not a "Joggo Prarthi" (:D) and so felt humiliated by the campaign. I don't think he thought wrong! :D

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Saeed Anwar - highest individual ODI score ever made

Saeed Anwar makes 194 runs against India during the Independence Cup in May of 1997. This is the highest individual score ever made in an ODI. If you are a cricket fan and have not watched it then it is a crime!!!

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

A Late Update

Lot of things happened in last two weeks and I am now in UTD for my phd. I applied for visa more than two months ago. My wife was refused spouse visa and I was referred to security clearance. I was waiting for the security clearance to come. Almost all who applied for visa at the same time got their security clearance. My orientation date was 14th August. I was losing hope and at one stage gave up the hope completely. But dramatically, on the 8th August it came. I only had a handful of days to prepare and fly. After much struggle, I got one expensive ticket to Dallas of British Airways. I flied on the 14th and reached Richardson on the 15th. My friend Arif and his wife came to receive me. I attended the late orientation on the 17th.

There are lots of things to tell among these events. If I start in detail it will take so long that my fingers will start aching. So, I think I should skip most of them and just tell how much I miss my family, my home and my country. I was feeling so bad in the flight from London to Los Angeles that I decided to get back to country after one week. I miss my family terribly. I realized how sweet one's motherland is after leaving it. No country, regardless of how rich, developed it is, is comparable to one's motherland. I am dying for the moment I will be again in my country. I am staying with a fellow Bangladeshi here who is really a good person. I am fortunate to get a Bangladeshi roommate. My friend Arif and his wife are helping me a lot. I am very grateful to them for arranging everything for me before I arrived here. My class has begun on the 17th. The load will increase gradually. As I am a TA here, I will have to do a lot of TA works too. One of them has already begun. I already told my professor that I will go to Bangladesh after this semester. He is a nice man too. He did not disagree.

I hope I will be able to fulfil the purpose for which I came here though I will not be happy here without my family. After I get the degree, I will get back to Bangladesh, my sweet home country.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Amazing!!! 19 downloads in two weeks!!!

Since I uploaded the TrayController project to SourceForge.net, the installers have been downloaded 19 times. Isn't it cool? I am very excited and happy to see this. I really did not expect that much. I hope the software is being used by the downloaders. I am yet to receive any feedback from users. I will be happier to get some suggestions, comments or bug reports from the users.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

An excellent criticism of Java

This is by far the best article by Joel Spolsky I have ever read. While reading the article, I wondered whether he read my thoughts before writing it or not. The points he made are very valid and I can no more agree with him. I have been long looking for this kind of articles in the net which will support my view unequivocally. I am sure that some of my ardent java fan friends will be hurt by it, but what he wrote is fact no fiction. I cannot like Pointer-less programming languages for the reasons mentioned in it. C++ is the best (as suggested by the poll in the right side too :-) ), no doubt about it. It is so much powerful and flexible that one can do anything (s)he likes. Chopping off the head to get rid of headache is not any solution. But unfortunately, popular programming languages like Java and C# have done exactly that by leaving out pointers. I was always a fan of Joel's articles but today I have become a bigger fan :-). Sorry Java-lovers ;-).

Sunday, July 30, 2006

My first open source project

I created my first open source project in sourceforge.net. It is an application which ejects and closes trays of available CDROMs and DVDROMs. Actually, the idea came to my mind because I needed such an application. My fancy CPU casing adds extra button on the drives' eject/close button. For that it became hard for me to open and close them as the buttons are not of good quality. Closing the trays are even harder as the tray hides the button when ejected. So I needed some kind of software control. Trays can be ejected through windows explorer but they can't be closed. My application adds an icon in shell notification area (the one where the clock resides). Right-clicking the icon opens a menu through which trays can be ejected and closed. Left double clicking also opens a window through which the same things can be done. The application is started when windows starts. I have licensed the project with GPL. So, downloading binary/codes, editing, using etc. all are free. I have not build the homepage of the project yet. But the svn repository can be accessed via the URI: svn://svn.sourceforge.net
/svnroot/traycontroller/code/trunk. The files can be viewed by browser through this URL: http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/traycontroller. I will try to add a nice page in the homepage location soon. I am very excited about my first open source project. It will be very nice if someone really uses it. Any contribution is very welcome. I will be very happy if I get any comments, feature requests or any kind of feedback. Hope, I will be able to build more open source software in future which will be more useful to people.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

A BOLD ARTICLE

I loved every bit of it. This kind of explicit article is very much needed to unveil the masquerades of the corrupt politicians. I thank wholeheartedly whoever posted the article. It should reach the mass people of our country who are perpetually being robbed and deceived by these swindlers. More people should come up with such stories. We are badly in need of a corruption free country.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

ZIDANE in Action: A Hilarious Stuff

Visit here and must click the mouse :D:D:D.

However, I feel sorry for him. His end should not be such a tragedy. A great hero he is!

Sunday, July 09, 2006

How Brazil Lost, An Analysis

I got this from a friend. An excellent analysis. It supports my view. The inclusion of aged players by the coach ruined Brazil's chances this year.








Tuesday, July 04, 2006

SAMS Reference Library

SAMS publishing has provided online html copies of some of its books. They are calling it Reference Library. Entire books can be found here. Most of the books are old, may be not much needed these days. But people who really need them can be benefited by the library as these books are almost out of the market now. I think it is a good move by SAMS to benefit the readers.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Shame on Parreira!!!

Parreira is the only person to blame. I wonder how a person not fields his best team and still stays as coach. He killed Brazil's chances even before the tournament by being the coach. Shame on him!!! Shame on Cafu and Roberto Carlos who selfishly stayed in the team whereas they should have retired to provide opportunities to brilliant youngsters like Cicinho. Shame on Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Kaka! They should concentrate more on their clubs to earn millions. Because that's where they belong. The good news for Brazil is Parreira, Cafu and Carlos will no longer be burden of next Brazil world cup team.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

World Cup Blog

World cup blog is a great site for world cup 2006. I liked it more than the official FIFA site. In fact, it is far better than that in terms of content. Yahoo did not do a good job in the official site. It seems boring to me. The interface is too crowded and the content is poor and short. The BBC world cup site is a good one. Its look is same as its other pages, they did not use any different template. But the content is better than the official site. It also provided some user feedback option, much like discussion forum. Among these three the blog site is the best. I am getting news as well as people's views here. There are photos, fixture, score sheets, virtually everything. I regret not to find it early. Anyone, who wants to read a lot about world cup, can visit this site.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

