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Showing posts from July, 2008

MSDN Virtual Labs

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I always try to find new ways to learn stuff. I don’t like what’s ordinary so as any rookie I used only introductory books to learn about new technologies and thought that I had it all then I saw tutorials. Actually for quite some time my culture about learning new stuff was “tutorialic”- when I found new technologies I got a tutorial that talked about it and that was it. Later on I got to find that that alone isn’t enough (Now all I do is reading as any of you). Along the way I started using some "on the fly" ways like Eclipse help which leads you through each step showing what was done right and what wasn’t, it was really great when I was learning about RCP. It helped me both get things done and learn fast at the same time. Two days ago I found a new Microsoft tool that I really liked; it’s really innovative and time and software resources saving. What I am talking about is –as you already know- is MSDN Virtual Labs . MSDN virtual labs is a new tool that helps a developer b

Sun SPOT

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Have you ever dreamed of having a project that produced a chip that did something real, something that you can make then use in the real world, instead of the digital projects that come from wonderland were people use some switches to play a game! Well, I had that dream. I love to program chips to make stuff like telling me when someone turns the light on in some room and to react to it according to some program I've already put in it. Though our beloved FPGA can do a lot of really great stuff but it's programming is frustrating. VHDL is one great-extremely-low-level language and it can teach us a lot about digital design but again if I want something to use something in a robotics project would I choose VHDL over Java?! I guess not. Sun has done it people. A programmable device that could be programmed directly using J2ME technologies. With high processing power and a lot of cool features that could be put in real use easily, I think it's everything that a programmable boa

Wikimania 2008

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Four months ago I was told by a friend of mine "Abdel Rahman Gamal" that there will be a Wikimania here in Alexandria, Egypt and it will be hosted by the BA (Bibliotheca Alexandrina). He was thinking about joining the volunteers who are going to organize the event. I thought about that event for a while then forgot all about it due to all the things I had to do. About two months ago I found Abdel Rahman leading a group of volunteers and promoting for the big Wikimania conference. They had 2 awareness sessions to tell people about Wikipedia, Wikimedia and Wikimania. I loved the idea and I registered for the event I thought that it wouldn't hurt to attend some talks which I thought at the time would be all about the big online encyclopedia. The conference ended yesterday and it was really great. I loved every single thing about it. The sessions, the people and the organization. I got to know a lot about the site I took for granted. I got to know a lot of great people and h