IraqiGeek's Blog

iPhone: Another proprietary device from Apple

Four days ago, I commented on the iPhone announcement and had some doubts about what Apple’s plans were about allowing third party developers to write applications for the iPhone.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long to answer that one. It looks like the iPhone will indeed be a closed environment. As iTWire reported yesterday quoting his Jobbiness from an article in The New York Times saying “We define everything that is on the phone,” and “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.” Is there anything more they need to say?

Those statements are fundamentally fundamentally wrong. First, Mr. Jobs seems to think that developers aren’t capable, not on their own, to write good applications for the iPhone. Second, somehow he thinks he has the right to control what the users of the iPhone can and can’t run on their devices. And third, he seems to think those users aren’t smart enough to distinguish between good and crappy applications written for their devices.

In any case, Apple has no right to control what users can and can’t run on their devices. Once a user has paid for a device, any device, he/she owns this device and should be able to run anything they see fit on it, and it doesn’t matter if what the user wants to run happens to be a crappy application that will somehow ruin the device. Whether his Jobbiness likes it or not, people have the right to be stupid.

For me, this closed environment around the iPhone simply ruins the deal for me. When I buy an electronic device, I want to be able to run anything I see fit on it, without regard to how that may affect the operation of my device, cause its MY device.

Osteomoronosis

The other evening, out of my frustration with most of the people who would go through heaps to reach a forum or chatroom only to ask some really stupid question, I wanted to come up with something that described their cases. After a few minutes, and a few Google queries, I found a new disease that fit the illness those people suffered from.

So, without further ado, I give the world:

Osteomoronosis: a chronic disease in which stupidity has deeply infiltrated the patient’s body down to the bone.

OR

Osteomoronosis: a chronic disease where the bone marrow of the patient degenerates into idiotic matter.

Patients suffering from this disease are susceptible to a high mortality rate due to the stupid actions they usually commit.

ما مرتاح

I heard this poem sometime back in high school in an interview with the Iraqi folk poet Arian il-Sayed Khalaf on Iraqi TV. For some reason, it stuck in my mind. The other day, I googled those parts I remembered, and found the entire poem. Here it is:

“The new way forward”

Was just watching the Rise-Gates-Pace press conference at the white house where the trio announced the details of the new US plan in Iraq for the next six months or so.

I know we heard that things were going to improve in Iraq for so many times over the past four years, and of course I could be totally wrong about this, but I think this is the first time that the US government and military has an actual plan on how to do things on the ground.

Sure, a lot will now reside on the shoulders of the Iraqi government, but as an Iraqi, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The Iraqi government needs to receive more responsibilities from the US. Iraqi politicians need to stand up to the promises they made to the people during the elections. Most notably, the government needs to gain control of the Iraqi security forces, which until now have been under direct US command.

If both the US army and the Iraqi government manage to at least secure Baghdad, it will be a HUGE step towards fixing the whole country. Having a secure capital is vital for having a secure central government, and lets not forget that Baghdad is home to over 20% of the country’s population.

Without securing Baghdad, there can never be a strong Iraq. Period.

Will 20,000 additional troops, on the back of the 141,000 troops already in Iraq be enough to fix the security situation there? or at least fix things in Baghdad? I don’t know. I guess we will have to wait, cross our fingers, and hope for the best.

iPhone Announcement

First of all, I’m not a big fan of Apple. Nonetheless, I was quite impressed by their new iPhone. But despite its sleek, ultra cool looks, and the rather impressive spec sheet, there are still quite a few things that I want to know about this new cool toy before making my mind on whether I would want one.

Sure, on the paper all looks good, but there still are some of the things I want to know about the iPhone are: What kind of processor is it using? and how fast is it? How much RAM does it have? How much of a smudge magnet will the screen be? Equally important are things like how good will this “multi-touch” interface work? How good will the on screen keyboard be in the real world? how easy/hard will it be to develop 3rd party applications for it? when (if?) will Apple release the proper SDKs and development tools for this new toy, and how easy (hard?) will it be for developers to obtain those SDKs and tools?

Another thing that really concerns me, is whether Apple will follow on the same trend of offering the iPhone exclusively with a few select operators when the it is released in Europe and later in Asia. Tying customers to one specific carrier can be a major let down for many customers, most notably business customers who are the main users of smartphones.

