Archive for the ‘Web/Tech’ Category
Posted on March 26, 2009 - by Yasser
Twitter may eventually kill Google search…
With time, Twitter or a similar service will kill Google search and every other search engine that we’ve known. We are about to experience the dawn of a new search system that will surpass services like Google search and the others.
The day when search will be powered by Humans and not algorithms is near.
As tens of millions of people go online and share information about their lives and environments, a natural, human-powered, and exceptionally live, metadata index is developing across social networks. It’s powered by Humans and is mostly relevant and ‘alive’.
Billions of pages indexed on Google and other search engines find it hard to compete with something as simple yet highly powerful and accurate like Twitter search.
It’s already happening… a simple search for ‘dubai restaurant’ on Google returns some of the lousiest web pages:
http://www.google.com/search?q=dubai+restaurant
Then try the same search on Twitter Search and you get something quite different:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=dubai+restaurant
With millions of people across the globe talking about their lives and sharing their experiences, some of the highest end Google algorithms stand little chance to deliver human experiences like a social network would. Humans serving accurate information to fellow humans.
This may be a time for dreaming up an ideal marriage. Google should buy Twitter and bring together it’s powerful search service and the human experience.
The following screen shots make a point:
Poor results on both Google and Twitter:
I was amazed to see some results on Twitter beat Google fair and square, yet some were ranked poorly due to the negative human factor of adding garbage to a service like Twitter.
Posted on March 23, 2009 - by Yasser
Setting up your iPhone to retrieve emails every 15 seconds or so!
This is a fantastic hack if you own one of the jailbroken iPhones. I found it over here and after reading through the document and comments it was quite easy to get my iPhone 2G (Firmware 2.1) to check emails every 15 seconds (or so, you can set any number of seconds).
To accomplish this you must download two utilities from here:
iPhoneBrowser - Windows based GUI for manipulating files on the iPhone
plist Editor for Window - Windows based GUI to edit plist files on the iPhone
Once both these programs are installed, you need to launch iPhoneBrowser and locate a file called com.apple.persistentconnection.plist in this directory /var/mobile/Library/Preferences. Just play around with the tree structure to the left within iPhoneBrowser.
Right click com.apple.persistentconnection.plist and select Save As… and save the file on your computer’s drive. Once done, run plist Editor for Windows and Open this file. You have to locate and change the numerical value of 900 (which is in seconds) to whatever you like. I’ve set mine to 15 at the moment, thereby instructing my iPhone to check emails every 15 seconds.
Save your file after editing and right click com.apple.persistentconnection.plist in the iPhoneBrowser window. Choose Replace File… and select the modified version of the file from your computer’s drive. Once done, simply close both applications, restart your iPhone and run the mail app.
You’ll notice that the iPhone will now fetch your emails every 15 seconds as opposed to the default 900 second setting that was setup in the com.apple.persistentconnection.plist file.
This is as close as it gets to having your iPhone access your email accounts every 15 seconds or so and to enjoy ‘near push’. This setting checks all email accounts as well so you don’t need to do any special settings. One important warning is that you shouldn’t go to Settings > Fetch New Data and make changes since your modification will be replaced. Though I’ve not tested this at all.
There you go, this is the closest that we get to having our iPhone buzz with lightening every email, every 15 seconds!
Go hack it.
PS: If you have your email hosted on MS Exchange Server and enjoy push technology on your iPhones, we envy you for the push of it … (not MS Exchange)!
Posted on March 12, 2009 - by Yasser
Ignoring versioned and unversioned directories in subversion using TortoiseSVN
This for times when you want to exclude some folders or files from your code repositories. If your folder or files are not yet added to the repo simply right click and under TortoiseSVN select the Ignore option. Here’s how this looks:
If you’ve got folders that you’ve already versioned into the repo and would like to exclude them from appearing in your future commit windows you can setup an svn:ignore property on the folder or files. This works quite well and seamlessly ignores folders and files where the property is applied.
This is how you can setup this property:
That’s it, this does the job! Just to let you know I’m using TortoiseSVN 1.5.4 at the moment.
Posted on March 11, 2009 - by Yasser
Eleven steps to script your SQL Server database schema…
This would apply to MS SQL Server 2005 Express and MS SQL Server 2008 Express and other versions (but I’ve not tested it on them). The process shows generation of a script that helps you duplicate an entire database structure either on a local system or on one hosted elsewhere.
