Ceed: An idea that will change the world

History of Compression
In 1952, David Huffman invented the Huffman coding to compress text. He based his analysis on the redundancy of bytes.

The more redundant bytes the better the compression.

He did an excellent job. Thanks to him we have WinZip, WinRar, Power Archieve, 7-Zip and alot of compression tools.

we use them daily.

Are the compression Algorithms mature enough?
When we try to compress exectuables and binaries that are naturally doesn't contain so much redundant bytes, we didn't get so much out of it.

We Suffer. We suffer when we want to send a rar achieve of 10 MB the email keep bouncing back. We suffer when we want to download large files such as music, movies, maps, ISOs. We suffer when we want to open a webpage filled with flash, images, rich texts or videos. We suffer when we want to want to review an online album.

Why only those with 4Mb T connections can enjoy the fast speed just because files are getting bigger and bigger and WinZip and WinRar failed to make them smaller?

I was working on this for the last 4 years.

I failed 3 times, I realize I am in a dip and that at the other side of the dip there is a promising IT world .

This is what I want to do:

I want to extract a 20 KB file from a 1GB file, that file is the essence and should be used to "regenerate" the 1GB file.

There must be a new approach very different then the classical one, this will involve new technologies and science such as Quantum Physics .

I have setup some approaches that will make some of you laugh. I'll continue to add more approaches from you guys

First approach
The idea is to extract a unique descriptive identifier of the subject file. (Think of this as taking a seed from a given tree) The (seed) is a very small file that can regenerate the original file (tree).

Technically, the seed will be a mathematical formula. By using complex numerical analysis I want to get a unique formula for each file, I started to read some numerical analysis books. Few people told me that its not possible because NA gives you an approximation of the formula. But I want to see for myself.

We know that, 1 Byte = 255 decimal. A typical file looks something like this.

offset 0 -> 125
offset 1 -> 56
offset 2 -> 12
offset 3 -> 55
...
Until the end of the file. This will generate a graph, we only need to get the formula.


Second approachThis is the backup plan. I need to study some biology first to achieve that. Please, open the window now, and look, really look outside.

What can you see? I bet you can see a lot, you can see trees, houses, there is a girl playing with her doll, you can see the colors, you can see the movements, there are birds flying, you can see the color of the birds how fast they are moving you can measure the distance you can see which object is near, which one is far.

You can see a lot amount of details. All these data, are handled by a very tiny part of our body. The eye. If your eye can capture and shrink this amount of details into a place smaller then an egg.

Can't we make a 1 GB file into a 20 KB ?

Third approachDigital Seeds with Fourier Series, I wrote about it here.


My readers suggestions
In this section I will list the approaches suggested by my lovely reader.


Yaseen titi
This guy is really interested in Ceed idea, in fact he wrote a lot of suggestions more than I've even did, you can read his comments. I love this guy.

PragmaTechie
If you can't find such a formula, then maybe you can divide the file in two arbitrary parts and then find the formula for each. That way, you're increasing the probability of a hit. You can shift this divider both ways for a more greater possibility of determining a formula.

Dr. Christian Lapp
What about considering every byte as one dimension in a multi(n-)dimensional space. so the entire file would be the surface of a n-dimensional figure, itself having the dimension n-1.
1 byte --> a point (0D)
2 bytes -> a line (1D)
3 bytes -> a plane (2D)
etc. Check out the idea of parallel coordinates


Dr4g0nF1y :
Now that I think of it, wasn't there another compression method, called Rainbow Paper? I can't find it anywhere, but I do recall that it should be able to print a 1GB file on a paper, using a regular inkjet-printer and read it back in using a regular flatbed-scanner.


Why Ceed?Imagine the life with Ceed.

You Tube
You will download the Ceed version of the video to your machine very fast (20 kb) then regenerate it in your machine very fast and play it as if it was locally there. No more stopping the video to let youtube download it full.

Google Earth
Google earth will send Ceeds Satalite images quickly to your computer then regereate the original files in your machine. Your internet speed doesn't matter so much. Because The work will be done on the machine as if you are browsing your own computer data.

Ceed Torrents
I don't need to wait for days to download a file.

Ceed Games
1 GB game can be shrinked into its orginial ceed 20 KB and downloaded easily, or sent via MSN messenger.

Ceed Browser
No more .html, or .asp or .php
its .ceed, www.yahoo.com/index.ceed. This will contain the whole page with the images and the text and videos and flash into about 50 kb size ceed file. Your ceed browser will download the ceed to your machine and the browser regenerates the original page easily, as if you are opening a page on your machine. No flickering, no loading. Nice.


You may add to the list.

Why I'm sharing thisI don't want the idea to die with me by being selfish, I have to let people read it and understand and share it and add to it.

That's why I am sharing it today.

Your comments are most welcomed.

