Shuaib's World on the Web

New blog

2010-06-19T16:38:00.002+05:00

I've moved to a new blog: http://www.bytehood.com

Moving to a new domain

2010-05-26T08:53:00.003+05:00

I've been on and off on blogosphere since around 2004. This blog has lived the longest out of all of my previous blogs, lasting for around one and a half year. And it has served me well. I liked writing on it, even without any considerable amount of readership, which is perfectly okay since getting any wasn't the intention.

But, now I am over with a personal blog that is too personal. I've been sharing all kinds of things on the blog, from daily tidbits and hangouts, to college life, to tech events I attend. But I think now it's time to take it to the next level. I will be moving to a new domain pretty soon, with a new blog, that'll again be personal, but with a more selective choice of topics I am passionate about, that I hope will be of interest to a wider group.

So don't be surprised if this blog isn't there anymore in the coming days.

Startups Insider Session

2010-05-08T00:09:00.004+05:00

P@SHA and SEECS collaborated to have a Startups Insider Session at NUST campus, Islamabad. Unless it is really difficult for me to attend any such session, I hardly miss one. And this one was so close to home, so I definitely attended. The panel included:

Faizan Buzdar, CEO, Scrybe
Owais Anjum, CEO, Numetrics
Shehryar Hydri, CEO, Trango Interactive
Usman Khalid, CEO, Aspire
Rahim Lalani, VP & Head of TRG Tech
Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA

One of the things that really bug me about the entrepreneurship scene of IT in Pakistan is that a reasonable amount of stuff is going on, new startups are emerging, and young people have started to have the guts to actually take the plunge and risk in order to do what they are passionate about, instead of what is considered best for them as profession by their elders. Yet, only rarely do we get to know about such ventures. Unless you are totally and closely connected with the people in the field, you won't know of much happenings in the startups scene in Pakistan.

This is why I think such sessions are so important in order to give students inspiration and convert the potential entrepreneur hidden inside them into a reality.

Interesting stories were shared by the panel. The problems faced, lessons learned, reasons of quiting cushy day jobs and starting a venture of their of own, VC funding, marketing, business planning, everything came under discussion. If I have to summarize it for you in one paragraph, it would be as following:

Know your self. What is it that you want to do in life? Having your own startup may sound cool, but it is a scary and bumpy road to drive on. And unless you really want to do it, don't! Definition of success is a personal thing to everyone. If having a good paying day job is something that keeps you happy, you are successful already. But if, even after earning a hefty amount and good living from your day job isn't giving you the kick that you desire in life, may be your definition of success is what is defined by entrepreneurship. You may have a hard time, face lots of failures and hardships, but eventually will get to where you want. And even if you don't, you would still be happy trying being successful with what you really enjoy. That alone in its own way is a success.

Other than that, things related to business tactics know how, marketing skills, and pairing up with like minded people also came under discussion.

At the end of the session, while talking to one of the panelists, I asked why was it that we don't see much role models to follow in tech industry startups in our desi environment. Why do we always have to look up to the likes of Joel Spolsky, Eric Sink, and Paul Graham to get to know about startups and how they are done? Not that we don't have the lack of the wisdom regarding the matter, as was evident from the session itself where the panelists shared some real wise stuff about the whole desi startup scene. And the answer I got was that not everyone is comfortable with sharing their success stories in desi environment. Mostly because most of the startups are based on services based model, no one wants to share their services acquisition tactics and sources, because after all, there is a little bit of Pakistani hidden amongst all. We are always scared of sharing. The few people that would like to share their stories and help new entrepreneurs, are either too busy in trying to be successful, or are just not up to the task of writing a good blog. So the only way to get the inspiration from existing entrepreneurs is to stay connected through offline means, and be part of any sessions like the one held today on regular basis.

Shortest code to find GCD of two numbers

2010-05-07T02:50:00.002+05:00

Here is the shortest line of code that will get you the GCD of two numbers, i.e. large and small.


int x, y, z;
for(x=large,y=small;z=x%y;x=y,y=z);

That's it, "x" is your GCD. It uses Euclid's algorithm to find it.

