Ramadhan Kareem

Happy Ramadhan Kareem to all Muslims all around the world.

Ramadhan Kareem to you too, dear readers. ^_^

5 things I need to do before 2008 starts!

1. Buying a new car,
2. Starting back my business,
3. Living alone independently,
4. Designing new template for my blog,
5. Buying xBox360.

I'm not asking too much, am I? xD

No more updates

Yes, I don't think I will be updating my blog for couple of months. I am not sure why but I don't feel like updating in the coming months, so I thought of telling you this in advance.

[+] I won first place at the Oman3D iPod Competition, and I personally would like to thank every person who took the time and consideration to participate in the voting session thread; truly appreciated. One of the administrators at O3D has already announced me as the winner on this thread (Click Here).

Best wishes to y'all.

O3D iPod Competition - Voting Session.

I participated at O3D iPod Competition, and now it's a voting session. The entries seem challenging and the voting is opened for registered members. You can register and vote for the best design in this thread (click here). My work is #1 in the poll list, named as Abdullah Al-Adawi (click here to see my design). I made that quickly but I hope I can get your vote.

Thanks!


UPDATE: I just wanted to clarify that I didn't ask anyone to vote for my work in particular. My above post is very clear stating to vote for the best design and at the end I kindly hope to have your vote, not to vote for my work compulsorily. I'm very irritated that some people think I am cheating by posting this thread on my blog or asking some forums' buddies to participate voting on that poll. I didn't ask anyone to vote for my design, I simply asked to vote for the best design because I don't don't give a damn about winning the prize, 'cause I'm not into iPod's anyway. All what I wanted is to have more people to vote on that poll, it worth having more people helping to vote and make the voting session more competitive between the three entries. P.S.: I asked the administration team whether or not if it's possible to ask other people to participate voting on that poll and the answer was positive; it's possible. Whoever think that I am trying to push people to vote for me, please cut the crap!

Thanks to every person who voted for my entry, I truly appreciate the time and considerations.

Lucky 13, June 2007

I guess, I succeeded to reduce using the Internet for the past few months and now I am working on a schedule to organize my Internet activities. I know I have been caring less about my blog (when was I that interested? :p) and that’s because I don’t have much to share, besides, I do not have much time for blogging in the first place.

Anyways, things have been unexpectedly awful almost this whole month; June2007. Starting from Gonu that hit Oman at the beginning of this month and the destruction it caused in different areas in the Sultanate, which I assume most of you are aware of. I was one of those philanthropist people who helped packing food and water into trucks for two days after gonu’s mess and in the third day I got a serious back-pain/fatigue which made me bedridden for two days and took me a whole week to recuperate. I felt like my whole spinal column wasn’t there, while I was a bedridden, I couldn’t even move my shoulders and standing up was something as like million knives hitting my back grisly. Yes! I didn’t go to the hospital because I knew it was a matter of time, because the pains only show up when I try to move and the massage thing was a good idea to reduce the pain.

In the 19th of June, a relative of mine died in a horrible car accident in Nizwa. He was stepping his vehicle along with his friend from the road (for god knows why) while a moronic reckless kid in the other side of the way was losing control of his car at a speed estimated above 170km/h smashed my relative and his friend and tore them apart and then died immediately. It was miserable tragedy as both of them were just in the beginning of their twenties but as a Muslim, I believe it was their destiny and no one will live eternally. Surprisingly, another relative in the same day delivered a baby girl in the same time of his death, Sub7an Allah!