New Chip Breaks Speed Record

Researchers at I.B.M. and the Georgia Institute of Technology are announced that they have broken the speed record for silicon-based chips with a semiconductor that operates 250 times faster than chips commonly used today.The achievement is a major step in the evolution of computer semiconductor technology that could eventually lead to faster networks and more powerful electronics at lower prices, said Bernard Meyerson, vice president and chief technologist in I.B.M.'s systems and technology group. He said developments like this one typically found their way into commercial products in 12 to 24 months. At 500 gigahertz, the technology is 250 times faster than chips in today's cellphones, which operate at 2 gigahertz. At room temperature, the chips operate at 350 gigahertz, far faster than other chips in commercial use today. I think it is a major breakthrough in semiconductor technology. It was really heard that silicon chips are reaching their limit and optical technology will replace them. But it seems that silicon chips will live longer than expected. The news can be read here.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Joel Spolsky writes on his first experience with Bill Gates' review

This is another mind-boggling article from Joel Spolsky. I liked both the date-time thing and Bill Gates' review part. The date-time part was funny. And the review was funny too but at the same time it provided some valuable insight on how technical Bill Gates is. People used to think that he is just an executive who oversees business leaving all the technical stuff for his subordinates. I am really impressed to see how active he was to read a long review with taking into account every details in only one night. He must be as good in technical side as in business. I also can't agree more with Joel on that a software company should be led by technical people not some MBA type people.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Nuclear Energy: Only solution to our power crisis

Nuclear energy is the only medicament to our ongoing horrible power crisis. It is best both for short term and long term solution. Building many power plants for small production like 200, 250, 400 MW is no more a solution for our country. We build few and more power plant phases out at the same time. As a rapidly developing country, our energy need is growing each day too. So, there is always a gap and that gap is widening. Furthermore, looking not so far in future, fossil fuel is limited in quantity, it will be depleted some day. We will face trouble even before that when the fuel will become dearer. So, it is right time to set up a nuclear power plant. We are long holding a site to build one. We must start building it now. I think we can seek complete help from U.S. They will be costly, but they will provide the most reliable and easy and cheap to maintain technology. Foreign minister sought help from China in this regard. I think government is looking for cheap technology. But building a nuclear power plant will be very costly in any way. So, we have to spend it. But we can spend some extra bucks to get the desired reliability and cheap easy maintenance. The extra money will also be huge, but it is worth it keeping in mind that we have to spend the huge amount only once. Spending big amount initially is certainly better than spending less and then spend every now and then just to keep poor things running. The only thing I am concerned about is whether U.S. will like to help us in this regard or not.

A miracle opportunity for Bangladesh

Right after connecting to SEA-ME-WEA-4, Bangladesh has got a rare opportunity to join another consortium. The new consortium is led by Telecom Malaysia and includes seven countries at this moment. It will lay a cable which will connect south east Asia with U.S.A. The new cable is named Asia-America Gateway or AAG in short. Bangladesh, if acts wisely and promptly, can join this consortium. It will give it a much needed backup to SEA-ME-WEA-4. Currently, the ISPs have to maintain their old vsats just for backup purpose which is not lowering the cost of internet. The new cable will give us huge bandwidth along with the much needed backup. I think, it is a must for Bangladesh to join this consortium. The ruling party must forget its any mean political and financial interest and decide to avail the marvelous opportunity. Otherwise the sad history of 90's will repeat.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/06/06/d6060601033.htm

Friday, June 02, 2006

An amazing revenge

This is the most spectacular revenge story I heard any time soon. Amir Massoud Tofangsazan, a con man, thought himself very smart which he actually was not. He sold an out of order laptop by eBay for £375 to Thomas Sawyer, a 23-year-old student. He thought he would get away with it as he did with Debbie McInerney by selling an iPod, which never really reached her. But I think it was the greatest mistake of his life to underestimate Thomas Sawyer and turn down his pleas to refund. In retaliation, Thomas set up a blog about the incident. It is a mocking first-person account which brought fantastic result. When I visited it, the hit counter was showing 2655821!!! This proves that Thomas avenged the fraud with overwhelming success. The anguished Amir told the Daily Mail that the website had made his life a "living hell". The real good news is that police is currently investigating the incident. It is one of the smartest revenges I have ever heard of. So, blogs have found one more use: to take tormenting revenges!!! Thanks Thomas for the novel idea!

Monday, May 15, 2006

An Open Source Scientific Library/Database in C++

Code Cogs is a great site for open source code library in C++. It is the only of this kind in the world. Its intention is to provide open source efficient solutions of mathematics, statistics, science, engineering and finance. It has some excellent notable libraries. Anyone can contribute and be benefited from it.

3D Desktop

3D desktop is a great idea I came across today. I was happy to find that many works are going on it. I found few interesting screenshots of some such works. The most impressive work on it seemed to me Project Looking Glass of Sun Microsystems. It is an open platform to explore innovative 3D user interface. Here is a cool screenshot below:

Though the screenshot is beautiful, I am not much excited about this project. I have experienced sluggish behavior of Java desktop of Solaris 10. Due to this experience, I don't think this desktop environment will be as much responsive as it should be.

There are some programs in Linux which gives 3D effect to desktop using OpenGL e.g. XGL. But I did not find them impressive. They have a long way to go.

In Windows world, Windows Vista and Windows Presentation Foundation API promise to give a new look and feel of the desktop. But why should we wait so long? There is already a great implementation SphereXP. It displays icons and windows inside a sphere instead of a flat desktop hence providing 3D environment. Here is a screenshot of it:


So, 3D desktop is not far away. Though our display devices are going to be 2D for quite a long time, our desktop is going to be 3D for sure. I am certain that it will bring some fantastic and rich experience to us.

Monday, May 08, 2006

The Potential and Challenges of Information Technology for the Future of Bangladesh - Sajeeb Wazed Joy

Here is an excellent article on Bangladesh IT by Sajeeb Wazed Joy. It is nice to see that unlike other illiterate supreme leaders of Bangladesh, who refuses to connect to information superhighway for free in fear of national secret being leaked (how unfortunate we are!!!), he at least understands the problems and solutions of BD IT. I am here assuming that he himself wrote the article. It will be nice if he actually keeps his promises in future.

