General
Chef Masood's rice delight
I learned how to prepare rice a few weeks back and frankly, it’s pretty easy when you see it being done by someone else. I’ve seen my mom make it before and always thought it was easy but last time I was shown how to prepare rice, I paid attention. By the way, I’m not talking about using a rice cooker, I’m talking about preparing it by boiling it in water. It’s all about timing really. In order to serve up excellent tasing rice, you have to know when it’s done cooking.
So, on a mild December evening (last night), I was feeling hungry and decided it was a good time to make rice. It turned out pretty well for a first time and I think I can blame the fact that it was a little soggy to the fact that I was watching a Leafs game while it was put on the stove. I also couldn't find the strainer that mom uses to drain the remaining water out of the bowl so a bit of water was left over but in any case, I was able to eat it very comfortably. At first, I thought I put in too much rice but it turns out that I put in just the right amount for two days worth.
Overall, even though some of the water boiled over and accumulated on the stove, it was a great experience! By the way, the Leafs lost...
To those going for Hajj
Never before have so many people I know gone for Hajj in one year. I can just imagine how amazing it must feel leading up to the day they leave for the beautiful journey. From what I’ve heard, it’s a life-changing experience, something that you look back and feel overjoyed about.
To those that are going, realize that Allah (subhanahu wa Ta’ala) has given you this opportunity and there are probably many people who wanted to go this year but have had their papers denied or haven’t been able to go for some reason or another. Hajj is one of the pillars of Islam, understand the importance of this and try your best to do everything’s that’s required in Hajj.
Please include me and my family in your du’as (supplications).
May Allah (subhanahu wa Ta’ala) accept your Hajj.
Baby born with heart outside chest
Mm hmm, you read it correctly. That’s outside.
While perusing Google News today, I noticed a story about a boy who was born with his heart outside his chest. Apparently it’s not a medical first, but it’s the first time I’ve heard anything like it. The boy, Naseem Hasni, was born on October 31 at the Holtz Children’s Hospital in Florida and recently, doctors were able to put his heart back into his body. He’s expected to live a physically normal childhood although he does not have a sternum, which is the part of the body that protects the heart. Doctors are planning on taking parts of Naseem’s ribs and placing it where the sternum would normally be so that at least he’s got some protection in that area.
If you’d like to read the entire article, check it out here
Remarkable story eh?
RSS junkie - Vienna
I don’t know about you, but I’m someone who likes to know about stuff as soon as it’s announced. When it comes to news and technology-related announcements, I like knowing about it but don’t have the capacity to keep refreshing a news page or a tech rumour/announcements website. This is where RSS or Atom feeds come in.
RSS and Atom Feeds (they’re different but accomplish the same thing), in simple terms are things that announce the availability of something to someone provided that latter is subscribed to a feed. For instance, if you subscribe to the RSS feed on my blog, as soon as I add a new post, it’s “delivered” to you without you having to visit my site. This can also be done for comments on individual posts. Pretty cool eh?
Anyway, I’ve really gotten into RSS feeds after getting my iBook G4 since Safari (the default browser on a Mac) handles RSS feeds in a very convenient way. If you’ve ever used Mozilla Firefox’s RSS/Atom feeds, you know what I’m talking about. However, RSS/Atom feeds in Safari look cool mainly because they appear in the browser’s main window along with a multitude of filters and a search field on the right side of the browser. It’s a very cool setup.
However, while going through my Digg/Technology RSS feed, I came across a Top 10 Freeware Apps for Mac posting (there have been a whole bunch of Top-10-ish posting on Digg lately), and via it, to a program called Vienna. I’d heard of this program before but from what I gathered, another program called NetNewsWire overshadowed it.
I love open-source software mainly due to its price (free) but also because it’s often feature-rich and very polished in terms of presentation. Since Vienna is open-source and free, I downloaded it. There is a free version of NetNewsWire, but it doesn’t have nearly as many features as NetNewsWire and so its aptly named NetNewsWire Lite. The only reason I didn’t download it was due to the its size, a whopping 6.4Mb. Vienna weighed in at around 2.6Mb, which is very comfortable. I don’t know, maybe I’ll try out NetNewsWire Lite, I’m pretty sure it’ll serve my very basic RSS/Atom needs.
Vienna is an amazing application. It is an RSS/Atom feed viewer and management application, and that’s all it tries to do. Sure, it got a built-in tabbed browser but it also has the option of letting your browser of choice handle any item you want to see in full, as opposed to the feed view. Now, the point of this post is not to review Vienna, but rather, it’s to let you know that I’m an RSS junkie. I kinda realized it before using Vienna but it really struck me since I loaded my subscribed feeds into Vienna.