Playing with madness

2010-05-04T00:00:00.000+05:00

Ease of Python, speed of C...?

2010-05-02T02:41:00.003+05:00

No I don't have the tool with that property to show you here. ;)

Just that, I was practicing past algorithm problems of Codejam, and I realized Python won't be of much help there. For one of the problems, I wrote a program that got the solution right for the small input, but it was taking considerable amount of time for the large input... suggesting that Python might not always be suitable for the task when you need to have the output well before the 8 minutes given time for output submission.

Wish Python was a compiled language, with speed comparable to C. ;)

Though on a related note, I've seen people using C++ in awesome fashion in such competitions, at times even writing less line of code than the Python alternative for certain problems and getting it right. So basically it boils down to lots of practice, looking at code of great programmers, and improving consistently.

iPhone-Dev: Multiple Font Styles on a single UILabel

2010-04-19T22:57:00.003+05:00

It isn't possible with the current SDK (3.1). If you want to have some string written over a UILabel with part in one font style (family, bold/italics) and another part in different style, you'll have to resort to other methods.

One way is to have two labels side by side, faking it as if it is a single label with multiple font styles. You can read more about this method on this thread on stackoverflow. But this won't always help. For example, if you have a label that is going to have text in multiple lines, you'll never know the exact position where to put the next label. If the text in next label is supposed to be appended at the end, than what if the first label's last line ends midway, before the end of the label's total width?

FontLabel is a nice extended version of UILabel that you can use instead, for this purpose. The library consists of multiple classes, also having an alternative string class that has the ability to have attributed strings letting you use multiple styles to show in labels. All you have to do is to use FontLabel instead of UILabel where ever you want the desired effect. There is sample code in the repository to get you started. So hope you'll have no problem using it. It can also be used for adding custom fonts to your application.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven -- Mitch Albom

2010-04-18T19:43:00.004+05:00

I've been reading lots of books recently but haven't really blogged about any. So thought I would start with the latest I just finished, "The Five People You Meet In Heaven". Don't get mislead by the title the way I did. I thought it was going to be about some new reinterpretation of the concept of heaven and hell the way they are put in religions. But hey, it's all about the world you are living in right now, albeit put in a unique fashion.

It's a story of an 83 year old man, who works as the maintenance guy at an amusement park, getting killed in an accident, and his encounter with five people as he moves from this world to the after life. You might expect new revelations about the after life, but actually the book is more about the way things are in the present world. Eddie, the main character of the book, gets to meet five people each giving him a new lesson to think about. Though I seriously wonder what he would need those lessons for now that he is well beyond the boundaries of the present world, but I guess the author just wanted us to learn those lessons, instead of paying too much heed to the way the story is constructed.

In short, the first lesson is about how everything in this world is related. How no event is small or big on its own, rather it becomes big or smaller from the perspective it is being looked upon. You might not consider an event to be significant, but it would have larger effects for someone else, or yourself, some time somewhere in future. It is like the Butterfly Effect. Small events leading to bigger changes of huge significance later in future.

Another takeaway from the book is that no compromise in this world is a lost. When you lose something, you actually give something else to someone else that might be in more need in the circumstances.

Lesson three was that love is ever lasting. It doesn't end with the end of life of the person or thing being loved. Love has no time boundaries. It is without any strings attached, and timeless. I leave it up to you to agree or disagree with that.

Lesson four is the most important take away from the book. When we are living in this world, we see everything from just one angle, just one perspective, ours! And that's pretty much fair enough to start with. It's not like we are in a movie that we can float away from our body, and look up on the world from a higher altitude and see everything and everyone from a side angle seeing everything happening in parallel. You have two pairs of eyes and one brain that you take away with you everywhere, and only perceive things as you experience them. It is hard to know about everyone else's experiences, their inner state of mind, their angle of view of events, and thus judge people and events keeping everyone else's perspective in mind. Though that is to say that the better you become at looking at things from different angles, the better it is for your own self and the people around you. It's not always that only your take on an event is the correct one, chances are higher that it isn't.

