Where two spirits become one

In love, there is no ground, free uncontrolled fall, like jumping from the sky and seeing no end.. no rules applies, no gravity, just me and my love to endless destiny.. where two spirits become one, inseparable.. until death.

What is hard to keep, what is hard to lose, what is hard to leave, is also hard to give from the beginning... life tough me that valuable and unique things aren't on surface... they are deep inside.. Close to the heart.. not easy to get there.. otherwise all people would get them, and they will lose their uniqueness.

Take a moment, before you go to sleep, go through your life memories.. See how: easy comes - easy goes.

A friendship scar

It's interesting how emotions can cross any physical distance and have their effect on humans.
I've been always obedient to friendship which is very valuable in life, however sometimes when I say what I think I hurt others' feelings.. problems is that doesn't matter if what I think was right or wrong, it always feels wrong to hurt others' feelings, especially friends, even if they are continents far from you! and what makes it even more complicated, is that even if you were wrong, sometime you hurt the other side so bad that he doesn't won't to listen to your apology, or even to let you realize that you were wrong and wish to change your mind!!
And you left bleeding with knife in your hand, you the one who hurt others, and for all that you are the one who's bleeding.. it's like fighting yourself, because you're human.. a human who makes mistakes.. and yet doing mistakes isn't enough to make you bleed, it's the well to excel and value friendship and fellowmen feelings which leaves unforgettable scars on your body. Only humans with scars are those who got into the battle, and exchanged theirs (and others) blood with booties, these booties are lesson of life, mine is; if I was that friend that got hurt, I would listen to what my friends have to say after they hurt me.. otherwise we'll both bleed to death!

Spaghetti.. Ali's spaghetti

A quite weekend in San Jose, as other weekends I woke up late and started a new day (which is almost done). But today I will cook something, this reminds me of Technion days with my friends trying again to cook some "eatable" food.. we always ended up eating whatever we cooked, and sometimes (surprisingly) it was even delicious, thanks to Dr. Bashouti (also known as "The Chef") in most cases :)

Of course, no one can compete with My mom's food, but sometimes I try :) this time it was the traditional Arab recipe (yap, it's not Italian, we claimed it long time ago)..
Ingredients:
1. Spaghetti
2. Black olives
3. Tomato souse
4. Love

Update:

IGO 8.3.2.71348

Recently, I wanted to upgrade the navigation software on my mio 169.
I used to use designator 2006, but it I found that iGO 8 is much better.
How?
- Go to this website and follow the instructions, since it doesn't explain what exactly should be done, I'll try to explain:
1. Extract the main package on your PC.
2. Replace IGO.exe by the one inside this zip file. (ver 8.3.2.71348)
3. Download this file, extract, rename from data_9c.zip to data.zip, and replace the original file in the main directory.
4. Download this file, extract, rename from uspoi_branding.zip to branding.zip, and replace the original file in the main directory.
5. For US terrain, download these files Master- Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4, copy them to a temporary directory, extract the files Part1-4, and then run the master file, if your extractor throws and error, try using this ZipGenius (free).
6. A file named NA_usa.dem will be created, copy it to igo8/contecnt/dem
7. For maps and POIs, for example California, do the following:
7.1 download the map from here, extract, and copy the fbl file to igo8/contecnt/map
7.2 download the poi from here, extract, and copy the poi file to igo8/contecnt/poi
8. You are ready! copy the IGO directory to your mio, and launch from the mio.
[9]. for Text-To-Speech (TTS) feature, download this file, then simply copy the complete content inside the zip file to your \iGo8 folder and overwrite any files it asks you to. Then start up iGo8, go to Settings->Regional->Voice Language and select the TTS voice. If you did everything correctly, you should hear "Have a nice trip, drive carefully."

Tip:
- If your mio is slow, you may see an error message saying that there is no enough memory, I suggest to work in 2D mode because 3D mode require a lot of memory.