Did you notice the screenshot above? That’s the Vienna icon and the number (149) is the number of unread RSS/Atom items waiting for me since this morning. Of course, most of those I’ve already read since I have almost the same subscriptions set up in Mozilla Firefox 2 at work. I started to realize that I’m an RSS/Atom lover after I noticed that most of what I saw on Digg/Technology, I had already seen via the multitude of feeds I go through prior to checking my Digg/Technology feed. It’s crazy.
I’m thinking of adding a few more feeds tonight, the theme of which might be news in general. I’ve currently categorized my subscriptions with names such as Technology, Mac, and Favourite Blogs. Guess another category couldn’t hurt…right?
Importance of mockups in web design
I’ve been working on fixing up my Design Project from my final year of Computer Engineering studies at University of Toronto. My group consisted of two people, namely Salman Sayany and myself. To recap, it was a conference management system built using open source tools, the highlight of which was Ruby on Rails.
We were never really happy with the kind of work we put into the whole thing so I decided to continue with the project after school ended. While applying for jobs, I started to add features here and there and tried to give the application a new visual feel. I started with the Author’s page and then moved on to the Administrator/Chair’s page with a goal of using no images, only CSS. This gave me a great opportunity to dig deeper into CSS and discover how cool it really is.
Lately though, I’ve been working on beautifying parts of the application that the user navigates through without being logged in. This means the login page, the registration page and the forgot password page.
One thing I’ve learned about web design is that mockups are very important! Prior to this project I’d only done non-web-related software development so I never really thought about color, layout, typography and other things important in web design (and design in general) but I’m finding that without mockups, it’s very hard for me to decide upon a design. I often just code mindlessly thinking up designs as I go but not with mockups. They give me direction when programming and I’ve found that my mockup to development time has been greatly improving.
Anyway, I hope to post a few screenshots of my progress soon.
I still can’t get a hold of Salman online to show him the new design!
Apple releases new MacBooks
Apple Computer Inc. updated their MacBook line of notebook computers a few days ago, with the most obvious upgrade being that of the CPU that powers it. The new MacBooks now ship with Intel’s Core 2 Duo mobile processor which, according to Apple, makes the notebook 25% faster than its Intel Core Duo counterpart. Also of note is that all standard configurations except for the cheapest model now come with a 6x double-layer Superdrive, a welcome addition if you ask me.
Apple unveils new MacBook Pro
Today, Apple Computer Inc. took the wraps off their new MacBook Pro notebook computers. Sporting Intel’s Core 2 Duo processor and a Firewire 800 port across all new models, Apple’s professional-level portable also received a memory and hard-drive upgrade. For all the juicy details, be sure to head on over to the official MacBook Pro site (Canada).
With portables from nearly all major computer companies such as Dell and HP already on the Intel Core 2 Duo scene, Apple’s offering was highly anticipated.
Personally, I found the upgrade rather mundane, considering that Apple took such a long time to get these machines out the door. However, due to the fact that the Intel Core 2 Duo is a 64-bit CPU and Apple’s next iteration of Mac OS X (Leopard) is fully 64-bit, I’d purchase the newer MacBook Pro over the old Intel Core Duo model. Quite frankly, I see 64-bit-ness as the only real reason to upgrade if you’ve already got a MacBook Pro. Then again, I’m not someone who benefits from a Firewire 800 port so take that with a grain of salt.
Now that the MacBook Pro has gone Intel Core 2 Duo, some consumers are now shifting their eyes towards the MacBook, which still touts the old Intel Core Duo processor. I wonder if they’ll be announced at the Macworld Expo scheduled for January 2007…hmm…
'Eid Mubarak!
Today, ‘Eid-ul-Fitr was announced and celebrated in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This day marks the end of the blessed month of Ramadhan, the month of fasting and the beginning of the month known as Shawwal.
‘Eid-ul-Fitr is not only a time of happiness and gift-giving but also of seeking forgiveness from Allah Ta’ala.
May Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) accept our fasts, prayers, supplications and charity and reward us for our good intentions and deeds. May Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) give us the strength to hold on to any surge in imaan we felt during the past month and bless us with the opportunity to witness and benefit from many more Ramadhans. After all, there were probably many people who benefitted from Ramadhan and enjoyed the festivities of ‘Eid-ul-Fitr last year but are not alive to witness them this year. Make the most of your time!
‘Eid Mubarak to you and your family!
Adobe updates Lightroom to 4.1
Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced an update to its Lightroom application, moving the latest beta version number from 4.0 to 4.1. I love free upgrades!