<Article>

Thursday • May 04, 2006
 
 
 
 
The Potential and Challenges of Information Technology for the Future of Bangladesh
SAJEEB WAZED JOY

As you may know, the Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006, sponsored by the World Economic Forum has been released. According to the report, Bangladesh is marginally improved but going backwards in terms of its ICT development. The report uses the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), covering a total of 115 economies during the year 2005, to measure the degree of preparation of a nation or community to participate in and benefit from ICT developments. The NRI is composed of three component indexes which assess:

 1. The environment for ICT offered by a given country or community,

2. The readiness of the community's key stakeholders - individuals, business and governments and

3. The usage of ICT among these stakeholders.

During the year 2004, Bangladesh's NRI score was -1.30, amongst the bottom four Least Developed Countries (LDCs) with rank 100th. In 2005 the score is -1.11, amongst the bottom six LDCs with rank going downward to 110th out of 115.

India now has forty four percent of the global outsourcing market. This is projected to grow to fifty one percent by the year 2008. However, along with this growth comes a problem. Countries such as India are seeing a rise in their cost of labor which gives Bangladesh a second chance at the train we missed the first time. To compete globally Bangladesh must develop its ICT industry. We already have the human resource. What we must have urgently is sufficient bandwidth and a stable supply of power.

During the Awami League's tenure we added over fifteen hundred megawatts of power production capacity. We had projected and planned for a growth of fifteen hundred megawatts of additional power production capacity in the next five years. Since this government has taken over they have added a net of zero megawatts of power production. I'm sure you are all feeling the effects of this. This does not just affect the ICT industry, but every facet of business and development. One simply cannot develop a nation with a shortage of electricity.

The Awami League government also took the first practical steps towards ICT development in Bangladesh. To encourage investment in the software industry we allocated one hundred crore taka in our 2000-2001 budget. We eliminated all import duties on computer hardware, software and peripherals. A desktop computer used to cost three lakh taka. We brought that price down to forty thousand taka. Where there were only ten to twelve thousand computers in use nationwide, now more than fifteen thousand are purchased every month. This has directly benefited all of you. The current government has since reinstated some of those taxes that we had eliminated.

Before our tenure, no government office had a computer. Even our embassy in Washington used a typewriter for all letters to the US Government! We began the process of computerization of all government offices.

During its first term the BNP government was presented with the option of connecting the country to a submarine fiber optic cable at no cost. Unbelievably, they refused this offer. The Awami League government then initiated the current submarine fiber optic cable project. By this time it was no longer an option to connect for free. Still, the project was created but elections were upon us before we could implement it. Then the BNP government came back to power. The project was redesigned. Originally, the plan was to build a cable from Bangladesh all the way to Singapore. This was done because there was no consortium cable under construction at that time through the Bay of Bengal to which we could connect. The project was delayed after the change in government and when it was finally reinitiated, a new consortium cable was under construction. The government chose to connect to this as the cost is shared among the consortium partners. However, the cost of the submarine cable project was subsequently inflated so that now the cable that has been built has cost the same as the originally planned cable to Singapore. The original planned site of the landing station was at Shitakunda in Chittagong but it was moved to Cox's Bazaar. This was done as there was no network link between Chittagong and Cox's Bazaar and so government cronies could make a huge profit building this network link and large kickbacks were paid to Hawa Bhaban.

Under the BNP, corruption has pervaded every sector of the government. The ICT sector has not been spared. Eighteen crore taka of research and development funds have simply disappeared and hundreds of crore taka have been misspent by the ICT Ministry.

The question now is, what do we do going forward? This brief does not purport to be a policy paper for the Awami League, but I would like to present you with some of my ideas. The main purpose of this seminar is to give me an opportunity to meet with all of you who represent the ICT industry in this country and take back some of your ideas and concerns. All of this will then be incorporated into Awami League's future policies.

With regards to power production, the Awami League has an established track record of developing the nation's power infrastructure. We initiated the privatization of power production which resulted in greater efficiency, reduced corruption and rapid growth. These policies will continue and we will build the necessary power production capacity to meet the demands of the entire nation now and into the future.

I also propose to develop e-governance initiatives. Putting government information online, such as budgets and expenditure will bring about transparency and accountability. Creating a nationwide database and network for the police will increase the efficiency of the law enforcement agencies, improve law and order, prevent instances of police abuse and help us fight terrorism. Online citizen processes such as tax filings, land registration, tender and procurement and public grievances along with online payment schemes for all of these will eliminate the scope for bribery and corruption. My goal is that eventually, all citizen transactions with the government can be completed online without you having to wait in line outside multiple government offices for days and bribing everyone from the peon to the secretary to do something as mundane as filing your taxes.

Then we have the issue of bandwidth. It is not enough just to build a submarine fiber optic cable. Bandwidth must reach the entrepreneurs. This requires a massive distribution network within the country. Still, just a network is not enough either. There must be sound policies put in place to regulate the distribution of the bandwidth. The current submarine cable provides Bangladesh with a bandwidth of ten gigabits per second while the current BTTB network can transmit a maximum of two megabits per second. That is barely one millionth of the capacity of the cable. Current BTTB plans do not call for the utilization of the full bandwidth for another four years! Also, the current policies call for the submarine cable to carry only voice traffic for the foreseeable future. That means that most of your businesses will not see any benefit from this cable. Lastly, the current regulatory framework calls for completely non-transparent control over the distribution of the bandwidth. What that means is that kickbacks to Hawa Bhaban will make up the largest portion of the bandwidth pricing. Bandwidth prices will follow the same trend as the price of all essentials in this country have during this government's term and you will pay double of what the actual cost is.

What we need is to build national data backbones and implement a balanced bandwidth distribution policy. What I would like to propose is to completely revamp the existing telecommunications regulatory commission, the BTTRC, making it more independent and transparent. Along with that, I propose allowing private telecommunications companies to build the backbones. From there the distribution network and the last mile solution can be spread out competitively among telecommunications companies and local ISPs. This would free the government of the cost of building the network and allow each locality to develop the solutions most appropriate for it based on the terrain and existing infrastructure.

In the software sector, entrepreneurs must pay more attention to developing local expertise rather than just trying to re-sell foreign software. We should not become just sales offices for foreign IT shops. On the export side one of the areas that appear to need some help is our ability for project management through the whole project. We need to improve our educational institutions and IT curricula to develop this expertise. We also need to initiate computer usage and training earlier, in our schools rather than in colleges.