Peel your idea, then go to your Boss

Your boss thinks he is better than you, he thinks he became a boss because he deserves it. Hence he defends his ideas and his technology and his culture and his way of thinking.

That's why most of the time when you introduce your idea in a full and documented-to-death and bullets-enabled and details stuffed and the risk management and contingency plans and still you wonder why it is rejected?

We are focusing our vision on accelerating the current system and adding more features to our robust technology. Sorry. But thanks for sharing that.

You know why it is rejected?

You have just gave your boss an orange with its peels. You left him with nothing to add to your idea. The Boss hates that.

Peel your idea and show the core only. Not not only it will sound simple and core. It will, yes, allow him to add things and sounds like his idea.Don't panic, that's fine, let him add to the surface of your core idea, It will still be your idea, but it will make him feel that he changed it and enhanced and didn't accepted the idea before revising. So he added things. let him you already know what he will add (the peels).

So now The Boss can tell the upper management that

Our employee has provided this idea and I have revised it and found that we have to add X and Y and Z to enhance it.

X, Y and Z are the peels you just removed.

Leave the details to the boss and to the rest of your team. And keep the core.

Enjoy.

Who said we shall not reinvent the wheel ?

I keep hearing this.

Don't do that. You are reinventing the wheel. Just use what is already there. Don't waste more time on something that is already created.

If you want to be the best in the world, sometimes, you need to break the wheel, burn it, and create a new one.

It sounds crazy.

Here are some guys who broke that wheel:


John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley
They did NOT say: "Hey, we have vacuum tubes and we have built a lot of computers using them, they work fine."

That's why they invented the transistor, thousand times smaller than vacuum tube and does the same job.

Thanks to these guys you can hold your laptop now. If it weren't for them, perhaps you will need an entire room to fit you computer in. (And your entire salary to buy one).

Henry Ford
Ford did not say: "No, horses are great and fast, lets keep using them"
That is why he invented the automobile.

Larry Page And Sergey Brin
They did not say: "we do not want to re-invent Yahoo! It works fine"

That's why they created Google

Jawed Karim
Jawad did not say: "We have TV why bother?"

So he invented YouTube

And there are a lot of other examples as well. In this world, we lack creatively because of the wheel. Take Huffman for instance. It was the first compression algorithm in the whole world.

Winzip said: am gonna use it.
Winrar said, so do I.
7-Zip said, so do I.
Power-Archive said, so do I.

Which one is the best? There are not much differences between them. Why no one tried re-inventing Huffman?

My point being, You can always say "so do I", but you won't be remarkable.

What happens when artists started to write code?

I think this will be great.

We programmers and engineers are left brained. we extensively use our left side brain in creating forms and designs and controls and codes. Our left brain just love the details and step-by-step actions and formula like patterns and analysis of details.

Clicks are Expensive
Engineers like to click, the more clicks the better, they like too many buttons they like huge menus and large set of options and long toolbars they like to include every single detail they know. Because they think that the more I include the better people will say I am a great programmer. They just see everything is important.

I like to imagine this. You write an application, and give it to a user to test a particular task. Each task is equal to 10 points. Each time the user clicks you lose a point. See how many points left, if you went to the minus you should reengineer your interface.

I worked hard on that. Must include it
How many clicks you need to do in order to achieve a single task?

On the other hand musicians and artists think smoothly eliminating all the details in their way aiming to achieve a single goal with the power of creativity.

When musicians play they just think of that moment how to deliver a clear sound directly. When artists paints they think how to emerge a story from the painting.

It would be great if we have right-brained programmer.

Engaging upper management into your Idea

You may have encountered this. You have a presentation to the top guys about this brilliant idea! An idea that you think it will change and alter the way you do business or the way you create a product or the manner you provide a service or perhaps a new totally unique mechanism of doing a particular job that will dramatically cut costs. You were so optimistic.


You start the presentation and by the end of it you realized that it didn't make the impact you have imagined.

OK, currently we have limited resources, we cannot apply the idea sorry. But thanks for bringing it up! keep up the good work.

Why is that?

You have worked hard.
You have done it right.
You thought it was the ultimate idea.
But they didn't like it


When you have a interesting idea. The idea is playing in your brain and you see it clearly. But here is the punch line. They don't!

Yes people don't know why it is important. They don't know whats playing in your head. They want (in a limited amount of time) to get your idea. They are busy, they are getting calls, emails, text messages, other meetings.

You have to make them care. First you have to put them in a serious and critical situation. Describe a problem and show them statistics and charts that keep on empowering the problem. So they live in a temporary moment of fear.
Don't talk about your idea in the beginning. Leave it till the end. Let them be convinced that they are in a trouble.

Then hammer them with your fantastic idea. OK you want to solve that problem? Here is my idea.