Finally, there is the letigation Apple has with Cisco now about their ownership of the iPhone trademark. Unless this litigation is settled quickly, we will have to wait and see what Apple plans to do. Will they rename the iPhone? or will the launch be delayed until some sort of agreement is worked out? For better or worse, Cisco seems to have the upper hand in this trademark conflict.

I guess many of those questions will be answered when the iPhone makes it to the FCC for approval, most notably we will know quite a few more details about the hardware platform, and probably we will get a glimpse of the guts of the iPhone. For the other stuff, such as the details of the software platform and development tools, we will have to just sit back and wait for Apple to give us more details.

House keeping

This weekend, I finally did some long overdue house keeping for the website, and my server account.

First, was the incorporation of Google Analytics with two separate accounts, one for the main site here, and the other for the proxy.

Next inline, was the cleaning of some old log files, especially for the proxy, where my modifications to the original PHProxy script generate tons of log files. Still waiting for the release of an update from WhiteFyre, the author of PHProxy, to fix some bugs that cripple the current version.

Then, I finally made the switch IlohaMail to RoundCube for the webmail interface.

Last, but not least, I took down the classifieds section, which no one has used in about a year.

End of an era

Watching TV this morning, I saw both the footage broad casted on Al-Iraqeya TV of the final preparations before Saddam’s execution, and later, the footage shot with a camera phone showing Saddam dead after his execution. As an Iraqi, it really felt like an end of era in the history of Iraq, and in human history in general. I don’t think history has seen as many men as Saddam was. Even Hitler, with all his atrocities, had a dream, a vision, for his country. All Saddam had was a hallucination that he could build an empire where the people praised and worshiped him like a god.

Despite all the things he had done, I still didn’t want him to be executed. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for capital punishment, but in this case, I don’t think this was the proper course of action. I think he should have been imprisoned for the reminder of his life. For someone like Saddam who has a greatness complex, living imprisoned where everyone has the power to control his activities would have been much worse. He was so full of himself, and so used to being on the top and having everyone obey whatever he said that keeping him imprisoned would have been like torture. By executing him, I think the Iraqi government did him a huge favor.

Anyway, his execution marks the last chapter in the history of a regime that will be forever known for destroying what once was one of the most civilized and most developed countries in the region.

Discovery is back!

Discovery has just landed on Kennedy Space Center (KSC) after a successful 13-days mission to the International Space Station (ISS). This was the first mission I followed closely thanks to the availability of NASA TV online. Following the mission on NASA TV, I saw some awsome scenery of the earth, and some breath taking sunrises, sunsets, and even a storm system.

Like many fans of the space programme, I was a bit worried about Discovery not being able to land in time due to their limited Oxygen supplies. But thankfully, they made it on the first day, and at KSC, the home base of the space shuttle programme.

Breath taking, absolutely amazing

I was just watching NASA TV online and enjoyed a life coverage of the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-116 to continue the construction of The International Space Station. This was the third shuttle launch I watched live on NASA TV, but the first night launch I had the chance to see.

This was the first night launch of a space shuttle in four years. The shuttle lit up the sky as it ascended from Kennedy Space Center and it was nothing short of breath taking. Even more beautiful was the external tank camera that provided life video of the shuttle’s belly where you could see the shuttle’s attitude control thrusters on the side of the nose firing in the pitch black night.

The 7 astronauts on board Discovery have been in orbit for about two hours now. NASA officials say this is the most complex mission in constructing the ISS. One can’t but wish success and a safe return to earth for the 7 men and women on board Discovery.

Finally, some commonsense

I was just watching on CNN the US senate arms committee confirmation hearings for Robert Gates. For the first time in a long while, there was someone who actually sounded like a person who lived on this planet! He actually acknowledged that what his government has been doing in Iraq has not been working. As a bold guy from Texas likes to say, “you can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge!”

I guess only time will tell, supposing Bob Gates is confirmed as secretary of defense, if he will finally be able to do something to resolve the situation in Iraq. But from what I’ve seen and heard from the man today, I am hopeful. He seemed to be a realistic person. He actually looked and sounded like an official who knew what he was talking about when talking about Iraq!

It was quite a relieve to hear someone who didn’t sound like an alien who lived on a planet in another galaxy when spoke about the situation in Iraq.

I honestly hope, if confirmed, that Mr. Gates leads a successful career in his position as secretary of defense for hos own sake, and for the sake of my own country.