That flower photograph is one that I took a long time ago and have touched up numerous times. It’s actually a full-colour image, but I thought it looked better the way you see it now. Anyway, back to the application, I noticed that the user interface in this updated version was slightly changed and it seems better than the previous version.
For a complete list of changes in version 4.1, register and download your free copy of Adobe Lightroom Beta v4.1 and check it out yourself!
Freezing rain!
A co-worker who sits close to a large window in the office alerted us all of what looked like snow outside! Of course, this caused me to immediately look towards the window and to my amazement, large white puffs were falling with great speed from the sky. The droplets were so huge that it looked like it was hailing outside (okay, maybe I didn’t get a good look, heh).
In any case, the event didn’t last very long which is pretty typical of the rain showers we have here in Toronto. In a few moments, it seemed like nothing happened at all. But then, later on in the afternoon it started again, packing powerful winds, causing quite a few of us to stop working and take a peek outside.
From what I gather, we might see freezing rain tomorrow too. That’s okay, because I love the rain [smile].
About Page Update
Finally managed to take the effort to post here again. Not too much to say at the moment, just that I’ve updated the ‘About’ page and plan on posting with more regularity so stay tuned!
Aperture vs. iPhoto
After recently using Adobe’s Lightroom application, I’ve started to draw comparisons between it and my current favorite photo-organizing application, namely, iPhoto developed by Apple Computer Inc.
My first exposure to iPhoto was with version 5 that came with my iBook G4 when I purchased it last summer. It was an instant hit with me mainly due to its compatibility with my digital camera (Sony DSC-P10) and the intuitive interface among many other things. When iPhoto 6 came out, the most appealing feature to me was the addition of full-screen editing which is something that I’ve so used to that I kind of assume it’s present in any photo-organizing/editing application. In any case, iPhoto allows me to edit various aspects of a photo such Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Temperature and Exposure and I find it suitable for most of the touch-up work that I do.
Enter Adobe Lightroom. Now this application has an interface that is fresh and amazing. The three-column design is pretty fresh and offers a new way to look at the whole photo-managment workflow. For the purposes of my needs, I found it to be equally as good as iPhoto but if find the latter’s interface far easier to navigate through than Lightroom’s.
Having said all of this, I’ve come to Aperture, developed by Apple Computer Inc. What can this program do for me that iPhoto cannot? I asked this question to a couple of customer sales representatives at the Apple Store in the Eaton Center and the only answer I kept getting was that Aperture is more for professional photography. Now, I don’t know about you but I didn’t really get much out of that. In fact, all the representatives mentioned that iPhoto 6 has become so powerful that it’s a good place to start and I definitely agree. But really, what does Aperture offer that Lightroom or iPhoto 6 don’t offer?
Adobe Lightroom Beta 3
Now this is an application I’ve wanted to try out since hearing about it. The reason behind this desire was not because I wanted to get more out of my digital-photography experience but mainly because, well, the application is free (at least for now). Up until late last night, I didn’t have the patience to download it from the Adobe Labs because I figured the file-size was going to be huge. However, after logging in, I was amazed that the entire application is only a 9.7Mb .dmg file! Of course, there was a souped-up version also available (consisting of sample photos) which weighed-in somewhere around 116Mb or so, also a .dmg file.
Perhaps I was prompted to visit Adobe Labs because the photo-workflow application broke headlines a few days ago because it was being made available to Microsoft Windows operating systems for the first time. Yup, Adobe’s Lightroom was exclusively available for the Apple Macintosh platform until that time.
So, Mac or Windows, what are you waiting for, join the Adobe Lightroom beta!
I might be posting up a review of this application so be sure to keep an eye open for that. My first impressions of the application are amazing despite it being a “beta” version. Then again, when it comes to quality, Adobe has proven itself to be one of the best in the business.
Hot, humid weather!
Wow, what an amazing summer we’re having here in Toronto. With weekend temperatures soaring well above the 30 degrees celcius mark and extremely humid conditions, I’d say summer is definitely in full swing. Although it seems like it’s been a very hot summer already, I happened to catch a glimpse of an article in the Metro newspaper about how only 4 extreme heat alerts have been issued this year as opposed to 14 at this time last year. Puts this year’s heat to shame doesn’t it?
In any case, I’m not complaining, I love hot, humid weather. I’d rather be sweating than shivering, hehe. However, I can understand why people such as seniors don’t enjoy it. After all, heat and humidity make it very hard to breathe even if you’ve been out for a few minutes. In fact, on my way to a job (QA Analyst) interview this morning, I felt very warm and even started to sweat a little. We’re very blessed here in Toronto that there’s air conditioning on the TTC, otherwise I’d probably be drenched in sweat by the time I reached my interview.