Lesson five, I didn't really get. I guess you should just read the book and explain it to me. :P

Overall, it was a very nice read. The book is small in size, and very easy on nerves. I read it in two sittings, though I could have as easily done it in one.

It's a recommended read.

Mac OS X on Dell Inspiron 6400

2010-04-13T16:11:00.003+05:00

I wrote about my effort to install Mac OS X on my Dell Inspiron 6400 some time back, not giving details, rather keeping it for later. I see from my analytics report that many people land on my blog searching for this. So the deal is, I was able to run it on my machine, both Kalyway, and Snow Leopard from the retail DVD. But I wasn't even remotely satisfied with the setup. It is by no way a good substitute for buying a Mac machine (Mac Mini is the cheapest option to get running latest OS X).

But if I get enough comments on this post requesting all the details, I can write a detailed blog post for you. Otherwise, go get a Mac machine. :)

Happy hacking!

Conan O'Brien's Commencement Speech At Harvard

2010-03-28T08:16:00.004+05:00

Watch, listen, and learn. Or laugh. Or do both.

How to become a better programmer...

2010-03-21T04:13:00.005+05:00

Don't let the title mislead you into thinking that you'll find my wisdom, about becoming a better programmer, acquired over the course of a long time period of software development, in this post. If you are reading this not long after it is written, I'm most probably like you, a person who types the title phrase once in a while into Google in order to read other great programmers' thoughts about becoming a good programmer. I just did. And this piece is about putting my thoughts out there on what I just read in today's session. And today, I mostly read Coding Horror.

The thing about becoming an excellent programmer is not so much so about becoming good at writing excellent lines of code and coming up with great algorithms as solutions for the problem at hand. You know whether are not you are good at that from the start. Most probably in the first one or two years of the time you're in college. And that is not a skill you acquire if you don't have it already. Just as Bill Gates puts it and Jeff quoted in his how to become a better programmer by not programming:

Does accumulating experience through the years necessarily make programming easier?
Bill Gates: No. I think after the first three or four years, it's pretty cast in concrete whether you're a good programmer or not. After a few more years, you may know more about managing large projects and personalities, but after three or four years, it's clear what you're going to be. There's no one at Microsoft who was just kind of mediocre for a couple of years, and then just out of the blue started optimizing everything in sight. I can talk to somebody about a program that he's written and know right away whether he's really a good programmer.

Jeff goes on to explain how it is more important that you become a better programmer by trying to learn about things that aren't directly linked with coding, but they are the things you code about. Like if you are writing a software for some biological task, you should know something about biology. If you are writing code to demonstrate a phenomenon in physics, you need to know about physics. Also, it is essential that you have people skills. Software development isn't just about putting the code out there, it is pretty much more about communicating your thoughts on the code to the rest of the team, coming up with a design and then putting it in a form that others that would like to know about your design have easy time comprehending it. You need to be a good team player, become better at communication.

Over the time, you'll become the world's best programmer, not because you'll produce bugless code that has super efficiency, but because you won't, and be humble about it, and acknowledge it. You have to constantly keep a check on what you code, and try to suck less at it every year. You have to acknowledge that the code you wrote is shitty, and has bugs. Because it is, and has bugs anyway, but by not acknowledging the fact, you are just trying being a smart ass that isn't ready to accept his own flaws, hence not improve upon them.

Over time, you'll improve as a programmer not because you know more about programming, but because you know more about the things that surround it. That's what will decide whether you are going to be in the elite club of programmers who enjoy their work and thus are good at it, or the mediocre ones who are doing it all just because they were pushed into the field and they have to get the pay check. That can make a huge difference.

Keeping a 24 hours a day schedule

2010-03-20T07:02:00.002+05:00

I got comments from more than one friends on my previous post, regarding having a 28 hours day, that made me feel my post might have created some confusions. I better clear them up.

1- Having a day lasting more than 24 hours is counter productive and not recommended. At times you have to go with it, in cases like if you have a hard deadline to meet at job, or some special event that you are part of. But making it a routine is going to create problems for you. Most of the world work in 24 hours a day schedule. If you go against that, you will most likely live as an outcast.

