Author Archives: Aqeel

Going Libre

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Just a small post to say that I’ve converted all files on my system to open formats. Which includes just two kind of files:

  1. Music files: All converted to ogg vorbis.
  2. Document files: Converted all MS Office files to Open Document Format (ODF).

I would still have to use MS Office formats for my uni work or to share files with majority of people I know here (they all are using pirated version of MS Office and don’t really care about open formats or digital rights), but at least I can get that tingly feeling that I am supporting a good cause.

Click on the images below for more information.

Recommended Applications for Nokia E71

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I was working on a list of some important applications for E71 (and other Nokia s60 v3 phones) before my phone got snatched earlier this year, after that my motivation for the post just died. The half finished post has been sitting in my drafts list since then.

Recently a friend of mine bought Nokia E72 and asked me to recommend him some applications, so I thought I should just post this half-finished list here. You can download most of these apps using Ovi store, official sites are linked where I could find them.

List of software:

  • Slick – A Lightweight, low bandwidth, multi protocol IM application. It supports: ICQ, Yahoo!, Aim, MSN, Google Talk & Jabber
  • Skype – Skype client for S60, it’s a beta version, but very stable.
  • Conversation – The Conversation is an add-on application that allows you to follow your communication with contacts as streams of conversations, which it organizes, based on individual contacts. The application also makes it very easy to reply to received messages and continue an ongoing conversation with the contact
  • mIRRGI – An IRC client, the only one that worked fine for me.
  • Gravity – The only paid application I use. It is a microblogging client for Twitter, StatusNet and Facebook.
  • Tweets60 – another twitter client. This one is free.
  • Mail For Exchange – E71 comes with Mail for Exchange by default, if you don’t have it, you can download it from Nokia’s site. Other than syncing emails, it also allows you to sync Google contacts and calendar.
  • JoikuSpot (Light and Premium) – Turn your phone into a wifi HotSpot.
  • S60SpotOn – Allows you to use your mobile as a torch. Keep your display backlight or flash turned on.
  • JBakTaskman – A powerful task manager, highly recommended.
  • Device Status – Nokia Device Status is a self-diagnosis tool that allows you to collect detailed system information both from your PC and your S60 device.
  • Energy Pro – Nokia Energy Profiler is a stand-alone test and measurement application for S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1 and later devices. The application enables developers to test and monitor their applications’ energy usage in real time on target devices.
  • Advanced Call Manager – Another paid app, but it came pre-installed on my phone. It allows you to block or create any other rule based on the caller.
  • Upcode – 2D and 1D barcode reader.
  • FreeTimeBox – Displays time on lower bar permanently, with an option to sync time online.
  • Facebook – Do I even have to explain? :)
  • YouTube – Again, no need for description here.
  • Mobbler – Last.fm scrobbler and radio.
  • Gmail – Much better interface than using google mobile.
  • Nokia Sports Traker – Service is closed now.
  • Opera Mobile – Arguably the best browser for symbian OS.
  • Location Tagger – Automatically tag your location data to your pics.

Games:

  • Solitaires
  • Snakes
  • S-Tris 2 – Tetris

Syntax Error

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Recently I was working on a client’s project in C# with MS Access database. I usually don’t work on windows-only tools so it was somewhat of a learning experience. Anyways, while working on the project, we got stuck on a query.

It was an INSERT query which was running perfectly fine in Access, but when executed through C# it gave syntax error. Values were populating just fine, quotes were in right places but it continued to give syntax error, while copying it and running it in Access worked fine. After wasting couple of hours, we finally found out that problem was with fieldnames, apparently one of the fieldname was causing some problem, and we had to enclose each field name in square brackets [] to make them work.

So, if you are stuck in such a situation, try enclosing fieldnames in square brackets, actually it is usually considered a good practice to always enclose fieldnames in square brackets in MS Access queries.

Us, And Our Projects

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No, I am not talking about United States nor Us magazine, just talking about us. We have a kind of a group here, consisting of few friends (technically, we are a set of brothers, friends, friends of brothers and brothers of friends). I am calling it kind of a group because we have never formally considered ourselves a group, our interests are different, we usually don’t agree on pretty much everything, including what to work on and how, and usually all (actual) work is done individually or by a group of at-most 2 people (others are always present to point out mistakes and sometimes to give moral support), but whatever work any of us do, it is pretty much always considered ‘our’ work.

Currently we have 7 running websites (including 4 blogs and a photoblog), with 2-3 ideas  currently in development, some of these projects were started on experimental basis and are on a back burner right now, while others are actively worked on. Here is the list of our projects (in no particular order):

  1. Kirayadaar.com
  2. Eat ‘n Travel
  3. Politics Pakistan
  4. Optographer
  5. Carobaar
  6. Education Inn
  7. Majestic Islam

Let me know what you think about any of these websites. Any suggestions and feedback is most welcome.

Test Post Using WordMobi

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Just testing Wordmobi , a wordpress client for mobiles (s60), which supports:

  • Text formatting ( bold , italic etc.).

  • Categories.

  • Tags.

  • Comments.

  • Preview.

  • Images (either local or from url, with optional scaling).

Edit from web: Image upload failed (I didn’t get any error but it didn’t show up here), will try again later.