This comes in handy if you’d like to move an entire database schema from one server to another and later import data using the DTS Wizard (dts wizard usage is not covered here). The good thing about scripting a database this way is that all table identities are maintained and you get an exact replica of your schema.
The following are self explanatory screen shots that will take you through the process. I created them on MS SQL Server 2008 Express.
Posted on February 26, 2009 - by Yasser
Installing Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express with Advanced Services on Windows Vista Home Premium
I recently installed Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express with Advanced Services on my Windows Vista Home Premium laptop and it took some time to get all the updates from Microsoft prior to getting it running. Here are the steps if you want to do the same:
- Download .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 from this link and install it on your computer. Once installation is complete you will be asked to restart your computer and run Windows Update to install any updates that Windows Vista requires you to install.
- Once your computer has restarted, go to the Control Panel and run Windows Update. You may find a few updates available already for installation and can install them (I did so). Once you’re done installing these, click on this link ‘Check for updates’ in the left column on the Windows Update page. If your computer is not setup to install updates frequently, you may have quite a few updates to install, but in most cases this won’t be an exhaustive list. My computer required one update and that was not related to .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.
- Next you may visit this page to download Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express with Advanced Services and there are two files to choose from but if you’re running Vista the file you need to download is SQLEXPRADV_x86_ENU.exe which should be good for most 32-bit versions of XP and Vista. This is a 502.7 MB file so it may take a while to download depending on your connection. It took me somewhere between 30-40 minutes to get this downloaded.
- Install Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable from this link and this is required to run the installation smoothly. The file that you need to download is Windows6.0-KB942288-v2-x86.msu and you may read the section called Instructions to find out which version is best for your OS.
- A screen pops up and asks you to permit it to install Hotfix for Windows (KB942288), say yes to that. The Download and Install Updates window appears, the update is downloaded and once the installation is complete you’re asked to restart your computer ‘for the updates to take effect’! Do so.
- Download and install Windows PowerShell 1.0 Installation Package for Windows Vista from this link. The download requires validation of your windows copy and once done, you get to download a file called Windows6.0-KB928439-x86.msu. This file installs another hotfix/update for Windows (KB928439). I came to know about this when I was through to step 7 and 8 below so I’ve added it here as step 6 to help you avoid the hassle of canceling your installation.
- Run SQLEXPRADV_x86_ENU.exe. SQL Server Installation Center window appears and you see several links all over the place. Click on Installation (second link in the left column) and then click on New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation. Follow the screens that pop-up.
- A window popups up requesting you to Setup Support Files. This is required to setup SQL Server. Click Install to proceed and your system goes through a check. Hit ‘Next’ for the first three steps that are Setup Support Rules, Product Key and License Terms and you will reach Feature Selection.
- If you’re interested in a full install, tick all the options that appear under Instance Features and Shared Features. Click Next to proceed.
- On the Instance Configuration screen select Default Instance or name it if required. You’re now taken to the Disk Space Requirements window where you see how much space you need. 2191 MB all in all not bad. Don’t bother (hit Next)!
- Next you reach the Server Configuration screen that requires entering service accounts for each service that is being installed. This is the tricky part and you wouldn’t know which account to enter (I didn’t) so after a bit of googling I found out that you can use your Windows Vista default admin account for this purpose. You can click on Use the same account for all SQL Server services and a pop-up requires you to select one. Click Browse and locate your account name by entering your Windows Vista username in the ‘Enter the object name to select’ text box and click on the Check Names button. You should be able to find your account name pretty easily so select it and click OK to get back to the Server Configuration screen. Do remember that your password is the one you use to login to Vista and if you don’t use a password to login, try and leave the password field blank to proceed (hope that works). Click Next and it should work fine (worked for me).
- On the Database Engine Configuration screen select Mixed Mode as your authentication mode and setup a password. You may add additional users on this screen or click on Add Current User to add your Windows user to this list.
- Install your reporting services from the Reporting Services Configuration screen and select the option that suits you. I installed reporting services by selecting the first option ‘Install the native mode default configuration’.
- On the next screen select your Error and Usage Reporting options and proceed. Click Next on the Installation Rules screen and you will now see the Ready to Install screen with an Install button. Hurry!