In any case, for those not enjoying the weather just think back to the winter we went through. Remember all that snow-shoveling, all those extra layers you had to put on just to throw out the garbage? Exactly. Besides, most of us probably have a fan or even an air-conditioner at home…that’s something that many people in the world don’t have. Worse comes to worse, you could step out of your house (!!) and go to a mall.
Be grateful for what you have and enjoy the summer!
New development blog
I’ve been working on a conference management system using Ruby on Rails and there are so many things I’ve learned about Ruby and Rails that I wanted to share with all of you so I decided to document a little bit of my happiness and frustrations on a brand new blog. Since I couldn’t think of a name for it at the time of publishing, I’ve decided to name it (brace yourself), “Tranquil-Pro”. Yes, yes, I know, how creative but hey, gimme a break!
Anyway, without further ado, check out the blog here
Apple releases Mac OS X update
Mac owners may be pleased to note that Apple has released an update to their Mac OS X operating system. With the update, the version number becomes 10.4.7. For a complete list of fixes in this update, click the appropriate link on Apple’s Support Downloads page.
I don’t know about you but I love an update!
Shiira
I’ve come across a new browser for the Macintosh platform called Shiira. I heard about it a while ago but since then I’ve opted for Camino and enjoyed it as an alternative to Safari. After using Shiira, I think I’m going to uninstall Camino!
There are so many cool features in Shiira. One of the best is the ability to perform an expose-type gallery of all your open tabs. What an awesome feature! I’ve also looked at the Omniweb browser and liked their tab-thumbnail feature but I prefer Shiira’s expose-style gallery of tabs a lot more. It saves a lot of screen space over a page-thumbnail/sidebar implementation and that’s a big concern for me since I don’t like my 12.1-inch iBook screen to be filled with one application.
Speaking of sidebar, there’s one in Shiira too. The sidebar has vertical tabs titled: Bookmars, History, Download, Page holder and RSS. The Bookmarks tab allows you to manage bookmarks. It even allows you to import your Safari or Firefox bookmarks! The Download tab allows you to see all active downloads and pause/stop them and the RSS tab allows you to read and search all of your RSS feeds. The RSS tab is amazing. It took a while for me to get used to it because adding RSS feeds wasn’t as simple as doing so in Safari. The feature that makes it so amazing is that I don’t have to load the RSS feed contents in the main browser window. The RSS tab consists of two windows: A list of RSS feeds and a corresponding RSS article viewer. Simply click on an unread article and the contents are displayed in that part of the sidebar. I haven’t played around with the Page Holder tab yet so I can’t offer any comments on it.
I recommend Shiira to anyone who’d like to try out something other than Safari. Although both browsers are great in their own right, Shiira is definitely one of the best browsers I’ve ever used.
Convocation 2006!
On June 15, 2006, I, Sayam Masood, received a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc) degree during the convocation ceremonies held in Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto. It was so awesome to see friends again! From what I gathered, it seemed like a lot of people hadn’t kept in touch so convocation kinda served as a reunion of sorts.
This moment in my life has made me reflect on so many things. When starting any kind of study, whether it be at high school, college or university, one is constantly working towards some sort of diploma, degree or the like. Each problem set, each midterm, each final exam is just a stepping stone to obtaining your degree. But in the midst of all the work and stress, one sometimes forgets this and feels overwhelmed. The key is to make the best of each situation, try to find the positives, if you don’t succeed at something, figure out why and make an effort to learn from your mistakes. Try to make the best out of each problem a course presents you with. Hey, it’s better than being negative all the time, right?
My high school and university days were some of the best days of my life. My thanks goes out to everyone who supported me and gave me those awesome memories!
Got the sniffles
I’ve been dealing with a cold these past few days. I’m feeling a little better today though, so I’m glad that I’m getting back to normal.
I’ve been recommended to put honey in warm water with a dash of lemon to cure the cold. I think I’ll give that a try soon [smile].
Gotta love these mid-summer colds eh? Hehe.
Reviewing Ruby on Rails
I thought it had been a while since I did any programming in Ruby/Rails so I’ve decided to work on a little programming assignment for myself. Besides, I got sick of playing PS2. I’m done the basic stuff and am just thinking about what else to add. I hope to unveil it sometime soon so keep an eye open for that.
Other than that, nothing much’s been going on…I’m loving the rain we’re having here in Toronto lately. I just love the way city streets reflect light when it’s raining and the flurry of activity when a raindrop hits a puddle…
On with programming!