Wednesday, September 28, 2011

VIVA Bahrain creates a Tipping Point for iPhone, Smart or Rushed?

Despite the bad service VIVA is known for, it sure knows how to break into the market. VIVA is always knows as the big risk taker since its entrance in Bahrain. After unintentionally creating a tipping point for Nokia 1202 last year, it comes this year with an interesting iPhone offer that almost 85% of Bahraini citizens can afford. Creating another Tipping point for iPhone and iPad devices.

Batelco had an iPhone offer long before VIVA does but it didn't tip. That's because you need to be a 6 month post-paid client (later redesigned to be only 3 months) in order to get your iPhone as installments.

VIVA offer doesn't require you to be an existing post-paid client to get your iPhone. Just go and grab your device with a new post-paid line and service.

iPhone were once expensive devices that not everyone can afford when Nokia was the master. Now almost everyone has an iPhone in Bahrain especially teenagers.

That's big risk VIVA is taking here. Not everybody signed up for this offer can afford to pay, yet it made iPhone available for everyone. I know people who are unstable at their jobs who have VIVA iPhone.  I can see a potential amount of law-suits that VIVA will file against those customers who will fail to pay the installments.




Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Arc2Google for ArcGIS 10.1/10/9x

You guys were facing lots of problems installing Arc2Google. So I spend sometime compiling the whole thing into one MSI package that will do all the dirty registration for both x86 and 64 bit Windows. I have also tested it against ArcGIS 10.1 BETA and its working like charm.

Just a reminder that I have also updated the tool to support Yahoo and Bing Maps as well.


Enjoy





















Click Here to Download The Tool for ArcGIS 10.1 (Also supports 10)


Click Here to Download The Tool for ArcGIS 9x (9.3,9.3.1,9.2)


Note: In Windows Server, Vista and 7 you should run the installation as Administrator, to do that you have to follow the following:

Copy Arc2Google.msi to C:\

Open notepad and write the following


Save As and select All files and type the name of the file as installarc2google.bat


You should have something like below



Right click and run as administrator





Then if you couldn't get the Toolbar in Arcmap, try running ArcMap as Administrator.




Shoot me and email for any help


2-May-2013 
RECENT BUG FIX !!!

Some of you will face problems with registeration in 10.1 ,do the following


Go to the installation folder

C:\Program Files (x86)\Arc2Google

Download this zip file and extract it to the arc2google folder, (it will ask you to replace say yes)


then drag Arc2Google.dll file to esriregasm.exe 

Click ok


That should work

Saturday, September 24, 2011

facebook bans All Developers from Bahrain

I just discovered that when I was trying to enable facebook timeline. If your hometown is Bahrain or Muharraq or Manama or any village in Bahrain You will not be able to create facebook Apps according to Facebook. Unless you change your hometown to any other country it will work.

Here is the prove.

Original Hometown/City:



When I try to create an application I get this





So I changed my profile to London.







Tried again and it worked.







Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Research: Find out Serial killers from the Random numbers they select




In a previous post, I talked about how Random Numbers are actually not so random and depend on many external factors.

Based on that formula, we could come up with a pattern and a relation between the random numbers selected by Serial Killers. Then plug this formula into suspects to rule them out.

Lets take 100 serial killer, and let each choose a number between 1 and 10,000. Chart out the results against their birthdays. Then use  Fourear series and quantum mechanics to approximate a formula that will let you limit the numbers range. The resulted chart will be interesting. You may change the variables or add more and see the result.

Now, to test out if someone is a serial killer you only need to plug in his birthday and let him select a random number, if his result fell near the drive of the function. Then most probably your guy is a serial killer.


That's Nuts I know. But hey I'm thinking loudly. Others have listed the serial killers characteristics already.

Monday, September 19, 2011

An Idea: Traffic Ticket Generator


I got a parking ticket last month,  it was a 5 minutes stop. The traffic police usually sticks one of these tickets (on the right) to the window.

Instead of thinking of paying it, I took a minute to imagine how this process works, here is how.

Basically, in Bahrain, traffic police carry a large book of empty tickets. They walk in congested areas, find a vehicle violating a law (talking on the phone, drinking, illegal parking etc), write the vehicle number in an empty ticket with some details like vehicle model, driver details, vehicle registration.

I must mention to get these details the traffic police calls the main office. tear out the ticket and stick it to the window or hand it to you if you are there. Later he delivers the book to the main office and someone enters the tickets into the system manually. A pretty tedious process.


I know you will hate me, but I'm going to propose a design that will make their life easier.

How to optimize this
Lets use the Car Reader we proposed couple years ago. The reader has a GSM chip which can connect to the Internet, send and receive data, can scan license plates and displays basic information about the vehicle. We will add a mini printer in the Car Reader to print issued tickets and add that ticket to the database by connecting to the main office

So with one click I can:

1. Print the ticket with all vehicle details
2. Add the ticket to the database
3. Save 80% more time.
4. More tickets for us!

Perhaps I should delete this post.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Research: A Software to Prevent Cancer


Am not saying not to take the neccessary health measures to prevent Cancer. Nevertheless, Science and Technology are advancing so fast that we are able to connect to, use and control living organs. Here is the latest technology where some group of mad scientists created a robot with a "live" rat brain.