We also need to think about technology that can change the lives of the common people. Whether that's a new way for the farmer to pump water or alternative fuel for our cars, we need to think of technology not just in terms of telecommunications or software but as a tool to improve our daily lives. This will increase efficiency in every aspect of our lives. I believe that maximum utilization of technology is our shortcut to modernization.

The government has spent millions of dollars setting up IT parks and ICT centers in places such as Silicon Valley. This simply does not work. What we need to do, instead, is to provide the infrastructure and policies and let the private sector, all of your businesses, flourish. I propose to continue the infrastructure development and tax cuts that we had initiated during our previous term. I also propose to set up a venture fund to finance promising IT startups in Bangladesh.

If we make it, it will be because of the entrepreneurs in the private sector, not the government. Microsoft was built by a college dropout. Yahoo was built by two Stanford students in a trailer. Hewlett Packard was started in a garage. We have to find our own Bill Gates and make sure they have the tools to succeed.

Source: http://www.albd.org/compile/2006/it_joy.htm

</Article>

Friday, April 28, 2006

How Google works!!!

Here is an interesting article on how the search giant Google works. The information in the article is provided by Urs Hoelze, Google vice president of operations and vice president of engineering. I found their redundancy theory very interesting and practically useful indeed. They are smart people, actually they must be, otherwise how they could achieve what they achieved :-).

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Corruption of I.C.T. Ministry

At last some news of corruption of I.C.T. Ministry is coming through. I heard of rampant corruption by our honorable minister Dr. Abdul Moyeen Khan many times before. But news about it has just began to come up. I just read a headline news about the corruption in the Daily Prothom Alo few days back but I lost the link. It said that loans were disbursed to mostly non-I.C.T. projects. Among them, there were few projects relating to goat farming. What an honest and honorable minister we have got! What is the value of his Ph.D. in English if he has no moral? Today, there is another news in the same newspaper regarding fund disbursement of this fiscal year. It said that ten months have passed but no money is released yet. It is feared that history will be repeated this time too as they will not go the 18 crore taka unspent. We may see few more healthy goats being cooked in honorable minister's parties next year!


Thursday, April 20, 2006

Another great site on programming articles

developer.* is an excellent site with great articles for programmers, software developers, software architects, quality assurance engineers, database designers, managers, researchers, professors - actually everyone involved in software development profession and computer science. The site offers articles, blogs and books. To start with, you can peruse the article What Is A Professional Programmer?.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

C++ Templates Turing Complete???!!!

Incredible!!! I did not believe it until I ran the program myself. I found that C++ templates are Turing Complete here. Reading the post, I immediately copied the code to my editor and tried to compile. I saw the CPU and memory usage going higher by time almost at an exponential rate. What a practical proof!!! Here is a paper which proves it theoretically. Here is the interesting piece of code, give it a try!

template<int Depth, int A, typename B>
struct K17 { static const int x =
K17 <Depth+1, 0, K17<Depth,A,B> >::x
+ K17 <Depth+1, 1, K17<Depth,A,B> >::x
+ K17 <Depth+1, 2, K17<Depth,A,B> >::x
+ K17 <Depth+1, 3, K17<Depth,A,B> >::x
+ K17 <Depth+1, 4, K17<Depth,A,B> >::x;
};
template <int A, typename B>
struct K17 <16,A,B> { static const int x = 1;
};
static const int z = K17 <0,0,int>::x;
int main(void) { }

What is the essential difference between Dynamic Programming and Recursion?

Digging out the net I found the answer here. I think it gives the appropriate answer in a pretty terse manner:

The essential difference is that Dynamic Programming keeps its intermediate results whereas recursion does not. This makes a huge difference to performance when a recursive function is called repeatedly with the same arguments. In fact Dynamic Programming is nothing more than recursion with the addition of a caching strategy.

Can it be true?

Russian scientists at Scientific Research Institute of Moscow claimed that they invented a device which can accelerate to infinity!!! Adding more to surprise, they told that the device contradicts Newton's third law of physics!!! There is a 99.99% chance that this is a hoax but what if it is true? :D. I immediately started dreaming about rambling from one star to another when I heard the news!!! :D:D:D

To translate the page to English, Babelfish of Altavista can be used.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Sun Solaris 10

I just installed Sun Solaris 10 in my PC. The desktop looks fine, specially the Java Desktop is a cool one. The browser's rendering is also good, I think it is better than Linux GTK browsers. As it is free, I think Linux lovers can give it a try. It supports a minimal set of commands/utilities like Unix. I got this Solaris CD from Eyeball. I remember some incidents relating Solaris, those were hilarious :D. I am sorry that I cannot disclose them here, my Eyeball-mates will easily recognize them :D.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

The most hilarious claim I have ever heard

I never heard something like this in my life. Are these people thinking rationally or being driven by fanatic thoughts? I do not know whether their claim of holocaust is true or not, may be my history knowledge is very poor, but I can feel their rage.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Do we have any shame???

In my previous post, I was apprehending something bad from the officials of Bangladesh Commonwealth contingent. Actually, I was just in a sarcastic mood. I never thought any more bad news is coming as I thought, after one bad event Bangladeshis will be cautious not to bring any more ignominy for the country. But my fellow brothers have beaten my imagination comprehensively. Now, a new question came to my mind, do we have any shame? Was it necessary to send that 40+ years old perverted shooter with pathetic skill to serve his sexual desire??

Thursday, March 23, 2006

What a shame!!!

Our boys have done it again. Actually, till now, only one athlete is missing from Commonwealth Games . Who knows how many more will do this? There are still some days left in the games. One more interesting fact, 13 officials have accompanied 16 sportsmen in the Bangladeshi contingent. Almost one official per sportsman, yet they failed to guard them properly :D. BTW, what those officials are there up to? Just for a pleasure trip and marketing or something else? I think we can hear an official fleeing the games village soon!!! :D:D:D

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Malaysian women are said to find Bangladeshi men irresistible

Here is an interesting story about Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia. It was very funny to me to know that Bangladeshi workers have Indian movie star looks which are irresistible to young Malaysian women. Bangladeshis are involved in many notorious acts such as eloping with married women who are simply enthralled by their charms and good looks.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Got admission in UTD Ph.D. CS Program!!!

