Jun 29, 2010 · 4 minute read
computing
in the us, you can have an unlimited data plan with most of the mobile carriers (well, there’s now a 200 mb (or 2gb) cap on at&t (depending on how much you pay)). since i didn’t use my phone for tethering in the us, my monthly usage usually didn’t exceed 200mb/month. coming to egypt, i hoped to have mobile internet (to be able to get emails as they come, etc). here’s what i found:
on your laptop
for mobile internet (on a laptop, etc), all three providers have usb 3g internet modems with data plans. your best bet is etisalat as it offers the highest data usage before the “fair use policy” kicks in (before your speed gets restricted to 56kbps) - unless you don’t mind paying the extra money to vodafone for the faster speed. avoid the “pay as you go” or “prepaid” data plans. the monthly “unlimited” plans are in the ballpark of 150-300LE/month (depending on the speed and provider).
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vodafone - 200LE/mo unlimited (4gb cap, then 64kbps), or 250LE/mo (faster, 6gb cap, then 64kbps).
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mobinil - 150LE/mo for 3gb. each additional mb is 0.25LE.
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etisalat - 150LE/mo unlimited (384kbps, 6gb cap, then 64kbps), or 300LE/mo (faster, up to 7.2mbps, 6 gb cap, then 64kbps).
these guys also have capped-postpaid data plans (500mb/mo for 43LE with vodafone or 50LE with mobinil). see their websites for more details.
note that you can pull out the sim card from the usb modem and put it in your cellphone. also note that the usb modem i got from etisalat worked both under mac (out of the box) and linux (with minor configurations on ubuntu lucid).
on mac, after their application sets up the internet preferences, close their application and connect directly from the internet connections pane. their app uses a lot of resources (in addition to the large amount of resources used by the modem itself).
on your mobile
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all three carriers (vodafone, mobinil, and etisalat) offer some limited internet plan on the normal pay-as-you-go voice sim card. for vodafone, it’s 1LE for 3 mb with 1 mb for each additional mb. mobilnil and etisalat charge 1LE for 5mb, with 5LE for each additional mb. both these plans reset daily (ie it resets daily and you pay each new day that you use data).
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if you don’t want this model (trust me, you don’t), then your only “good” option is mobinil - they have a “data plan” which costs 20LE/month and gives you “unlimited access” (governed by a fair use policy - 110mb at 3g speeds, then unlimited at 56kbps). you can refill your quota at any time by paying another 20LE.
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if you have a post paid plan, there are sometimes certain offers and such that can end up being better for internet usage overall. one such plan exists for the iphone (on vodafone). while i am not certain of the details, it does appear to be quite expensive (at least according to this blog post). perhaps, however, a data plan at around 250mb exists at a cheaper monthly rate. i’ll update this if i find out anything more insha’Allah.
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if you don’t mind carrying another sim (and another cellphone), you can get a data only line for cheaper. these are typically sold with the usb modems. depending on your usage, 500mb can costs 43LE/mo with vodafone, 50LE/mo with mobinil, for example. if you need internet on the laptop, get a usb stick and plug the sim card in a second phone.
**avoid prepaid/“pay as you go” for data
**
prepaid/“pay as you go” is great for voice calls. so why do i suggest staying away from the “pay as you go” models for internet? because the billing is not right. i ran some bandwidth monitors on my nexus one and compared the reported data usage to what i was billed for, and it didn’t line up. i called vodafone and got some money back once, but it’s not worth the hassle. a friend with the vodafone usb internet stick also pointed out that the reported usage he was seeing seemed unreasonably high.
how to disable the internet on your smart phone
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on any android phone, APNdroid is your friend. you may also want to look at 3G Watchdog, another really good app that monitors your 3g usage (and allows you to set rules and automatically run APNdroid when over your set limit, etc).
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on the iphone (or any other phone), changing your APN manually is the best bet (add some random characters before it so that it doesn’t resolve and thus doesn’t connect).
Jun 28, 2010 · 1 minute read
islam
there are two types of people in this world… masha’Allah (points to those i know), and astaghfurAllah (points to self).
Jun 27, 2010 · 1 minute read
randomtechnology
my machines typically have had some sort of video game related (and specifically, rpg related) names.
some names i’ve used in the past:
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meribia - a town from the lunar rpgs
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weltall - a “gear” name from xenogears
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termina - a city from chrono cross
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zanarkand - a city from ffx
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dalmasca - a city name from ffxii
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lab32 - a location from chrono trigger
the machine names in bold are in-use as of this post’s writing. some of these were actually named for a reason - termina was named because it’s a linux box (ie a linux termina-l), for example, and zanarkand was named because it was a far away city (and the laptop traveled far away from home). interestingly enough, zanarkand actually refers to “zanarkand ruins,” a place left in ruins in ffx. by mere coincidence, this happened to also become the fate of that laptop.
i’ve typically named servers by city names (ie makkah, madinah, aqsa), but have now started using names related to the domain name(s) hosted on that machine.
oh, and any printer i have gets named hydralisk, after the famous zerg creatures from starcraft.