2- Keeping in check your sleeping timings is very essential to properly manage your schedule, and that means having enough sleep to give yourself proper rest, but not even a little more than that. I am not the expert on this matter, so take my advice with caution, but in my opinion, six hours sleep should do you good. That is about enough to keep you fresh, and at the same time not that much so that you won't feel sleepy at night at the right hour. Remember what the wise saying says, "early to bed, early to rise ... ".

In short, more (or even less) than a 24 hours a day schedule isn't a good idea. More sleep might sound like an awesome idea, but it isn't. ;)

>24 hour day for computer geeks

2010-03-19T19:42:00.003+05:00

Does it happen to every computer geek? I mostly have my day last more than 24 hours, usually making it to around 28 hours. In case you don't get the concept, it means staying up for 20 hours and then sleeping for 8 hours, consistently.

There is no problem with that if you are a hardcore nerd who doesn't care about his social life and everything that is worth on planet Earth resides inside your computer. But if you aren't in that place, then having a day lasting more than 24 hours can seriously mess up your day's schedule. You will have each day start four hours later than the previous one, and it gets weird.

Only yesterday I had a phase change where I stayed awake for 28 hours in order to let my day start early in the morning, and I need to keep a check on my sleep, not letting it turn into over-sleeping and once again putting me back in a continuous run with my start of the day.

Happy coding, weirdo programmer bros. Cheers!

Kinds of intelligence

2010-03-19T06:06:00.004+05:00

This post is going to be somewhat a continuation of my previous posts on overreaction, and on maturity and winning arguments.

The common term IQ, is very well known. We are used to hearing about it from a very early age. Theories about it are well established and measuring scales and tests have been devised for it and improved upon for ages now. Though, this has resulted in very common misconception. Students and kids showing early signs of a high IQ are deemed specially gifted and more intelligent than other kids. They are expected to show brilliance in their early life academics, and later on, in their life and career. But that is only partially true. While high IQ might ensure one achieving higher grades in academics, it certainly doesn't ensure success in life and career in general. There is more to it than just IQ.

The problem partially lies in the term itself, "Intelligence Quotient". As if it is the measurement of all the intelligence a person possess. Nothing can be far from truth. IQ is used only as a measure for your ability for mathematical and spatial reasoning. While such abilities can help in academic success, our general life is not all about mathematics and pattern recognition. It is also about emotions recognition, and common sense behavior in general day to day life situations.

That's why two new types of intelligence have started to get attention of researchers and behavioral scientists. Namely, Emotional Intelligence (EIQ), and Practical Intelligence (PIQ). Robert Sternberg has come up with a new theory of intelligence knows as Triarchic theory of intelligence.

So what's basically happening is, now we have started to realize that certain person with higher IQ only isn't more gifted than a person with higher EIQ and PIQ but with average IQ. In my own experience, I come across many people with higher IQs struggling in life with stress due to lower EIQs and PIQs.

It is of high importance that people start paying more attention to their EIQ and PIQ levels instead of just focusing on their academic abilities as that alone is never going to guarantee a happy and successful life.

Tuk Tuk - Hadiqa Kiani

2010-03-13T17:23:00.003+05:00

I do not watch much TV. Rather, I don't watch it at all, other than for 5 minutes only once in a while when I am having a tea break and the TV is on in the cafe. And for that matter, I do not watch PTV (state television network of Pakistan) at all. So when I stumbled up on the following video of Hadiqa Kiani, I wondered if it has ever been aired on PTV. I've nothing against the video, I like the song, Hadiqa Kiani is one my favourite Pakistani singer. But what would be a surprise for me if PTV has come of age and started to air such videos. The last time I remember I used to watch PTV, this video would certainly not have been aired.

On maturity, and winning arguments

2010-03-12T16:08:00.005+05:00

Note: The following is a follow up to a conversation that happened on my college's private mailing list. I didn't want to continue the conversation ~~their~~ there, so just trying to add my final thoughts on it here. And I am not advertising this post ~~their~~ there, so unless someone from the original thread finds it out his/herself, the following remains a trash. And the rest of you, read and see if you can deduce something useful from it. :P

It's funny how our elders think that maturity is a function of a person's age. Douglas Engelbart had a better theory about maturity, "The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate."