References:
http://igo8.gpssoftware.us/igo8.3.htm
http://www.i-go8.com/search/label/VOICES

How to pass California DMV written test

I just had my DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) written test.
Here are some tips to pass it easily:
1. First make sure you have all the requirements for the DMV test.
2. Make an appointment via DMV website, this will save about 30 minutes waiting time in the office (the appointment is usually scheduled for 2 weeks later), but if you are in a rush, you can go directly to the DMV office. NOTE: if you are eligible for a SSN (Social Security Number) you must have it before you apply to the DMV test, otherwise they will not let you have the test unless you come back with SSN.
3. Read California Driver Handbook (a night before the test should be sufficient), this is very important, also check these sample tests here, here and here, many questions may appear in your exam "as is".
4. I recommend to watch these videos (this is the channel) on youtube, they explain a lot of things visually which makes it easier to understand.
5. When you're ready, got to closest DMV office, pay the fee (it's 27 dollars) you will have a vision exam (bring your glasses) and your fingerprint and picture will be taken. After that you get to the test, it's composed of 36 questions you're allowed to have 6 mistakes (if you're applying to new driver license), if you read the handbook this should be very easy (I passed it in 5 minutes with 100% grade)
6. When you pass the test, you will have a temporary license until your "behind the wheel" test, go ahead and make an appointment for the practical "behind the wheel" test, this can be done by phone call, online, or in the DMV office right after you finish the written exam. It's usualy scheduled for 3 weeks later.

Tips for the driving test (behind the wheel):
- Memorize hand signals.
- You should know the car you're driving, hand breaks, emergency lights..

it's much more.

She: I made you cry once, I feel bad about it.
I: once?

KDE konsole tips

I found KDE konsole to be most convenient for Linux programming and scripting.
Here are few tips that may make your life easier:

1. Change colors to something more friendly to you (and your eyes), I personally prefer dark font on light background (many others prefer black background), go to "settings", select "schema", select "black on light yellow". to make this change permanent; go to "settings", select "save as default"

2. Change tab name automatically; when you have many tabs, this change is handy: go to "settings", select "configure konsole", select "set tab title to match windows title"

3. Run command on all sessions: when you're running on multiple tabs on multiple machines, and you want to run same command on all of them, use this feature: open a tab for each machine, then go to one of them and right click then select "Send input to all sessions", after that everything you type will be replicated on all other sessions (machines).. nice one.

4. If you're waiting for an activity on specific session and you're tiered watching/checking each tab frequently, you can easily right click on the tab and select "monitor for activity", then when a new output appears on that session you will see a "pop up' windows reporting that, even if you are in different application.

5. Shortcuts! of course you must know these shortcuts as a Linux user :)
- New tab: ctrl + alt + n
- Rename tab: ctr + alt + s
- Close tab: ctrl + d (depends on your shell)
- Browse tabs: shift + right/left arrow
- Move tab: ctrl + shift + right/left arrow

Enjoy!
Ali;

bash vs. tcsh

I find it much easier to use BASH rather than TCSH, many articles in the wen explains why, so I will save few bits for Google robot and will not replicate this info.
However, it may be useful to know that to switch shell you can easly use 'chsh' or 'ypchsh' (make sure you have the correct permissions, otherwise contact your admin :-/) I had to contact my IT admin to do it for me.

Ah, and also here is a very nice (and advanced) bashrc file, to use it; copy the file to your home directory (named .bashrc) and you'll feel like superman, I mean root :)


Bash, feels like home :)

VNC auto start

Since I use VNC intensively, I needed to automaticly start VNC session when the Linux machine comes up, a lot of posts in the internet explains how to hack gdm, init.d services, rc.local, etc.. but it seems that VNC developers already thought about this and here is the simplest way:
1. Edit /etc/sysconfig/vncserver and include the line VNCSERVERS="sessionnumber:myusername"
For example:
VNCSERVERS="1:ali"
VNCSERVERARGS[1]="-geometry 1016x710 -nolisten tcp -nohttpd"
2. Enable vncserver on runlevel system services, run: chkconfig vncserver on

That's it, you can try to reboot your machine and check how VNC session is automatically up!

Tip:
If you're having troubles to launch a graphical (kde/gnome) vnc session, you need to change your ~/.vnc/xstartup file, here is mine:
#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
xterm -geometry 1024x768 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Ali Ayoub Desktop" &
autocutsel &
gnome-session &
#startx &

Linux Recovery Software

Recently, a friend of mine had to recover some damaged pictures on his SD camera card, I tried few free application, none of them worked.
Finally, R-Linux application (Linux hackers rock!) running on Windows (!) worked and recovered most of the deleted/damaged files. The GUI is very intuitive and easy.. very recommended.