IraqiGeek’s Blog

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.

My babies are back

Ever since leaving Iraq, there aren’t that many joys left in my life, and one of the main joys I have left here is listening to music.

Don’t get me wrong, I thank God every day for not being in all that mess going on in Iraq now. Still, a heaven without people is no heaven at all (which is a translation of the Iraqi saying “Janna bala awadem matinrad”).

Being a geek, and to some extent an audiophile, good enough audio quality doesn’t cut it for me. Listening to quality audio means I MUST have a sophisticated setup that tries to push the physical limits of reproducing a digital audio signal, but I also have to do that without breaking the bank.

So, a little over two years ago I set myself a budget of $200 (about 150 euros), and spent a couple of months researching and evaluationg my options, and settled on a setup that mainlycomprised of:
• a Creative Sound Blaster Extigy USB sound card to do the actual signal decoding and provide a wide array of digital and analogue signal inputs and outputs,

• and a set of TEAC PowerMax 2000 active 5.1 acoustic speaker system.

To keep my signal clean, and not have half a dozen cables running between my sound card and speakers set, I decided to linkthe two by a fiber optic cable

The sound card was bought refurbished from ebay, and the speakers set was bought on sale brand new from an electronics shop here in Portugal. This setup ended costing me about $180 (~140 euros), which was less than the maximum I set for myself. And if you think about it, it’s not a substantial amount of money if you consider the quality of the audio I am getting, as well as the comprehensible array of inputs I get from this setup. I have available optical and coaxial 5.1 digital surround inputs and outputs, MIDI input and output, mono and stereo mic inputs, stereo headphone output, analogue 5.1 line output, and three selectable sources of 5.1 surround sound input, most of those inputs and outputs have gold plated connectors.

This setup has been serving me very well for about two years, until a little over two months ago, when all of a sudden, my speakers set decided to stop accepting signal from both the optical and coaxial digital inputs it has.

Understandably, I was quite upset by this unfortunate event. My first impulse was to act as a responsible EU resident and comply with the EU regulations which state that every consumer product purchased in the euro zone is covered by at least two years of warranty even if the warranty card included with the product states a shorter warranty term. So, I took my precious babies to the electronics shop where I had purchased them from. Initially, it took the technicians they have at the shop three weeks to reach my same conclusion, that the speakers didn’t accept any sound signal through their digital inputs. However, me and the shop manager disagreed about how to proceed next. They thought that my babies were out of warranty. I, naturally, disagreed, and thought they are still covered by warranty in compliance with the EU regulations. It took another week for them to reach my same conclusion, then three weeks to repair the speakers, then another week to find the speakers remote control which was “lost” the speakers were being repaired.

Today, almost two months after I took the speakers back to the shop where I bought them from, today finally I got my babies back, and now I can go back to enjoying listening to music.

Abd Al-Haleem Hafiz vs. Um Kalthoom

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Arab clulture, Abd Al-Haleem and Um Kalthoom are without any argument the two greatest male and female, respectively, arab singers the world has ever seen.

Personally, I listen to Abd Al-Haleem much more than Um Kalthoom. Its not that I like him more than I like her. Its that each of them is a different experience to listen to, conveying a different array of emotions.

Listening to Um Kalthoom is a very serious matter, like sitting in an opera house listening to Mozart’s 40th symphony being played by an orchestra of more than 100 instrument players. Every part of your body goes numb except your ears, which are trying to keep up with all the instrument sounds, and your brain, which is trying to soak in all that range of emotions. Its a very enjoyable experience, yet one you don’t want to go through often, and when you do, it will be with a very serious expression on your face.

Abd Al-Haleem, on the other hand, is a whole different affair. To me, listening to Abd Al-Haleem is like cruising through a valley in a convertible roadster with the top down, surrounded by grapevines on a sunny spring afternoon. It stimulates all your senses. Excites every cell in your body. Its something you go through with an ear to ear smile on your face. Grin like you have found the reason behind life itself.

I think this is why you hear the audience in Um Kalthoom’s concerts suddenly shout “3athama 3ala 3athama” (which translates literally to “greatness upon greatness”), while in Abd Al-Haleem’s concerts you hear them say “mnil 2awal tani” (which is a request to start again from the beginning). The first is great, but the second you can’t get enough of.