I just could not believe it when I first read the mail. I forwarded the mail to Mehedi, Arif and Rony immediately to double check the mail. When Arif replied only then I was sure that I did get Ph.D. admission in UTD. It is an awesome news for me!!! Thanks to Allah, the most benevolent, for giving me the wonderful opportunity. Though I have been said nothing about funding yet, I hope I shall get some positive news soon by the grace of Allah. After the refusal from EuMI, I got very disappointed. But if Allah wishes nothing can stop me, now I got the admission in UTD, this news brought back happiness to me and my family. No news could be better prior to visiting Rangamati next week. I think the tour will be more enjoyable now than before. I am forwarding the mail below:

"Felipe, Mary E" <mary.felipe@utdallas.edu> wrote:
Subject: UTD Ph.D. CS Program
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:42:01 -0600
From: "Felipe, Mary E" < mary.felipe@utdallas.edu>
 
Dear Mohammad Husain,
 
Congratulations on your acceptance to the Ph.D. Computer Science Program in The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science!  Your "official" acceptance must come in a letter from our university, and may contain a few conditions such as completion of prerequisite courses.  Nevertheless, I would like to "informally" welcome you and celebrate your educational opportunities at The University of Texas at Dallas. We are very proud and excited about our program, and I would like to encourage you to join us. UTD has admissions requirements which are at least as selective as the other top universities in the United States, providing you with an education of high scholastic standards.
 
In The Erik Jonsson School, we have 3 research institutes, 5 research centers, and over 48 research labs, with the number continually growing! This means that both our faculty and our graduate students have ample opportunities to pursue their areas of research interest. Furthermore, because of our location in the 2nd largest high-tech region in the United States, our industry ties are very strong. Because of this, we are able to work closely with industry to both understand current needs and to continue to push our research activities ahead of the "state-of-the art." Joint research with industry is also frequently undertaken. Your participation in our Graduate Program will certainly provide you with opportunities to participate in these activities.
 
The Erik Jonsson School also has the largest Industrial Practice Program in the state of Texas, and the sixth largest in the nation. This program is designed to allow our students to work with our local industry partners while still progressing towards a degree. The job placement rate for students who complete our voluntary co-op program is one of the best in the nation.
 
Lastly, I would like to remind you that the university has a large support network for new and continuing students. There is everything from tutoring to over one hundred and thirty student organizations to keep you as busy and involved as you would like to be!
 
You may be asking yourself "what are my next steps?" Your admission approval will now be processed by the UTD Admissions Office and your official UTD Admission letter will be generated within two weeks.  Your official letter will state whether you have been assigned prerequisite courses by the Graduate CS Admissions Committee.  Each student's file is carefully reviewed for admission and all deficiencies are noted for all four CS areas of study.  After attending Graduate CS Orientation, students choose their concentration.  Students are responsible for fulfilling only those prerequisites pertaining to their area of study.  You may apply for a waiver and/or transfer of prerequisite courses, after your enrollment at UTD, based on your previous academic records and the track of study you choose. 
                                                                                     
After that time, your application will be reviewed by the UTD International Student Services Office (ISSO) for I-20 review.  The UTD ISSO issues I-20s and handles immigration matters for UTD international students.  You will receive an email from the UTD ISS Office in approximately 3 weeks informing you of your I-20 status and any documents needed for I-20 issuance.  If you have not included the UTD financial affidavit and your current bank statement in your admission package, you must complete and fax these documents to the ISS Office at +1 (972) 883-4010 as soon as possible.  Only the UTD financial affidavit is accepted by the ISS Office.   For your convenience, I have attached this official affidavit.  If you are not able to open this attachment, you may access the form at:  
 
Please make certain that your full name is clearly printed on all documents.  Please verify the following information immediately as this will assist in the issuance of your I-20.  Please make any corrections necessary.
 
Full name:                     Husain, Mohammad Farhan
 
Please view the new international student information web page at http://www.utdallas.edu/student/international/  This site is very informative and helpful to our incoming international students.
 
I sincerely hope to see you on campus in the fall 2006 semester.  If you have questions or would like additional information, please contact Mary Felipe at mary.felipe@utdallas.edu
 
Warm Regards,
 
 
 
Dr. Kang Zhang
Professor, Assistant Department Head
The University of Texas at Dallas
Computer Science Department 

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Windows Live Mail Beta

I just got invited to use Windows Live Mail Beta. I signed in with my Hotmail account. My first impression was that the interface is cool! The reading pane and drag-n-drop option are great. It is the first time I could use drag-n-drop and resizing in a browser. It offers 2 GB mail space too. Despite these exciting features, I doubt whether it can beat the growing popularity of Gmail or not. The notion of mail conversation introduced by Gmail is unique. I think Yahoo Mail's simplicity and reliability to filter spams and Gmail's conversation approach coupled with ever increasing mail box size will keep still them ahead of Live Mail.

Planning to go to Rangamati

Sharna and I have weekends and holiday from the 23rd to the 26th March. We are planning to visit Rangamati in those days. I bought the bus tickets already and reserved hotel room over phone. My sister will go with us from Dhaka. We will pick my sister-in-law from Chittagong and then go to Rangamati. We will explore the possibility to go to Bandarban from Rangamati. If there is a feasible way, we will also go there, otherwise we will spend a day in Chittagong city and return to Dhaka on the 26th.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Visiting card

I just got visiting cards from my new employer. It is a very petty matter to mention here. But it reminds me the days in Eyeball Networks Inc. I remember that we asked our C.T.O. to provide us some visiting cards. It would cost less than 100 BDT per head which is an infinitesimal amount considering Eyeball's more than million dollar annual revenue. But we got refused. Believe me, this was the way we, the Bangladeshis in Dhaka, were treated there. We have many memorable moments in Eyeball but none of them has its any intentional contribution. We could have those moments only because there was no authority here. I am happy to get rid of that biased and unfair company, who treated us like slaves. Many times we took the initiative to make visiting cards ourselves, but none of them was successful. At last, I have got my visiting card, I am happy :-)

Saturday, March 11, 2006

First two day weekend

Today, I enjoyed my first ever two day weekend. I always knew that two day weekend refreshes mind completely. When you get back to work after a two day weekend, you will feel more invigorated. Your productivity will increase for sure. It is particularly true for IT professionals. Those who think that six working days are better than five working days are really unsmart, they fail to grasp the big picture. All the developed countries of the world have it. Recently, Bangladesh government also introduced it, though their main reason was to save fuel. Few years ago, government introduced it for the first time but later, a new government withdrew the decision. However, my previous employer Eyeball Networks used to understand the utility of two days weekend. But they refused to provide it to their Dhaka office whereas they used to enjoy three day weekend in one week every month and two day weekend in other weeks in Vancouver. It was mainly due to their exploitive and somewhat racist behaviour towards their Bangladeshi staffs at Dhaka. I am very happy in my current job because I don't have to face preposterous discrimination at least.

