“I want you to keep your heads up as citizens of a free and independent sovereign state. Praise your government when it deserves. Criticize your government fearlessly when it deserves, but do not go on all the time attacking, indulging in destructive criticism, taking delight in running down the ministry or the officials.” Peshawar, 18 April 1948.
I installed CheapGaslast week and it has already paid for itself. It is an excellent iPhone application to find the cheap gas price. The application uses iPhone’s GPS to locate ten nearest gas stations and then displays them by price. You can also list the stations by distance. The iPhone application also allows to search for cheap gas prices in a given zip code. Since the prices are updated by users, the data may not be up to date. I found the outdated information to be a common complain in the review section of the application.
The way I use the information is to get an idea of the price range in my area. This gives me an idea of what to look for. For instance, today it showed the price of regular gas between $2.75 and $2.91. So when I saw $2.73 on a Mobile gas station near my work place, I filled the gas tank. The key is not to wait until the last minute. Start looking when you still have 1/4 gas left.
One thing to note about the gas prices is that people typically only update the price of regular gas. Plus, premium and diesel prices are typically not updated.
The application allows to submit the gas price of a station easily. All you have to do is enter the brand name, address, city, state and price.
I am thinking about moving to Canada. I am not a 100% sure though. In any case, I did some research, contacted a friend who recently came back after landing and contacted a couple of law firms for further information. It appears that there is a ton of information on immigration process, but not organized as a list. Maybe I need to do more research. Or maybe I will just pay for immigration services.
I finally got my iPhone last week! Two of my friends already have iPhones and so I had a lot of help getting started. Initial setup was pretty easy. Configuring email was also a breeze. So far I have installed five iPhone applications, of which, two I really like.
‘AroundMe’ is the most popular iPhone application among my friends. It is free. I love it. It figures out your location based on the iPhone’s GPS (I have iPhone 3GS). You can then search for points of interest near you by either clicking one of the categories or entering a keyword. I searched for FedEx and found one within walking distance. I tested several categories and found the database to be fairly accurate. However, searching for keyword ‘halal’ did not show the local halal market and resturant. Both have the word ‘halal’ in it. Oh well.
The second iPhone application I installed was ‘iSalat’ which I purchased for $0.99. As the name suggests, it displays the salat timings based on the location. The timings were fairly close to my local masjid. The application calculates the timing based on location and preference of either Hanafi, Shafi’i, ISNA or Umm Al-Qurra. The application also features a qibla locator.
I also installed Pandora a couple of days ago. I didn’t get a chance to play with it. Everything I have heard is positive.
It felt different after a long time. There was something positive this time. I am not sure what. But it seems to me that the Pakistanis are optimistic after many years. May be it is the democracy, or the restoration of Chief Justice, or the recent success in fight against terrorism or a win in cricket 20/20. In any case, I am happy to see my friends and family optimistic about Pakistan.
Pakistan Zindabad
Quaid’s Speech in Lahore
Dil Dil Pakistan – Vital Signs
Human Development Fundation
Pakistaniat
I have some old real media files that I needed to convert to mp3 format. The main reason was that I wanted the media to be available on my newly purchased iPhone. Plus I don’t use real player any more. In any case, after two days of searching and trying different products, I found a *free* product that did the job! The product is ‘Free RM to MP3 Convertor’ by Jodix.com. My files were in *.rm format, however, the product page at Jodix claims to convert *.ra and *.rmvb to mp3 as well.
The product is bit dated – it was release in February 2006. I got an error message when I tried to install it on a 64-bit Vista machine. I installed it on a Windows 7 RC and was able to convert real media files in mp3 format.
The sotware is very easy to use. Default settings would work for most people. The size of the mp3 file was not an issue for me, so I chose a variable bit rate. I was able to convert a 30MB rm file to a 80MB mp3. My guess is that the size tripled because of the variable bitrate setting and the fact that *. rm files were not optimized to begin with. The software speed was remarkable as it converted 30 mb files on an average of 10 mintues.
Since I wrote about choosing a password, there have been tons of blogs, articles and comments on the recent hacking of Twitter accounts. Among other things, security experts are talking about how to choose a good password. Following are some tips that I would like to add to my previous blog:
1. Single Dictionary words make a very weak password. Choose at least three word phrase.
2. Changing the letter case of just first or last letter is not good enough. Change the letter case of letters other than first or last letter.
3. Adding a number just to the beginning or end of the password to make it alphanumeric is also not good enough.
There is no perfect way to choose a good password. If you can create a unique account for each of your accounts and remember the login information, do so. For most people, creating a unique login account everytime is impractical. You just cant remember that many passwords. Is writing down passwords a good idea? It depends. How secure is the place you are storing your password in? One solution is to categorize
accounts and use same password for different categories such as work-important, work, home-important and home. The problem is that if one of your passwords is compromised, your other passwords in that category are also compromised. This maybe an acceptable risk.
As I said earlier, there is not perfect solution. What you can do is take all factors into account and create your own strategy.
Ok so I saw the latest Potter movie yesterday. This is a the sixth Potter movie. The book has been out for two years now. The Internet is full of reviews and commentary on each and every detail of the story. Yet the movie is a hit. It was worth my time and money.
That said, the movie has a bit more romance than I care about. While it didn’t bother me much, it may disappoint some of the hardcore Potter fans who like to see magic and adventure. Oh well, Harry is a grown up boy now. I would say that as a whole, it is still an adventure movie.
You have to have seen previous movies or read the books to grasp the plot. Definitely watch previous movies before watching Half Blood Prince. If you really want to know about the story without watching previous movies, then go to Wikipedia and search for Harry Potter. Just make sure that you don’t read the article on Half Blood Prince book.
Now that I have seen the movie, I will read the book. I know it sounds backwards but it helps me visualize 
It seems that I sign up for a new service or a new application every week. And every time I have to choose a user name and a password. Over the years, I have learned a few techniques to choose passwords that are fairly difficult to guess but are easy to remember (for me).
1. A street address: A street address makes a perfet password as long as is not directly related to you. Your home or office address would be make poor passwords. Address of a friend’s home, library or your favorite coffee shop can all make good passwords.
13BowmanDr and 3505thAve (Empire State Building) are examples of two address turned into passwords.
2. Rhymes or song lyrics: Pick a sentence from a rhyme or a song. Pick a year or a month. This could be when the song was released or when you first heard it. Combine the first letter of each word and the year or month you chose.
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - ttlS2009
Pocket Full Of Sun Shine – Pfoss2008
3. If you are a good typist, then pick a phrase. A quote you like or an idiom would make good password.
’Knock on Wood’ has three words. So the password becomes ‘3KnockonWood‘.
If you are like me, with little or no knowledge about Palestinian-Israeli conflict, then you need to watch ‘Occupations 101′. It is a 90 minutes long documentary that takes viewers through history to the current conflict in Palestine. There is so much I did not know about. The pathetic role that British played, massive amount of US aid that Israel gets every year, opposition of Israel by many Jews, non existent Arab leaders and most importantly, the meaning of occupation. I also learned about Rachel Corrie, a true hero, who was brutally killed by Israeli forces. What a courageous, loving and selfless person she was! I was able to find the speech Rachel gave in a talent show when she was in 5th grade (it is in the documentary as well).
This documentary is for anyone who would like to know the other side of the story, which is never reported by the mass media.