The urgent need for a solution will leave them no choice but to pick you. Made to Stick is one of the greatest book I've ever read.

One factor of making an idea stick is to tap into peoples emotions.
There are other 5 factors in the book. Get it. It gave me the power to write this post.

If it is worth it I'll talk Else I'll remain silent

This is real life.

You drive your car everyday to work. You see other people going to work but you remain silent. You see buildings, houses and towers and you remain silent. You see ads (sometimes new ads) And yet you remain silent. You see a car accident and just bypass it and remain silent (unless its really really really bloody and creepy)
You don't have the mood to talk about it because its normal and routine and status quo and by-the-book. Anything that keep on repeating more than once become something ordinary for our brain. Yes, at first it had some inertia (see my post about inertia) that will make it worth talking about for an x amount of time. But it will eventually fade out.

Examples:

• The Bahrain Financial Harbor.
• The Twin Towers
• The Al-Fateh Fountain.

you may add to this list.
Its because you are confidant your words are valuable to you. So you don't speak them on everything. You speak on things that are worth talking about. Worth pointing at. Worth making a remark about.

Work on doing something interesting, and once done. Think. Really think about what you will do next. Because whatever you have created will not last for ever. It has an inertia and after that ... people will bypass it by their cars.

How to Solve Access denied Problem when opening flash disc or any Hard Drive

You may have tried to insert a flash disc or your memory stick on your Windows and you couldn't open it by double click or the regular way explorer way.

Because Windows allows autorun feature when the USB flash disc is inserted alot of viruses get them self in there and try to execute themselves. When they fail, you get this annoying message.

There is a file Autorun.inf (hidden) in that flash that causes this behavior..

Simply delete that file and remove your flash and plug it again and your done.

This is how to do it

Assuming that your Flash Drive Letter is "E"

• go to start->run
• type cmd
• press enter
• type the following in the black window
• attrib E:\autorun.inf -s -a -h -r
• press enter
• You should receive nothing
• then type this
• del E:\autorun.inf -s -a -h -r
• press enter
• You should receive nothing
• Remove your flash and plug it again

ArcGIS Server Performance

A lot of users might have complained about ESRI ArcGIS Server performance. If you are looking for tips to boost your ArcGIS Server, here are 6 ways to do so.  

As a developer, I have been working with ArcGIS Server for the past three years.

Our clients were suffering from its performance, so I decided to write an article of the reasons that I think causing this performance degrade.

We recorded new episodes dedicated just for teaching ArcGIS Server, click here! 

More Flexibility for developers
With each release, ESRI places black and opaque and solid and closed libraries to make it much easier for us the developers to customize ArcGIS Server. They keep adding interfaces and classes and controls and gadgets to their main core for the sake of flexibility. ESRI wants to make the developers life easier, and they are doing a very good job at that.

For example: to create a web mapping application just drag few controls and link it it out to your map and your done! It's even getting much simpler with the ArcGIS Javascript API. 

The more flexible an application is, the less secure it becomes and more the performance penalty.

Hidden things under the carpet
No one knows what code is running behind these controls. No one knows what ESRI is doing on those link. No one knows what callbacks are being sent and when. No one knows what happens when a new user is connected. We have no access to their code. We are just allowed to customize what they provide. Developers have very little to do to improve the performance hence they don't what is going on.


Microsoft is even Hiding More!

Microsoft is adding more and more barriers by the AJAX update Panel and other controls and now Silver light. Just add your lists, combo-boxes, texts inside that panel and here you go you have an AJAX enabled control! Combining this with ESRI Controls makes a big wall that no body can even predict what's behind it.

The punchline is that performance degrades because of the way developers customize ArcGIS server. Developers don't know where to put their code and what their code will affect in this big blackbox system.

McDonalds in Bahrain-Manama

How much McDonalds makes in a month?

• Enough to create more burgers
  
• Enough to spend on ads
• Enough to sponsor the Olympics
• Enough to create the preserves.

But sure not enough to fix that main door which has been broken for more than a month. It appears placing that note was cheaper.

I'll buy if I believed you and care

People always tend to trust other people when it comes to buying or trying something out.
We rarly believe the salesman. We tend to think that we are always tricked.

I was in the Al-Welaya bakery this morning, A lady entered the shop, it was clear from her looks that it was her first visit to this bakery. I asked the baker to mix different type of cakes in a total cost of BD 0.500. The moment I said that the lady seemed more relaxed and started to order.

People stories are authentic and real and true and always tend to lay in the same contrast of reality. Salesmen have products that they want to sell. So we don't believe them. we say to our selfs. "Do they think we are stupid to buy this?"

People do trust other people. People care about people having the same interest. I care about you if we share the same interests.

Think like a kid

Kids think out of the box because they don't have one to think "in".

Kids imagine.