Friday, March 10, 2006

[BANGLA-IT] RE:Shaptahik 2000 article on Bangla Computing and Ekushey February- replies

In response to a request from one of my favourite bloggers, I am posting my conversation with Mr. Mustafa Jabbar here. Those who are interested please start reading from the first mail at the bottom, others please ignore this post as it is boring!!!

<Mail Conversation>

Dear Mr. Mustafa Jabbar,

Please find my reply below:

Dear Mr. Fahim

Please don't change my name. You have noticed from my signature that I work in Grameen Software, you should also have noticed that my name is not Fahim.

I am surprised that you have opted for a name to give a certificate for a
keyboard like Bijoy to be scientific. You meant that as my keyboard has got a
certificate from a person like Dr. Zafar Iqbal, than it is scientific.
Otherwise not? With all the respects to Dr Zafar Iqbal, I just like to mention
here that I designed the keyboard in 1988 and the keyboard has a very strong
science relating to Bangla Script and human interface of typing. The formula I
have used in my keyboard is from the scientific nature of Bangla language and
that has made it possible to create hundreds of characters with only two layers
of QWERTY Keyboard.

Well, who are the members of the BSTI committee DOES matter. A verdict of a committee formed by unqualified members is of no use. Otherwise why did you mention honorable Dr. Zafar Iqbal's name in the first place? He was not the head of the committee yet you mentioned him. I mentioned him for the very same reason. However, I am happy to know that your keyboard layout went through scientific process.

I am also surprised that serving in a business organisation you could not
realise that that science, which is not used by the people has very little
value for the human civilisations.

You are not right in this.  Not all of science are used by people, yet they have much value. There are many things in science which is not used by human for business purpose. The sole purpose of science is not to be used by people. Science is all about knowledge, be it used by people or not.

When we were in the University, we were doing lots of projects to have
marks-Perhaps Grameen Spftware can not afford to do that.

I completely failed to grasp the meaning and intent of this part. If you have meant that Grameen Software, which is one of the top software companies of Bangladesh, does not have lots of projects then you are very wrong. I do not have proper authorization to disclose business information of my company to a public forum. I can only say that we have lots of employees yet we have shortage of manpower to do all our projects. I am a proud employee of Grameen Software. However, I failed to understand that how Grameen Software is related to a mail in a public forum like bdresearchers, we were talking about Bijoy keyboard layout.

We as a business company have never adopted any gimmic ( I am sorry to hear a
nasty word like this) nor has got any patronage from anybody like you and has
been successful in getting the support of millions of people and we are happy
for that.

Please read my mail again to see that I did not use the word gimmick for you, I was just giving an general example.

In fact I do not care for anybody's certificate for my keyboard to be
scientific. In fact Dr Zafar Iqbals committe had no way but to accept  Bijoy as
no one has the ability to stop Bijoy under todays circumstances.

Your unstoppable sale of Bijoy is indeed a proof of your business success. For business success you only have to care your customers not any individual, no doubt about that. I like to know that why did you mention honorable Dr. Zafar Iqbal's name if you do not care him at all?

I have also understood that your comment on Muneer Keyboard was based on
assumption and there was no scientific basis on that.
When you make a comment, I wish you will justify that with proper logic.

I did not assume anything about Muneer keyboard layout. I only told that it was developed using scientific methods which is a fact.


As I have mentioned in my previous mail. I have given my view about why I have
not accepted Muneeer as a Computer Keybaord for Bangla.
Prof Munner Choudhury was my teacher and I respect him like my father. But I
have found that a typewriter keyboard is unable to make the most scientific
keyboard for a language like Bangla.

I like to say something here which I should have said in my earlier mail. I do not understand why we should consider the fact that this layout is for a computer. We should talk about the keyboard here as the term "Keyboard Layout" also suggests. A keyboard and a typewritter has the same use, that is TYPING. I think if a layout is ok for typewriter, it is ok for a keyboard too.


I shall again request you to read more on the subject and than make a comment.
Mustafa Jabbar

I welcome your suggestion to read more on the topic. I will certainly try to do so and provide some valuable input in this regard.

Thanks,

--

Mohammad Farhan Husain
Software Engineer
Grameen Software
Grameen IT Park
Grameen Bank Tower (11th floor)
Mirpur - 2, Dhaka - 1216
Bangladesh
Email: farhan.husain@grameensoftware.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Grameen Software (http://www.grameensoftware.com )

Quoting Farhan Husain < russoue@gmail.com>:

> Well, science and business are not the same. People are not aware of
> science, it is the designer who should follow scientific methods. It may be
> a marketting gimmick which makes a product very popular, science has nothing
> to do here. The success of your product is no doubt very good but it does
> not prove that your product is scientifically superior. However, as the BSTI
> committee, of which honorable Dr. Jaraf Iqbal was a member, approved your
> layout as a scientific one than that ends the debate. However, please don't
> confuse science and business.
>
> On 3/7/06, mjabbar@bangla.net < mjabbar@bangla.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dear Farhan,
> > Thanks again. For more details on Bijoy, Muneer and other keybaords,
> > please read
> > my book named Digital Bangla, published by Agamee Prokashonee. You might
> > also
> > see report of Keyboard Standardisation Committee of BCC headed by
> > Professor
> > Monsur Musa. Dr Jafar Iqbal and other scholars were in that committee and
> > I was
> > not there. The committe was formed to stope Bijoy to be the standard
> > keyboard by
> > BSTI. But the committe not only accepted Bijoy but also recognised as the
> > most
> > scientific one.
> > It is true that Muneer Keyboard was devloped on scientific considerations
> > for
> > typewriters. Please recognise that a Computer is not a typewriter and thus
> > it
> > has different science.
> > It would not be possible for Bijoy to have 97% user base without any
> > scientific
> > base. Do you think that is possible? All Bijoy user are fool?
> > We have developed it for Computer and not for typewriter. My Bijoy
> > keyboard will
> > not work on trypewriter and it has followed all the scientific rules (as
> > much as
> > that is practicable) of Bangla and thus has been so popular.
> > The Keybaord Standardisation Commiitte has expressedly said that Bijoy is
> > the
> > most widely used and scientifically designed keyboard. They have however
> > suuggested some changes to Bijoy and accepted 99.9% of Bijoy as a standard
> > keybaord.
> > How can you expect that in last eighteen years we sat idle and did not
> > even got
> > the feedback of the people and found if there is any fault in our design.
> > I should let you know a story. A company named saki Computers imported 500
> > Muneer and 5000 Bijoy Keybaords. Untill today the market has bought more
> > than a
> > million Bijioy keybaord but those 500 Muneer Keybaord could not be sold.
> > Where does your science stands?
> > Mustafa Jabbar
> >
> > Quoting Farhan Husain < russoue@gmail.com>:
> >
> > > Well, you are right that ultimately users will choose layouts for them.
> > But
> > > I was telling that Munir layout is scientifically designed. Standard
> > > scientific procedures (e.g. frequency of occurrences) were followed
> > while
> > > designing the Munir layout. I don't know whether any standard procedure
> > was
> > > followed for Bijoy or not.
> > >
> > > On 3/7/06, mjabbar@bangla.net < mjabbar@bangla.net> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > If you feel that Muneer is good for you who has stopped you to use
> > that?
> > > > Dozens
> > > > of solutions are available. Even we provide solution for Muneer. You
> > might
> > > > be
> > > > happy to know that even we have developed the Muineer Keybaord by
> > > > introducing
> > > > link with the typewriter Keybaord.
> > > > Whether it is better than Bijoy or worst is the question to be decided
> > by
> > > > the
> > > > users in general. If 97% users are wrong and you are correct, its
> > fine.
> > > > If we look at the market response probably we shall be able to find
> > the
> > > > usage
> > > > percentage of Bijoy, Muneer or any other keyboard.
> > > > As a developer of KBangla Software I firmly believe that the user is
> > the
> > > > ultimate decision maker and every user has the right to choose or even
> > > > create
> > > > his/her own keyboard. I am ready to implement your own keyboard. Even
> > you
> > > > can
> > > > do yourself.
> > > > We have kept all the options for everybody and is willing to add even
> > many
> > > > new
> > > > keyboards. But it is the users who will finally say what they will
> > use.
> > > > Keyboard is a personnal choice and do not confuse it with encoding. We
> > > > need a
> > > > standaard encoding and some organisation might create their own
> > standard
> > > > opf
> > > > keybaord.
> > > > Our govt has already decided to use a standard keybaord. They might
> > tell
> > > > you
> > > > that if you want to have a govt job, you are to use that keyboard.
> > > > But a publisher might say that you will have to know Muneer or Bijoy
> > or
> > > > lEKHONI.
> > > > oN DEMAND FROM wEST bENGAL presently we are working on Geetanjali,
> > > > Satyajit
> > > > Keybaords of their choice.
> > > > Unfortunately those who are not users of Bangla in computers creates
> > more
> > > > confusion than the users.
> > > > I do not like to go into the debate of what is good, better and best.
> > But
> > > > definitely look at the market force and still continue to develop
> > those
> > > > technologies which are liked by people.
> > > > I do not agree that we have not proceeded much in Bangla Localisation.
> > > > Probably we forget to look at the Bangla Publications in paper (recent
> > Boi
> > > > Mela
> > > > is one plece where we should look), electronic and digital media.
> > > > I wish you will be practical and respect others choice of their own.
> > > > We might have some problems in using Bangla, but it has not stopped us
> > in
> > > > doing
> > > > things in Bangla.
> > > >
> > > > Mustafa Jabbar
> > > >
> > > > Quoting Farhan Husain < russoue@gmail.com >:
> > > >
> > > > > I think, we should reach a consensus to use Munir keyboard layout as
> > it
> > > > is
> > > > > much more scientifically designed than any others, specially bijoy.
> > > > >
> > > > > On 3/6/06, mjabbar@bangla.net < mjabbar@bangla.net> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >  Dear All.
> > > > > > I have read the mail of Mr. Pramanik.
> > > > > > Though he has not mentioned my name in his article, even Mr.
> > Sharif
> > > > did
> > > > > > not mentioned my name too, it is clear to identify meself as the
> > > > target of
> > > > > > both the people.
> > > > > > I have replied to the article of 2000 and hope to be printed in
> > the
> > > > next
> > > > > > week's 2000.
> > > > > > Please read that for better understanding.
> > > > > > However I should say something about Mr Pramaniks view. Regarding
> > > > Muneer
> > > > > > Keybaord, he and all of you should know that I iintroduced Muneer
> > > > Keybaord
> > > > > > in 1987 in Mac and in 1993 under Windows. Even today anyone can
> > find
> > > > Muneer
> > > > > > Keyboard with Bijoy Classic Pro. I do not feel that I am dead with
> > > > Muneer
> > > > > > Keybaord.
> > > > > > In fact 97% people of Bangladesh, 80% people of West Bengal use
> > Bijoy
> > > > > > Keyboard and no one has been compelled to use anyone.
> > > > > > Every user has the option to choose between Muneeer, Bijoy, Jatioy
> > and
> > > > > > National.
> > > > > > In fact if anyone has dropped Muneer Keyboard, it is the govt who
> > have
> > > > > > never considered to keep it in evaluation.
> > > > > > I have kept Muneer as one of the option and shall continue to do
> > that.
> > > > > > Regarding his other opinion about Bijoys to be the seventh wonder-
> > I
> > > > wish
> > > > > > people will decide my contribution and its not Pramanik alone who
> > will
> > > > give
> > > > > > verdict about my position in the ICT.
> > > > > > Thanks and regards
> > > > > > Mustafa Jabbar
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Quoting "M. M Pramanik " < mmpramanik@yahoo.com>:
> > > > > > Dear All,
> > > > > > I have come through all your mails regarding dishonesty with