In the same day, the 19th of June, I had a missed phone call from unknown number while I was in the funeral. I called back once I reached home and it was a call from MB Petroleum Company. They called to tell me that I will have a job interview the next day at 9AM and to be honest, I was shocked and I told the lady how stupid that you call someone to have an interview in less than 24 hours, but anyway she has nothing to do about it. I then tried to explain to her that I cannot come and do the interview because we have death situation and I asked her to postpone it till next week. The lady then panicked or whatsoever and told me that she’ll call me in few minutes whether my interview can be postponed or not. I waited for her call like 2 hours and she never called so I decided to take off to Muscat and see what these people have for me. Woke up pretty early that day, took shower, passed to a friend of mine and we went together there and we reached their building at like 8:30 in the morning. Just at the gate, I really had bad experience because the guard told us that no one told him that some university students have any interviews in that day, so in that order he didn’t want to let us in at the beginning, but eventually he did. You know, I have this theory that says “if you get bad service in the beginning then don’t expect to have a better one later on” and it works perfectly with me I guess. As we just arrived to the reception there was a dumbass lady who was acting as she's the president of the company and talking to us savagely. We explained to her that we received a call the day before to have an interview in that day but she was carelessly insisting that no interviews are scheduled in that day but then she tried hard to be nice and called some HR staff there. Through her conversation in the phone I could understand that there was denial of any interviews and I knew there would be something worse. The lady then called us and asked for our names and guess what? We spent like half an hour just telling her our names repeatedly because she were working hard to lead us to right person who'd make us the interview and the funny thing that she did ask us our names like 6 times and in the 7th time I wrote our names on a small paper and gave it to her, DUH!. Eventually, we went in to the HR Department and believe me you just don’t want to go there because it was a hassle to find the HR Department. At the end, we reached the guy which the recipient told us to meet, Mr. H. I so heard about how MP Petroleum Company is disreputable and I wasn't sure but in that day, I unequivocally believed everything I heard. As we first reached Mr. H's office, this guy didn’t show any greeting or a single smile on his face and he just checked our names and told us to wait in the conference hall next room. I was telling my friends about my theory and I can expect worse and worse but they were telling me to be patient. Imagine, we all stayed patient for two hours looking at each others, no one came to us or neither we knew what to do. I got completely irritated and so my friends, so we went to this guy, Mr. H, but he wasn’t there and we waited outside his office and few minutes later he showed up. We talked to him asking what’s going on and why they told us to have the interview at 9AM while more than 2 hours from that time we still didn't start the interviews. The guy silently replied asking us to wait for few more minutes till another guy called N who will take us to Production and Project Management Department for our interviews. Till Mr. N came, it took around another 20 minutes for us to stare at each others in the conference room. Once Mr. N arrived, he took us to the second floor in another conference room and told us to wait for 10 minutes till his boss come to interview us. I was almost woozy and so pissed off and I decided that I will be just sarcastic and picky in the interview because I believe on my theory and I won’t expect much from this company. Definitely these people are unpunctual and we wasted another one hour and a half staring at each others boringly waiting for nothing in nowhere. It was a big miracle how patient I was that day and I was just lenient till Mr. N came to us to deliver the bad news. The bad news that it was a mistake when they called us for the interview and they said that our degree is overqualified for the available positions they currently have. My friends and I got really pissed off for all the time we wasted because of them, regardless the inhospitality they showed us. I knew that my theory is just right and my friends believed it then. Worse of the worst, no one came to apologize of anything they did, not the Manager of the Production Department, neither any of the HR staff for this unforgivable mistake. Personally, I just wanted to blow up at any of those top mangers and tell them how disrespectful they are but I zipped my mouth out and went out peacefully deciding to never come back to this place, EVER!

After what happened I immediately decided to go to Nizwa since the 3aza was held there. When I reached almost Fanja, I was speeding in about 140km/h when I started hearing weird sounds from the front of my car and just within few seconds the engine blew up. El7amdellah, I managed to control and stop the car, otherwise I wouldn’t be here typing this post today. I stepped the car over from the highway and luckily in less than a minute my brother passed and saw my car and stopped. As I’m having a bad day, my brother doesn’t have any cable in his car neither there was any place in his Mercedes to place the cable and pull my car to the nearest garage. I made calls here and there and eventually a friend of mine came over and we pulled the car from Fanja till Nizwa and I’m sure you don’t want to experience a situation as bad as this.

Exactly a week later (last Tuesday), my cousin died suddenly while he was taking his breakfast and I think by this tragedy, I understood how June 2007 can be unforgettable month in my whole life. I believe that whatever happened there was/were a reason(s) and that it’s out from our hands because this is what Allah has predestined.