Jun 26, 2010 · 1 minute read
life
yesterday after 3isha (friday) i attended the “writing of a book” (katb kitab, aka “nikkah,” aka “marriage contract,” aka “engagement”) of one of my friends (mahmoud) here in alexandria. the gathering was done at masjid 3omar ibn al khattab in alexandria. a few brothers gave short talks (islamic in nature - one brother was telling the unmarried people to “not worry about resources and get married because Allah provides” and quoted the hadeeth, etc), one brother read some Quran (some verses from surat al nur in 2 qira2at), etc.
the legal marriage paperwork was signed, and shortly thereafter, the ma2zoon (the person who is authorized to do the marriage) asked the guardians of both the bride and the groom repeat the words of marriage, sweets were given out, and that was it! afterwards, we took pictures with the groom and then left.
simple, but everyone had an awesome time. masha’Allah, i really like this model, and i look forward to mahmoud’s wedding insha’Allah! we tell mahmoud what the Prophet (saw) taught us to say (as reported by abu hurayrah (ra) in sunan abee dawuud):
أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم كان إذا رفأ الإنسان إذا تزوج قال بارك الله لك وبارك عليك وجمع بينكما في خير
Jun 24, 2010 · 2 minute read
islam
my 5th khutbah in alexandria was with sheikh 7atem farid. sheikh 7atem is famous for his beautiful recitation of the quran. it is said that during ramadan, an incredibly massive number of people come and pray taraweeh behind him, especially on the 27th night of ramadan. i attended the khutbah at masjid bilal, which is a very short walk away from the mediterranean sea and is right next to san stefano.
anyhow, the khutbah was about life insurance companies and how, as muslims, we know that there is no such “insurance” except that given to us by Allah - that a muslim does good deeds, etc and Allah promises to protect them, etc (as can be seen from many verses in the Quran) - for example:
“They who believe and do not mix their belief with injustice - those will have security, and they are [rightly] guided.” (6:82).
in this masjid also, there was only one khutbah. i asked my friend, may Allah protect him, as to the reasoning, and he explained that during the time of the Prophet (saw), sayidna Abu Bakr (ra), sayidna Omer (ra), and part of the time of sayidna Uthman (ra), there was only one athan. however, during the time of sayidna Uthman (ra), people complained that they didn’t have enough time to get to the masjid because they wouldn’t hear the athan, etc. as a result, sayidna Uthman (ra) ordered for a second athan to be given (before the first athan) in the market.
this practice stayed and as thus, there remain 2 athans in many masajid. wa Allahu a3lam.
Jun 24, 2010 · 2 minute read
islam
masjid al salam is the masjid next to the place i am currently staying. most of the people who go there are the people who live or work in assid, where the masjid is located. i am not sure if the masjid has a full time imam or not, because the same subset of n people always lead the salah - some are good, some are okay (in terms of qira2a, etc - not that i am one to judge).
anyway, the 4th khutbah i attended in alexandria was at masjid al salam because i was running late and didn’t have time to go to al hedaya. the khutbah was about the story of sayidna musa (as), and more specifically, about the beginning years of his life.
the only different/notable things were:
1. i walked in the masjid and found a tape player playing surat al kahf with loud volume. i never experienced/encountered this before, but turns out it’s common in some masajid in egypt.
2. only one athan for salah - my friend later told me why (i’ll discuss this in the next khutbah related post insha’Allah).
3. the khateeb, at the end, after the khutbah, stood up and said that whoever doesn’t thank people doesn’t thank Allah (hadeeth i guess) - and then proceeded to thank the egyptian president for opening some route for supplies to the palestinians. i found it odd, even though he did say something to the extent of, “in the same way that we have to point out when they’re wrong, we have to give them good feedback when they are good.”
Jun 24, 2010 · 3 minute read
code
i recently had to look at the blackberry sdk for something. to my disappointment, the blackberry sdk is only available for windows - no linux or mac versions in site. my first attempt was to run a windows vm under virtualbox, but that brought my system to a screeching halt.
so i started doing some research (see sources at the bottom of the post) and found an easier way. i did this all under ubuntu linux (lucid).
1. install wine (sudo apt-get install wine)
2. get winetricks from here (see http://wiki.winehq.org/winetricks for details).
3. chmod +x winetricks; ./winetricks gdiplus; ./winetricks msxml3
4. download and install the jdk for windows from sun (oracle?) under wine.
5. update your windows path to contain the directory of the sdk - do this by editing ~/.wine/system.reg and searching for PATH= and appending your path to it.