I've seen younger people acting more mature in a situation where elders are so over themselves. And the opposite as well. So the 'age leads to maturity' theory is certainly flawed.

Here is a definition of Snowball effect from wikipedia: Snowball effect is a figurative term for a process that starts from an initial state of small significance and builds upon itself, becoming larger (graver, more serious), and perhaps potentially dangerous or disastrous (a vicious circle, a "spiral of decline").

This is specifically true about the little debates you have with your friends usually in college life. The seemingly harmless one-liners and teaser lines. But what might not be so evident is that if certain one-liners and nicknames are used consistently for longer period of time, they might cross the line and instead of remaining joyful teasers, trip over into an offence, and just like the snowball effect, become dangerous and disastrous.

Some terminologies:

Smart Ass: This isn't so much of a "name calling" as it is of describing a certain personality trait, the kind where someone obnoxiously try to rub in your face how they are superior to you in some ways.

Brahmans: In Hindu ideology, this is a class of people which is regarded to be on the highest level in society, as compared to Shodurs, which is regarded as a loathing and lowest class.

Dork: This can be somewhat a "name calling", but usually with a low tone.

Now on winning arguments:

1- Never overreact. Stay subtle and calm. Otherwise you'll divert the attention from the person who was originally wrong onto yourself and the purpose won't be achieved.

2- Never say you are sorry in a conversation, unless you are perfectly sure the other party is going to take responsibility too for their actions. Otherwise you become responsible for everything.

Overreaction

2010-03-12T00:23:00.002+05:00

Have you ever had the experience where someone was so utterly wrong and provocative, that you lost all temper and reacted too harsh, making it almost an overreaction...?

Guess what the result is. People are going to forget who was wrong in the first place, and start blaming you for your overreaction.

Winning an argument is a deceiving art.

McDonald's parking space

2010-03-11T02:53:00.005+05:00

The title of this post is lame. Couldn't come up with something spicier...

... but the last few times that I went to McDonalds late night, I have been noticing the potential uses of the parking space over there (McDonalds in F-9 park, Islamabad). Usually if you go there late into the night, I am talking about after 2:00 AM, you would notice a few fancy cars parked there, either having a couple, or a bunch of teenagers or boys in their early twenties, having a smoke and listening to weird music (out loud).

That is, until today...

I went through the drive-thru, grabbed myself a nice meal of McArabia, and turned the car towards the parking. As soon as I turned the switch off, the guard came charged at me ...

"Saab, meharbaani karien gari bahir le jain, parking band ho gai hai ab." (Sir, please take the car out, parking is closed)

I was like, "whaaaaat" (squeaky barney stinson tone). And from the little bit info from the guard, what I could assert was that there would be no more parking allowed in the parking area of McD after 2 AM. Hmmm... interesting. Did I miss on some scene that was so off the norm that McD's admin had to actually close the parking area after 2? :P

I usually go there alone... whenever I get hungry during my work sessions late into the night (which is everyday, well almost). But the question, whether McD is doing the right thing here, i.e. closing the parking area after mid night to cut on the activities of Islamabad youth, is an open question to me. I don't like the overly conservative society that we have turned into ... but I hope we don't trip into the other side of the extreme by trying to undo that.

Deceiving bugs

2010-03-10T02:22:00.007+05:00

You see that a certain piece of code you just added doesn't work as expected. You change some lines, delete some, add some new ones, compile and run again... the behavior is changed, but still not what you desired. You use a debugger and dirty print statements to restrict the cause of the unwanted behavior to certain locations in the code... and spend the rest of the day making all kind of changes in the code only to notice that nothing sane whatsoever is helping.

...

Take a break

...

Return to work. Have a fresh look at the code... and you realize, everything you tried previously, shouldn't have been, and wasn't, necessary at all. Only a slight change to a single line of code at a location you previously didn't even expect to have an effect in the on going scene, fixes all the problems.