If there is something else I want to mention about June 2007, it's that I logged in to EnglishSabla and I was dumbfounded on how many posts I missed since my last visit. I'm not sure why I came back to that place but I don't think I will be active much.

I have something for you from Mr. Family Guy here, please enjoy it :D!

Random Pictures

I think it has been more than a week since my last post, so I will talk briefly about what I have been to since then till now.


Nizwa Rain (31/05/2007): Last week, I went to Nizwa after I finished my exams and studies at SQU and surprisingly the weather was just amazing and wonderful. The next day we had cloudy weather in the morning and at around 3:00PM, it rained heavily and we even had sleet falling. I have taken few pics and I'm leaving you with them. Enjoy ;)

NOTE: All pictures were taken personally by me. Camera used: Canon IXUS 800. Please double click to see full view.

Apparently, it was sleeting hard

Too cold

It even reached inside our house


Wadi after that heavily raining and sleeting


More from the Wadi

Camping Trip (Masirah 2-3/06/2007): YES! Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Graduates 2007 organized a camping trip to Masirah and I joined them and I must admit that I had real fun and I'm sure I won't forget this day since I know that I'm not going to meet all of them more frequent as we used back in school. I was there from Saturday and came back on Sunday's night. Here are few pics from Masirah.

Center of Masirah from the sea

Sunset

Wonderful, isn't it?


My tent lol

Guess who we met?


Look closer on who's enjoying the romantic weather xD

Cyclone Gonu (4-7/06/2007): I'm sure most of you know about this catastrophic event which made a lot of serious damages in some places in Oman like Muscat, Sur, Quraiyat, Amerat and I think some places in Barkaa, too. I believe Oman hasn't ever experienced such cyclone as this before, however, most of residents were less vigilant and completely not precautious even after official alarm from the Royal Oman Police (ROP). Anyway, when I first heard that Oman is possibly going to be hit by cyclone on Monday, my family and I decided to evacuate and we actually evacuated to Nizwa. Thankfully, and talking cylcone gonu aftereffects, Nizwa hasn't been damaged as serious as other places as I mentioned above. Here are some pics that I took frequently.

Tuesday afternoon: 5:00PM from the top of my house


Tuesday: sunset

Wednesday, after Fajir prayer around 5:15AM


Nizwa Suq and the Wadi was passing nearby


The other side of the Wadi

Cool weather and pic, eh?

A top view for the Wadi

Wednesday: sunset

Thursday, finally the sun rays

I graduated

WoW!

Done? Am I really done?? No more exams? No more assignments? No more Homeworks? Quizzes? Essays? Projects?? No more?? No more classes?? Is it believeable? I mean, more than 17 years all studying books and books?? And today it's over? Does it mean I'm getting a relief? Freedom?? Wo0o0o0o0oW..................

Guys: I GRADUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATED FINALLY :D

Officially from a Student to Industrial Engineer (what a feeling ^_^ )

Hold, I wanna scream one more time:

I GRADUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATEEED

Thanks!

Essay

Two weeks back, I was helping my younger sister (PiXiE) on her essay that worth 20% from the final grade and since she was busy with her final exam and that she's graduating this summer, she told me to work on most of her essay. She's studying English Specialization (or it's called English Sepcialist??) and as you all know that I'm doing Industrial Engineering, so writing an essay for English Specialist student is not like doing that for an Engineering student. Surprisingly, I managed to do the essay the way she told me, and she was caring less and wanted to submit anything because she was busy preparing for her finals. The point is, she got the highest mark and best essay and I honestly, I was surprised myself, are they joking?? The english I used was simple and the whole eassy-structure is obviously not of an English Specialist student, but duh! :D Lucky her, she have a brother like me (e7m :p)

Here's the essay. Enjoy ;)


Dictionaries were used since many centuries and are still being used till now which implies the importance of dictionaries as a rich source for educational purposes. Noticeably throughout the years, dictionaries have been developed and improved and many new types of dictionaries have evolved since then like the bilingual dictionaries and trilingual dictionaries beside the monolingual dictionaries. This research aims to study one of these types, which is the bilingual dictionary and to indicate the comprehensiveness of its contents. Two bilingual dictionaries, "Al-Mawrid Al-Akbar" dictionary and "Al-Muhit Oxford Study Dictionary" will be compared to a monolingual dictionary "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary" through extensive study of the entry of the word "cyber-" and the words derived from it. The study will try to look at the elements of the entry that include the phonological, semantic, morphological, syntactic and etymological information, and the contextual usage.