6. ensure that java works under wine (ie run wine javac and see if it works - if it doesn’t, try doing a wine cmd followed by a path to see what the path is at the moment).
7. download the 32 bit eclipse for windows - unzip it and move it to ~/.wine/drive_c.
8. install the blackberry sdk (wine BlackBerry_JDE_PluginFull_1.1.2.201004161203-16.exe).
9. mkdir /opt/rim; cp -r ~/.wine/drive_c/eclipse/plugins/net.rim.ejde.componentpack5.0.0_5.0.0.25/components /opt/rim/sdk
10. download the sun java wireless toolkit for linux and install it in /opt/rim/WTK2.5.2
11. finally, set up a /opt/rim/tools directory and add the following files in there (make sure to chmod +x them):
build.sh:
#!/bin/bash
SDK=/opt/rim/sdk
PREVERIFY=/opt/rim/WTK2.5.2/bin
PATH=$PATH:$PREVERIFY java -jar $SDK/bin/rapc.jar \
import=$SDK/lib/net_rim_api.jar \
codename=$1 \
$1.rapc \
*.java
9550.sh
#!/bin/bash
cd "`dirname $0`"
/usr/bin/wine /opt/rim/sdk/simulator/fledge.exe /app=/opt/rim/sdk/simulator/Jvm.dll /handheld=9550 /session=9550 /app-param=DisableRegistration /app-param=JvmAlxConfigFile:9550.xml /data-port=0x4d44 /data-port=0x4d4e /pin=0x2100000A
and that’s it! now let’s compile a sample app, say the helloworld sample (from /opt/rim/sdk/samples/com/rim/samples/device/helloworlddemo/). to do this, copy the helloworlddemo folder somewhere and add a HelloWorldDemo.rapc file in that folder that looks like this:
MIDlet-Name: HelloWorldDemo
MIDlet-Version: 0.9
MIDlet-Vendor: Research In Motion Ltd.
MIDlet-Jar-URL: HelloWorldDemo.jar
MIDlet-Jar-Size: 0
MicroEdition-Profile: MIDP-2.0
MicroEdition-Configuration: CLDC-1.1
MIDlet-1: Hello World Demo,img/helloworld_jde.png,
RIM-MIDlet-Flags-1: 0
now you can compile it by running /opt/rim/tools/build.sh HelloWorldDemo - if all is well, you should see a HelloWorldDemo.cod file.
then run 9550.sh, which should launch the simulator. you can choose to install the cod file from the menu.
btw, if you want to use other emulators, run wine fledge.exe /help under /opt/rim/sdk/simulator and you’ll find what valid parameters there are for the device type. then edit 9550.sh and change it to your device type.
one other note - another way to compile applications involves using the blackberry ant tools. i haven’t tried this yet, however.
sources
Jun 20, 2010 · 1 minute read
general
versus
Jun 20, 2010 · 2 minute read
experiences
an interesting thing happened a few weeks ago… i was walking with my friend heading to the excellent restaurant, dahab. on the way, we heard the adhan for maghrib and decided to stop and pray. we saw a sign for a masjid, so we started walking in that direction. to my surprise, as we closed on the masjid, i saw a brother with a big beard walking in the opposite direction - away from the masjid.
i was confused… “wait, this guy has a big beard, why would he be walking away from the masjid when the salah is about to start?” - so anyway, i ignored the thought and continued walking with my friend towards the masjid. when we approached the door, the masjid seemed empty… i saw one guy inside praying maghrib (leading himself and only himself), so my friend and i went in and joined him.
the odd and eerie thing was that we were the only 2 people to pray in that masjid with him. after prayer, i turned around, thinking, “maybe there’s a grave here?” - but i didn’t see a grave or anything suspicious. we walked out, puzzled at what had happened, and continued our journey towards dahab.
on the way, we passed a huge gathering of people leaving another masjid - and i saw the same guy with the big beard that i had seen earlier. i went up to him and asked him, “brother, we prayed at the masjid over there and there was no one else there - what is up with that?” - and he said, “the person that leads there is sufi and has lots of bid3a - we tried to advise him but he won’t take our admonition. in addition, he’s not very polite with the people - for example, someone will pick up a mus7af to read and he’ll say, ‘shouldn’t you ask permission before taking that?’ - etc. so as a result, we no longer pray there.”
well, i guess that explains that…
Jun 19, 2010 · 1 minute read
life
electricity is human too, you know. it works really hard, so it deserves a break. let the people walk up n flights of stairs (where 0 > n > 14) in the pitch dark. i asked someone at a store, “why is the electricity cut off in this entire area?” he said, “because the circuits get hot, so they turn off the electricity in one area for 1-2 hours every period of time to give the circuits a break.”
the return of the electricity was greeted with cheering that i could hear a good distance away.