Edit 2: Another try at postung image:
22072009025.jpg

Docky – Dock Bar For Linux

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After searching for a long time for a good, beautiful, easy to configure dock for Linux that can also work without compositing effects, I had finally given up, when I found out that Gnome-Do, my favorite application launcher, is going to feature a dock in it’s next release. Today, I downloaded and installed PPA packages for Ubuntu and gave Gnome Do’s docky a try.

docky

Docky is basically a special theme of Gnome-do, to access it, you have to go in Gnome-Do Preferences -> Appearance and change it’s Theme to docky. As soon as you select docky, you will notice a huge dock bar appear at the bottom of your screen. By default it shows your most used applications. If you don’t like it’s size, just take your mouse pointer to it’s vertical border and it will change into resize pointer, you can then drag it away from screen border to increase the size, and towards the screen border to decrease the size.

Adding and removing icons from dock is as easy as dragging an item on the dock or dragging it away, depending on you are adding or removing. Another way to add applications to dock is search for them using Gnome-Do and press the small plus sign below it. You can also right click and remove applications from it.

Docky also replaces usual task bar, though it is bit lacking in this front for now, but it is to be expected, as it’s still alpha quality. Currently, docky doesn’t provide a way to access different windows of same application, that is, even if you have 6 firefox windows open, it will show them as one.

Docky can use all plugins for Gnome-do, though there aren’t any docky specific plugins available yet (like start menu, time, systray etc.), but I am sure community will start contributing soon enough. If you are looking for a nice dock yourself, give it a try, though beware it’s still in it’s alpha quality so you might experience some crashes or unexpected behaviour, if that’s the case you should wait for it’s final release.

Read more about docky at it’s gnome do wiki.

Officially Switching To Colemak

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colemak_smallFew months ago, I wrote about different keyboard layouts and planned to switch to Colemak. I wasn’t able to completely switch, mainly because I am a programmer, and wasn’t able to give Colemak enough time. I tried it couple of times but postponed complete switching.

Couple of weeks ago I tried Colemak again, but this time I went cold turkey. The best way to start Colemak is to download typing lessons from it’s site and try first few lessons (they recommend going through first three lessons in one sitting). It helps get the hang of new layout.

Learning a new layout when you are already used to one is not very easy. Just as everyone had told me, first few days felt like walking thorough mud, my fingers were not able to type at the speed my mind and body was used to, it had that dream like effect where you are moving in slow-motion and can’t move fast no matter how hard you try. Don’t let me discourage you though, as that’s just for first few days, after that your fingers and mind start getting used to new layout and it becomes easier. My typing speed with Colemak is now almost equal to what it was QWERTY (though I make lots of typos at that speed, so, I go bit slower) and my speed and efficiency is still increasing.

It could be just a psychological effect but it feels my hands are less strained than how they were with QWERTY. Even though it’s a great layout and I will highly recommend it to everyone,  but switching layout is just not for everyone. There are many people who type by looking at the keys, it won’t help them much, similarly, those people who don’t type much, the incentive of learning new layout is very low for them. But anyone who is using QWERTY, types a lot, or have ever complained about RSI, should definitely give it a try.

Aqwaal 0.2 Release

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Today I am releasing version 0.2 of Aqwaal.

At user’s end it looks pretty much same as 0.1 version, only big difference in this version is that now you can edit / delete author name, quote source and tags.

Though, now that basic structure is there, plan is to make version 0.3 actually usable for anyone who might want to install it. Which means creating a nice looking layout / theme, making infrastructure more secure and stable, adding basic search etc.

Visit Aqwaal project page to download the latest version (or click here for direct download). Any comments or feedback will be most welcome.

Aqwaal – Quotations Management System

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Few days back, I uploaded a web based (PHP / MySQL) quotations database manager, Aqwaal. It was originally inspired by Quotations Page, I wanted to have a self-hosted version of similar software to keep track of my growing list of quotations, I found some software like Chirpy, but they were more suited to manage quotes from IRC. As these were my early days of programming, so, I decided to write my own, with the thought that it will also hone my skills, but soon got busy with other things and forgot about it. That is, until now.

Currently, it’s a very basic version, and is only released as a proof of concept (which means you are not supposed to use it for anything other than development or just to check it out). For now, at admin level, it only supports:

  • Add quote (including author name, tags and source of the quote – all optional)
  • Delete any quote
  • Change Admin user password

At end user-level:

  • Browse all quotes
  • Browse quotes using tags
  • Browse quotes using author name
  • Browse quotes using source
  • Very basic paging support

Interface is not very pretty right now, but it is easily usable. If you are a programmer and want to look at the source, let me warn you, as the code was written quite some time ago it too isn’t very pretty either. There are lot of things to be done, but I would prefer to make it stable with only basic features first and then go for all the fancy stuff.

My current aim is to add:

  • All basic functionality (edit quote, edit / delete author name, tags, sources etc.)
  • Search
  • Basic theme support (CSS at least)
  • User management (thinking about it, not sure yet)
  • And of course, remove all bugs

After that, it depends on whether anyone (other than me) is actually interested in it or not :)

Aqwaal Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/aqwaal
Discussion Group : http://groups.google.com/group/aqwaal