Therefore, it is not impossible to use the Human API idea I wrote 2 years ago to prevent cancer. Here is my proposal.

The Human API is a set of methods and functions that allow developers to write software that can communicate with our body cells and organs through a device. But the Human API V1.0 I proposed 2 years ago can only access each cell individually regardless where this cell is. So I need to enhance this API to identify organs such as Liver,  Colon, Stomach etc.

Prevent It
An Apple a day keeps the doctor away, the first design to cure cancer is to prevent it. So I'm gonna introduce the interface IBodyOrgan and create the classes that implements this interface such as Liver, Colon etc..

Now with this new Object Oriented design we can access each body organ individually as follows.

Lets say I want to access my Liver cells and detect if there are any abnormal cells in my liver. Here is the code to do so using the Human API.

Dim myLiver as IBodyOrgan

'get the liver organ as object
myLiver = deviceapi.getOrganByID("LIVER")

'lets send a signal for the liver to start detoxification.
myLiver.SendSignal(LIVER_DETOXIFICATION);

Dim eCells as IEnumBodyCells

eCells = myLiver.getCells()

'lets access those cells and print if any are abnormal

For Each pCell In eCells
   If pCell.isAbnormal() Then

       'print the location of the cell and its ID on a map for the doctors for investigation
     PrintCellMap pCell   End if
Next


This small software can print a map of abnormal cells in a human liver and quickly hand that to his specialist. Imagine if we can install this application into kiosks machines in public, so anybody can easily do a check up for cancer cheaply. Perhaps with the advance of technology and biometrics this application can be deployed on iPhone or Andriod so people can do a checkup right on their mobile! I'm gonna write another post just for that.


Cure It
One can enhance this application to even cure the possible cancer by killing or disabling the growth of those abnormal cells. Here is a proposal.


Dim myLiver as IBodyOrgan
'get the liver organ as object
myLiver = deviceapi.getOrganByID("LIVER")

'lets send a signal for the liver to start detoxification.
myLiver.SendSignal(LIVER_DETOXIFICATION);

'lets access those cells and print if any are abnormal


For Each pCell In eCells
   If pCell.isAbnormal() Then
         'Send a signal to disable the cell
         pCell.Disable()  '
   End if



I'm sure one day we will hear of an iPhone application that can cure cancer.





Readers Suggestions
Ali Abd Aljalil
How about an army of nano machines, which can be injected and circulated around the human body. They can be programmed to attack mutant cells, viruses and other alien objects? Can be switched on and off, guided to the targeted organs, provide statistics and reports.


Interesting Idea, especially that science is booming into nano technology.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

An Idea: Batelco: CSV Downloadable Contacts for Smart Phones

Batelco is the leading integrated communications’ provider in the Kingdom of Bahrain with a very large customer base. It has a huge telephone directory.

When I want a number of a particular organization or restaurant I dial 181 and in a matter of seconds that restaurant's number is SMS'ed to my phone. Batelco made that service even cooler when they launched the Mobile Telephone Directory. All is free and easy to access. 

I have a suggestion that might make this service even easier and much user friendly. Categorize the telephone directory into groups (Restaurants, Banks, IT Companies etc..) and make them available online for download as a CSV (a standard format for all smart phones Comma Separated values). Now If I'm a frequent restaurant visitor, I can download the restaurant CSV to my Blackberry, iPhone, Andriod even Nokia and have access to all Restaurants in Bahrain directly on my contacts.

We have only one problem, telephone directory is dynamic. It is being updated frequently, so you need to download that CSV every now and then and resynch it back to your phone and you do not know if that file is updated or not. To tackle this, Batelco can create a different page to release only the changes (delta) so it is easier to download and sync. This concept is similar to the database replication .





Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Math and Love

Someone spend time creating these heart functions.

Heart Functions

Monday, September 5, 2011

17 Free GIS ESRI Courses [Professional Certifications]

Upon completion of each of the following free Online GIS courses, you get a professional certification that will help you pimp your resume. All you need to do is to follow the training, then do an small exam after that, if you pass the exam you get the certificate.

I just got certified using ArcPad in a 3 Hours course. You will be needing an ESRI Global Account
Field GIS ArcPad Certificate



Free GIS ESRI Courses with Certification

Duration: 6 modules (18 hours)

Duration: 1 module (3 hours)

Duration: 3 modules (9 hours)

Duration: 8 modules (24 hours)

Duration: 3 modules (9 hours) 

Duration: 1 module (3 hours) 

Duration: 1 module (3 hours) 

Duration: 1 module (3 hours) 

Duration: 1 module (3 hours) 

Duration: 1 module (3 hours) 

Duration: 1 module (3 hours)

Duration: 1 module (3 hours)

Duration: 1 module (3 hours) 

Duration: 1 module (3 hours)

Duration: 1 module (3 hours)   

Duration: 1 module (3 hours)  

Duration: 1 module (3 hours)
    
  

 


Friday, September 2, 2011

Bloggers, Enjoy the new Blogger Interface

Finally after long time of waiting, Google has re-engineered Blogger with some sexy interface,

Posting can never be easier,  attaching pictures is as simple as copy and paste, adsense and analytics are integrated.

Main Menu


All what we need now is a decent Andriod/iPhone app for blogger.

It looks like am sticking to Blogger for a while.