There is an obvious difference between the monolingual dictionary and the bilingual dictionary in the coverage of words. The head-words coverage by the monolingual dictionary extends far more than the other two bilingual dictionaries and this can be shown by looking at the extra words that the monolingual dictionary provides like the words cybercafé, cybernaut, cybersex and cybersquatting. However, by going through each bilingual dictionary, we find that "Al-Mawrid Al-Akbar" dictionary covers the words cybernation, cybernetic(s), cybernetician and cyberneticist, whereas "Al-Muhit Oxford Study Dictionary" only covers the three words cybernetics, cyberpunk and cyberspace. Moreover, "Al-Mawrid Al-Akbar" dictionary treats each of the words above as a head-word and not as words that should go under the head-word cybernated. It then lists the words cybern (ation), cybern (etics), cybern (etician) and cybern (eticist), which are nothing but morphological information of the same word 'cybernated'. Nevertheless, this may be due to the fact that word meaning can be more extensive when it is shown as a head-word and more elaborated information could be given.

The phonological information is an essential part that each dictionary should provide. Here, the monolingual dictionary illustrates two types of pronunciations which are the British and the American pronunciation. "Al-Mawrid Al-Akbar" dictionary demonstrates clear British pronunciation, whereas "Al-Muhit Oxford Study Dictionary" does not provide any phonological description except for the word 'cybernetics' by breaking it into three syllables using alphabetical letters not phonetic symbols.

The semantic of a dictionary is primarily the imperative aim and is a measure of power of any dictionary that gives a proper and concise meaning for each of its words. Each of the dictionaries used provides the semantic information for its words, but the bilingual dictionaries present unclear definitions and could not achieve a user friendly meaning. For example, the word 'cybernation' is defined like this:

"السبرنه: الضبط الاوتوماتي لعملية ما في حقل الصناعة مثلاً من طريق إستخدام الكومبيوترات"

The word "السبرنه" does not reflect any Arabic terminology that any reader can thoroughly understand. It may have been derived by direct phonological transfer of the word 'cybernation' and arabized to the word "السبرنه". Moreover, weak Arabic grammar is used like in "من طريق"; it should be grammatically structured as "عن طريق". Besides, "الاوتوماتي" and "الكومبيوترات" are not originally Arabic words and any good dictionary should provide clear meanings using well formulated standard Arabic. Another point, none of the words is provided with examples to illustrate its contextual meaning with clearer picture and that is why there is a lot of vagueness. Last but not least, the word 'cyberspace' has two senses in the bilingual dictionary, "Al-Muhit Oxford Study Dictionary", whereas it has just one sense in the monolingual dictionary. Subsequently, the senses of the word 'cyberspace' in the bilingual dictionary count for an extra credit towards the clarity of its meaning and make it more informative.

Syntactic information is needed by any user of the language in order to produce understandable utterances or any piece of writing and here each type of the dictionaries used provides this information, either the word is noun, verb or adjective. The monolingual dictionary even provides more information of either the word is countable or uncountable.

It is important for language user to know whether a word is formal, informal or slang in order to be able to use it appropriately, but the bilingual dictionaries used in this research do not provide any information about the usage and neither provides any etymological information. This can be explained by knowing that the words used in this study do not have definite origin or previous usage that can lead through to its etymological information.

In conclusion, by studying the two types of dictionaries, it has been found that the monolingual dictionary is more comprehensive than the bilingual dictionary in terms of the phonological and semantic information. However, the bilingual dictionary can also be useful for beginners and for those who are not frequent users of English and do not want to go into details about the language, especially it is easier to capture the meaning when it is provided in one's mother tongue.