It was such a day today at work. :/

Iron Man 2: Official trailor

2010-03-08T16:28:00.003+05:00

Ladies and gentleman, get ready, Tony Stark is back with his suit made of iron. Expecting awesome action, great acting, and exhilarating display of gadgetry...

iPhone Dev: Implementing your own delegate protocol

2010-03-04T05:52:00.018+05:00

Recently in one of my iPhone development ventures, I came across a design issue where it wasn't easy to callback the desired function in response to certain event. Think of it like this:

I have a custom UIView, lets call it A, that I want to add as a subview to another UIView, B. Both UIView's have their own view controllers, and UIView A has a number of custom buttons, which are to be linked with action methods in view controller of B. Due to the lose coupling between a UIView and it's controller, it's not so straight forward to reach to the view controller of superview. In such situation, designing a custom delegate protocol for your custom view would greatly simplify things for you.

In my case, I designed a delegate protocol for my custom view A, and while instantiating it in B's view controller, I set it's delegate to "self" which would be B's view controller.

Here are the steps to design and implement your own delegate protocol:

1- Define:

Decide what methods your delegate protocol should have. For example if you want a buttonPressed method to be part of your protocol, here is how to define it in the header file (e.g. myViewController.h) of your controller class.

@protocol myViewController
@optional
-(void)buttonPressed:(id)sender;
@end

The above goes to the top of your header file before the @interface. @protocol tells the controller that you are about to define a protocol for your view controller. You inherit from NSObject allowing easy access to delegate protocols up the inheritance chain. Everything else is put before @end. @optional tells the protocol that the methods below are optional and not strictly required for later usage of the delegate protocol in some other view controller.

2- Define a delegate property

In order to set some other view controller as a delegate of to your custom view controller's delegate protocol, you have to define a delegate variable. E.g. in this case, we put the following in our header file (myViewController.h)

@interface myViewController : NSObject {

id <myViewController> delegate;
}

@property (assign) id delegate;

At some later stage in another view controller, you can set the delegate of your instance as following:

myViewController *myView = [[myViewController alloc] init];

myView.delegate = self;

3- Link to the delegate method

Now you need to link up your delegate's methods to their proper implementation provided by whatever is set as the delegate to your custom delegate protocol. In order to do that, put the following code at an appropriate place, where you think a certain protocol method is to be called in response to some event. E.g. if there is a button clicked, and you would want to call a delegate method defined in the controller implementing your protocol:

-(IBAction)pushedButton;(id)sender {
if (self.delegate != NULL && [self.delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(buttonPressed:)]) {
[delegate buttonPressed:sender];
}
}

You first check that the delegate is set and is not NULL, and also that the delegate has implemented the buttonPressed method and thus responds to it, and then you call upon that method.

That's it. If you have ever used a built in Apple delegate in the iPhone SDK, the rest of the story is familiar to you. Everything else is exactly the same from here onwards.

Trip to Murree and Bhurban

2010-02-21T21:01:00.013+05:00

So I and a friend went for a trip to Murree and Bhurban this weekend. Apart from having great fun, and seeing the snow, I got the chance to put my digicam to test. I enjoyed the hi speed captures. The pictures turned out to be pretty sharp and neat even while we were cruising in the car. And I think... I think... I am developing an eye for identifying the right scenery. May be it's about time I get a heavy weight DSLR. :P

Here is a high speed capture through the side window.

A high speed capture through the windscreen.

And here is a priceless desi moment. :P

Here is the hut we had dinner at. You can see the snow outside.

Another priceless highspeed capture. :P

View from the terrace of PC Bhurban ...

... where we stalked people ...

... and had lunch.

Someone is wrong on the Internet...

2010-02-16T15:08:00.002+05:00

iPhone Dev humor

2010-01-14T13:46:00.004+05:00

Ending of a question from a user on StackOverflow that made me LMAO: :D

The type of answer I would NOT appreciate is "RTFM" because I already have, and anybody who's developed for the iPhone so far knows that there is very little useful M to F-ing R.

Hahahahahaha!

Cloning with Mercurial behind a proxy

2009-12-12T19:58:00.002+05:00

To clone a remote repository using mercurial, use the following command:

$hg --config http_proxy.host=yourHttpProxy:Port clone https://remoterepo directory