Kids are optimistic.

When a child encounters a problem, he has a huge number of choices to try because the only thing he possesses is his imagination.

When I was a kid, my dad bought me a Nintendo Family Computer. You may had one, and you know how precious it was. One day the console stopped working, it won't load any of my game cartridges. I tried all my cartridges with no luck. So I asked my father to fix it. That was the first solution that came to my mind at that time. To ask my father.

It was a very tedious job for him, he need to open the console and clean it, maybe even wield few circuits together. So he just told me that it's broken and it cannot be fixed. "I'm gonna buy you a new one." he said.

But I was sure that it could be fixed, not because I know anything about electronics, but because I don't. I saw a lot of possibilities to try out that my dad didn't. As an adult he made his decision solely based on his knowledge.

I started the fixing process. I opened the console, applied hair dryer, cleaned the edges of the circuits with a cotton, closed it, and switched it back on. Nothing. 

I didn't give up, I kept trying things out, like brushing the power cord with my sister's makeup brush. I changed the power transformer. Nothing worked. I didn't eliminate any possible solutions because as a child I don't have a knowledge to base my elimination process on, unlike my father.

The last thing I tried was to lick the game cartridge. Imagine, it worked! The problem wasn't from the family computer console. It was from my cartridges. 

It's always about imagination.

Kids have an unlimited imagination.

Kids are not afraid of being wrong.

Kids think out of the box because they don't have one to think "in".

Kids imagine.

Kids are optimistic.

Think like a kid.

Inertia is everywhere

Inertia has been known for a long time, by Chinese and Islamic scientists. Sir Isaac Newton defined it as:


"The vis insita, or innate force of matter is a power of resisting, by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavors to preserve in its present state, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line."


So when I kick a ball it will move and it will continue moving until it hit a wall or some rock changes its direction or eventually stop by the power of fraction.

Doesn't this really apply on our lives? I already wrote an article about this that you can read it here.


I just finished writing my 10 pages CV when my friend comes with the cup of Coffee as he say "What you are doiiiiiiiinnnng?" rubbering his nick and tripped and pour the whole Coffee on my Laptop. I just lost the laptop and all my work. 

Hence its so obvious that I will be angry. I will remain angry for a certain amount of time until someone tries to calm me down or I get my laptop repaired or I forget. Inertia is there.




You go to watch a movie full of action and art of fighting and just about all tech-stuff you love, when the movie finishes. Your brain keep spinning and spinning around that part of the fight for a certain amount of time before it disappear.. This is Inertia.




Some organization conducted a study. They took 50 people divide them into two halves. They gave the first 25 people a mathematical problem and made the second 25 to listen to a romantic song.


When they finished they gave them a donation letter. The same letter for all 50 people. "Please donate to Rokia a 17 years old poor girl from Mali..."


The first 25 people (With Mathematical problem) donated much less than the second group. 


The people who solved the mathematical problem used their left brain for analysis .. And they maintained an inertia so when they received the letter they didn't think emotionally... Unlike the second group who used their right brain..




Inertia is Everywhere..

Send this email to 15 people, or ????????

A rich man ignores it and he lost all his money the next day
A poor man sent it and he received the rich man's money the next day
A lady sent it and the next day the poor man (who became rich) proposed to her.
Then they had two kids (girl and boy) and their boy ignores the email and he died the next day in a car accident.
The girl sent the email and the next day the brother was revived from his grave
The father (the one who used to be poor) received the email again and fed up from this none sense as he claims and ignores it and the next day he received a letter from the court that the money he get from the (rich man) must be returned .
So he become poor again and his wife divorced him and she married the rich man.
Then they keep sending the email.





It comes in different versions, threatening.. Religious.. But its all SPAM, you get scared and forward it to 15 friends then your friends get scared and send it over.. so someone will receive this email some time with like 100000 harvested emails in the forward list fresh and ready to sell ! 1 email = 1BD that's 100000 BD ..(BD1=2.6$)



Please BCC this text to everybody so we can help end the era of SPAM.

Feeling bored?

Most of the time we're bored.


You might often hear this. "I don't have time for this" " I am really not in the mood " " I don't like to do this now"

Is it wrong to be bored?


So is this a problem to be considered or its just normal?

It is dramatically increasing, shall we worry?


Personally I think its ok, the world must have those type of people so heretics and superheros who make change to the world can make those bored people .. you know.. not bored!

No body talks about Head And Shoulders

Head & Shoulders produces average shampoo for average people.

My company produces average software for average people. How about you?

If this is difficult to answer. Try these questions first.

• Is everyone talking about my company?
• Had my company done something that changed the world or it used a ready template, a ready application, a ready formula and utilized it?
• Is my company boring?
• Am I boring?

Hint: No body talks about Head & Shoulders.

This might clear Seth points a bit.