Intellectual Property [ Revision ]

I'm having exams coming up and currently studying for a course called "Product Design and Development". The book we are using is 'Engineering Design 3rd edition by George E. Dieter' and I'm reading on chapter 15, Protecting Intellectual Property and Design Aspects of Product Liability:

*Protecting Intellectual Property (IP):

Within the context of product design and development, the term Intellectual Property refers to the legally protectable ideas, concepts, names, designs, and processes associated with a new product. Intellectual Property can be one of the most valuable assets of firms. Unlike physical property, IP cannot be secured with lock and key to prevent its unwanted transfer. Therefore, legal mechanism have been developed to provide an incentive and reward to those who create new useful inventions, while at the same time encouraging the dissemination of information for the long-run benefit of society.

The protection of intellectual property by legal means has become a topic of general interest and international diplomatic negotiation. There are two conflicting motivations for this; first, creations of the mind are becoming more valuable in the information age and second, modern information technology makes it easy to transfer and copy such information. The intellectual property is protected by patents, copy rights, trademarks, and trade secrets. These entities fall within the area of property law, and as such they can be sold or leased just like other forms of property.

The functional features of a design can be protected with utility patents. A utility patent protects not only the specific embodiments of the idea shown in the patent application but functional equivalents as well. A well-written patent is the best protection for valuable idea. If an idea is worth patenting, it is worth hiring an experienced patent attorney to do the job well.

A different type of patent, the design patent, covers the ornamental aspects of a product such as its shape, configuration, or surface decoration. Design patents are easier to obtain than utility patents, and they are easier to enforce in court. If a competitive design has essentially the same overall appearance, then it is in violation of your patent. A design patent can have only one claim, which is a serious disadvantage, because it means that every unique aspect of a product's design requires a separate patent. This can be expensive.

A copyright has only limited usefulness in protecting product designs. This form of intellectual property is primarily intended to protect writing; however, it has become the dominant method of protecting software.

Trademarks are used to protect the names or symbols (logo) of products. A related form of protection is known as trade dress. This consists of distinctive features of a product like its color, texture, size, or configuration. Trademark and trade dress are intended to protect the public about the source of a product, i.e., to protect against cheap "knock-offs." Trademark protection is achieved by actual use of the trademark in the marketplace such that it achieves market recognition. Obviously, it is easier to defend against a competing trademark if it is registered. A registered trademark is issued for 20 years and can be renewed every 20 years as long as the product remains in the marketplace.

An innovation becomes a trade secret when a company prefers to forgo legal protection for the intellectual property. The reason for doing this is often a feeling that patents are difficult or costly to defend in the particular area of technology, or an unwillingness to let the public know what the company is doing. If the company takes active steps to protect the trade secret, then the courts will protect it as a form of intellectual property. Process innovations are more often protected by trade secrets than product innovations. Companies sometimes require nondisclosure agreements of their employees and may attempt to legally prevent an employee who leaves their employ with sensitive trade knowledge from working for a competitor in order to protect a trade secret.

* Design Aspect of Product Liability

Court decisions on product liability coupled with consumer safety legislation have placed greater responsibility on the designer for product safety. The following aspects of the design process should be emphasized to minimize potential problems from product liability:

1. Take every precaution that there is strict adherence to industry and government standards. Conformance to standards does not relieve or protect the manufacturer from liability, but it certainly lessens the possibility of product defects.
2. All products should be thoroughly tested before being released for sale. An attempt should be made to identify the possible ways a product can become unsafe, and tests should be devised to evaluate those aspects of design. When failure modes are discovered, the design should be modified to remove the potential cause of failure.
3. The finest quality-control techniques available will not absolve the manufacturer of a product liability if, in fact, the product being marketed is defective. However, the strong emphasis on product liability has placed renewed emphasis on quality engineering as a way to limit the incidence of product liability.
4. Make a careful study of the system relations between your product and upstream and downstream components. You are required to know how malfunctions should warn users of any hazards of foreseeable misuses based on these system relationships.
5. Documentation of the design, testing, and quality activities can be very important. If there is a product recall, it is necessary to be able to pinpoint products by serial or lot number. If there is a product liability suit, the existence of good, complete records will help establish and atmosphere of competent behavior. Documentation is the single most important factor in winning or losing a product liability lawsuit.
6. The design of warning labels and user instruction manuals should be an integral part of the design process. The appropriate symbols, color, and size and the precise wording of the label must be developed after joint meetings of the engineering, legal, marketing and manufacturing staffs. Use international warning symbols.
7. Create a means of incorporating legal developments in product liability into the design decision process. It is particularly important to get legal advice from the product liability angle on new innovation and unfamiliar designs.
8. There should be a formal design review before product is released for production.