> > Bangla
> > > > > > keyboard and font. I can also guess that person who is dead
> > against
> > > > any
> > > > > kind
> > > > > > of keyboard except his layout. I appreciate him for his keyboard
> > but
> > > > Munir
> > > > > > key board should have been given the respect which he enjoying. In
> > > > > > Bangladesh all Typists of Type machines (which now allmost
> > obsolete)
> > > > are
> > > > > > familiar with Munir key Board and when they started to use
> > computer,
> > > > they
> > > > > > had to use another keyboard. It was not justice.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The man who is dead against Munir KB, once expressed himself as
> > the
> > > > > > father/pioneer of Computer in Bangladesh and he was also dead
> > against
> > > > all
> > > > > > academic people (BUET, BITs, DU, RU etc.) who studies Programming
> > or
> > > > basic
> > > > > > side of computing. That person advocated for multimedia education
> > but
> > > > he
> > > > > > could not realise that those academics or students were involved
> > in
> > > > > > education by which they could make his multimedia softwares. He
> > was
> > > > only
> > > > > end
> > > > > > user. He thought that his software (bangla) was the seventh wonder
> > of
> > > > the
> > > > > > world !!!!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > M. Pramanik
> > > > > > -----------------------------------------------
> > > > > > Dear Mr.rahman,
> > > > > > I agree very much with you that as Bangali,we are more emotional
> > than
> > > > > > practical(myself not an exception).Thats why we have not been able
> > to
> > > > > > progress much on Bangla localization.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Let us hope some one /group with merit  come forward in the feild.
> > > > > > Regards
> > > > > >
> > > > > > MMHAQ
> > > > > >
> > > > > > *Sayeed Rahman < banglait@gmail.com>* wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > When Ekushey February comes every year we become so emotional
> > after
> > > > > > few days we forget everything.  But in reality we should talk
> > about
> > > > > > how much we achieved on Bangla Localization:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Still we are confused about Standard Bangla key board layout
> > > > > > Not much work done by our Bangla Academy or Bangladesh Computer
> > > > Council
> > > > > > http://www.bccbd.org/ on this area BCC suppose to be is an
> > autonomous
> > > > body
> > > > > > under the Ministry of Science and Information & Communication
> > > > Technology,
> > > > > > Government of Bangladesh for  encouraging  and providing  support
> > for
> > > > ICT
> > > > > > related activities in  Bangladesh Recently Bangladesh Computer
> > Council
> > > > > came
> > > > > > up with Bangladesh Standard for Bengali Keyboard, Keyboard Bengali
> > > > Keyboard
> > > > > > Layout is these going to work?
> > > > > > Is this BCC truly an autonomous body? How it's Director post and
> > > > manpower
> > > > > > were selected on the basis of merit or connection?
> > > > > > Do we have any Standard Policy regarding our Govt web site design
> > > > layout?
> > > > > > How many BD Govt Web site are today in Bangla?
> > > > > > What our Private and Public Universities (CSE Dept) are doing for
> > > > Bangla
> > > > > > Localization?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hope some one will answer my questions before the Ekushey February
> > > > emotion
> > > > > > fades away!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > What's good for Bangladesh is good for BANGLA IT. Serving yours
> > need
> > > > to
> > > > > > know.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Sayeed Rahman
> > > > > > Founder BANGLA IT
> > > > > > http://www.banglait.org
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------Shaptahik
> > > > > > 2000 article on Bangla Computing
> > > > > >
> > > > > > http://www.shaptahik2000.com/shonkha/2006/20060224/pr20060224.pdf
> > > > > >
> > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > > > Comments on the article from Shaptahik2000 group list
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Dear All,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thanks for sharing with us a rather interesting yet thought
> > provoking
> > > > > > article written by Mr. Mohammad Reza Shareef in a recent issue of
> > the
> > > > > > Shaptahik on the controversy of Bangla key board layout in
> > Bangladesh.
> > > > > > The author elaborates the merits of Munir key board layout and
> > favors
> > > > > > its adoption over the others because of its ease of use and wide
> > > > spread
> > > > > > applications. The author also mentions about a class of dishonest
> > > > > > businessmen in Bangladesh especially points out throughout
> > > > > > the article about one particular dishonest who it seems is the
> > > > forefront
> > > > > > dead against the success of Munir key board and its font layout,
> > > > because he
> > > > > > himself developed and marketed one. Is it his
> > > > > > personal ego (I know the best; it is my way or high way!) or
> > > > Bangladeshi
> > > > > > corrupt politics? Those of us who live outside Bangladesh
> > > > > > and do not have any first hand knowledge of the Bangladeshi
> > politics
> > > > > > of Bangla fonts , Bangla key boards etc., it would be of very
> > interest
> > > > to
> > > > > > us to learn who is this dishonest businessman behind the dirty
> > > > Bangladeshi
> > > > > > politics of Bangla fonts and Bangla key boards. Can the author
> > > > identify
> > > > > him?
> > > > > > I have my suspicion!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Fahim AHMED Ph.D.
> > > > > > Senior Research Scientist
> > > > > > Product Portfolio Milk Quality & Animal Health
> > > > > > DeLaval Manufacturing
> > > > > > 64153-1296 Kansas City, MO, USA
> > > > > > fahim.ahmed@delaval.com
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >  [Disclaimer: BANGLA-IT Management is not liable for information
> > > > contained
> > > > > > in this message. The author takes full responsibility]
> > > > > > Post message: bangla_ict@yahoogroups.com
> > > > > > Visit http://www.banglait.org for more info
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > Mohammad Farhan Husain
> > > > > Software Engineer
> > > > > Grameen Software
> > > > > Grameen IT Park
> > > > > Grameen Bank Tower (11th floor)
> > > > > Mirpur - 2, Dhaka - 1216
> > > > > Bangladesh
> > > > > Email: farhan.husain@grameensoftware.com
> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > > Grameen Software ( http://www.grameensoftware.com)
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > This mail sent through bangla.net, The  First Online Internet Service
> > > > Provider
> > > > in Bangladesh
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Mohammad Farhan Husain
> > > Software Engineer
> > > Grameen Software
> > > Grameen IT Park
> > > Grameen Bank Tower (11th floor)
> > > Mirpur - 2, Dhaka - 1216
> > > Bangladesh
> > > Email: farhan.husain@grameensoftware.com
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Grameen Software ( http://www.grameensoftware.com )
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > This mail sent through bangla.net , The  First Online Internet Service
> > Provider
> > in Bangladesh
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Mohammad Farhan Husain
> Software Engineer
> Grameen Software
> Grameen IT Park
> Grameen Bank Tower (11th floor)
> Mirpur - 2, Dhaka - 1216
> Bangladesh
> Email: farhan.husain@grameensoftware.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Grameen Software ( http://www.grameensoftware.com)
>




----------------------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through bangla.net, The  First Online Internet Service Provider
in Bangladesh

</Mail Conversation>