G6PD Deficient

We have a G6PD Deficient Carrier here!!

I knew it!!

Job Seeking

Probably, most of you know that I’m very busy with my school, since it’s my final year at SQU. Already, five weeks to go and I will be FREE and no more stuff like “Homework’s, Essays, Assignments, etc”. I’m not going to post about my experiences in the whole past years as a student; I will leave it to my next post. For now, I am going to talk about my ‘job-seeking’ phase.

It’s really a tiring and exhausting phase that I assume graduates only know about. It’s about your career, your future that should go along with your plans (if you have any lol). As an engineer, I must have a competitive and challenging position and definitely at a competitive and high class company. Why am I saying this? Because I believe that as a graduate we need more experience, more of practical real-life problems than those which we were studying, facing and solving at school analytically. Basically, big companies doubtlessly have those challenging positions that the type of person (like me) who likes to take that opportunity to improve his/her skills for better experiences and understanding of the workplace. I wouldn’t say that small companies don’t have challenging positions, but the more variety you have, the better chances that you can gain more experiences, am I right?

Finding an engineering challenging position, specifically for my discipline (Industrial Engineering), would be within those Oil and Gas Service and Supply Companies or Manufacturing and Management Companies. I have attended courses on how to apply for jobs, writing proper CV, application letter and preparation for interviews. Those courses were moderately helpful so far and I believe I have done a good CV and application letter.
Most likely, I will be done with school at the end of this May, exactly 28th of May, so for this sake, I started applying for jobs since the end of last February, because I just don’t want to stay at home doing nothing and all procrastinating and sleeping all the time. I’m ready even to work the next day after my final exam, yes I am that excited and motivated, and I just wanna start and see how engineering life does look like in action. But, in the same time, I first wanna know which company or organization I would be hired to, because till now no company responded to me except two, Weatherford and Schlumberger. The companies that I’ve already applied to are:

· Baker Hughes
· Chevron
· Daleel Petroleum
· Falcon Oilfield Services
· Halliburton

· Master Foods
· MB Petroleum Services
· Oman Cables
· Oman Gas Company
· Oman LNG
· Oman Refinery Company
· OXY Oman
· PETTE Oman Company
· Schlumberger
· Sohar Aluminium
· Sohar Refinery Company

· University of Florida (for Master's Degree)
· Weatherford

Almost, these are the companies that I applied for a job to, and guess what? No one responded except Weatherford (had first interview last Monday), and Schlumberger (No available position for me in the meanwhile). It’s really not easy phase, all waiting for a call or an email to know whether your application is accepted or not. It’s a desperate phase if I may say, some of the students in my department got responses from the same companies I applied to, and you know whenever I receive a call from new number, I got excited and I reply immediately but desperately and sadly, the call isn’t from any companies that I applied for. Some time, I get impatient and I wanna call each company and ask them why I didn’t get a response yet, but I thought it might give bad impressions about my personality that I am impatient person, so I think I will just move on and wait till that day I get a call for the position that is awaiting me. I wish it will be a position that would suit me as a person who like having challenging responsibilities, a person who has good leadership skills, analytical skills, communication skills and managerial skills, too!

Do you have any suggested company(ies) or organization(s) in your head that would suit a fresh Industrial Engineering graduate?

All kind of helps are so much appreciated ^_^

Thank you

Back!

They say, people get wiser when they grow up, do they?

Temporarily, the blog is back. I miss being around though!