- Click the Install button and let the installation begin. This should be your final choice. Once everything is installed in the next 30-40 minutes, you’ll see a final ‘Setup process complete’ notification with the word ‘Success’ besides all installed features. Click Next and you should happily read, ‘Your SQL Server 2008 installation completed successfully’. Click Close and you’re good to go.
I wrote this post while I installed SQL Server 2008 so I know it ran fine with all the above steps. This note should help you find your way to a clean install. Would appreciate if you post your experience in the comments below. Thanks!
Posted on March 25, 2008 - by Yasser
Service packaging
When was the last time you bought a service that looked like a product?
Have you:
Ordered a cake?
Bought an airline ticket?
Registered a mobile number?
Purchased web hosting?
Rented an apartment?
Sell your service and package it as a product. Customers are trained to buy products.
Posted on March 24, 2008 - by Yasser
The cake test
Buy a cake and invite a few people to grab a bite. The cake would be gone soon.
Now ask everyone to buy a cake for you. Then try eating all their cakes:
One after the other, or
One bite a cake, or
With any number of spoons, or
Ask a friend or two to join in
(try whatever comes to mind, and see if you can finish them all)
Probably not.
Apply this to real life projects:
A. You need passionate people with the right skills to work for you. A group of such people would help break down large projects into small pieces and will get things done.
B. Don’t oversell your capacity, rely too much on yourself and nurture the false belief that you’ll be able to finish every project that you acquire. Because you won’t, or you would at a later date.
C. Enjoy the cake.
Posted on March 19, 2008 - by Yasser
And don’t take promises…
A dollar today is better than a dollar tomorrow. There’s no reason to sell your product for a price that won’t put a dime in your pocket or meet your expenses. Some prospects promise future sales and a continued relationship; one that may never happen, but they sell the idea to you.
Young entrepreneurs take this as a good gesture and bite into their profits, offer steep discounts and fall for that first and only sale that the prospect wanted badly.
Don’t benefit others, say it politely:
As to the ’special pricing’; we don’t offer first time clients special pricing for the promise of future work. All we can do is offer you special pricing when that repeat work/project does come to fruition. We highly value our clients and work very hard to keep the relationship going, once the relationship has been established.
Makes sense? It does to me and the person who wrote this to me really made a strong point.
Discounting affects your profit making potential. Don’t discount at will. Discount for profit.
Posted on March 19, 2008 - by Yasser
Are you paddling?
Small businesses like small boats require paddling. Once you have momentum the boat moves forward with lesser and lesser effort. Things looks smooth. Then at some point you stop paddling and forget about it. One day you realize that your boat is not moving. You start paddling again and it gathers momentum and begins to move forward. The journey continues but with interruptions.
If you’re paddling, you need to find out what makes you stop. That might give you a clue into why you have all those unwanted interruptions.
Bon voyage!
Posted on March 19, 2008 - by Yasser
Don’t promise…
You won’t have to keep them. That’s right.
In human error and that mostly of judgement of how things would fall in place at a time in future, we make promises that we can’t keep. Promises hurt your business if you don’t keep them.
The better way is to under promise. Instead of trying to play Microsoft, give a date range when you’re estimating delivery times and don’t pick one particular date. Say I’ll get back to you soon instead of a couple of hours. If you think something will finish tomorrow, imagine something will go wrong tomorrow and then reschedule your commitment. Don’t say yes to deadlines that your customers propose. They have no idea of what you may be involved in. Tell them politely, we’ll schedule and get back to you.
Making promises are deadly. Under promising and over delivering is what works. Under promise.
Posted on March 19, 2008 - by Yasser
Sow a seed
Back in 2002 when I started looking for web design work, I made a compelling offer that most people liked. I bundled free web hosting for an year - absolutely!
Today, web hosting contributes to 40% of our sales revenue.
In business, sow a seed. It pays off.
Posted on March 18, 2008 - by Yasser
It begins…
After all those years of hard work and fighting the forces of mediocrity that align to stop us every now and then, I’m happy to write these words, ‘Spiderz is growing and it’s healthy.’
In March 2002, I came up with a brilliant idea of starting a small business that would provide e-commerce and web development solutions in Dubai. The plan was not huge, it was modest and I envisaged good success.
After three months of hard work and sometime in May 2002 I was ready with my brand and called it Spiderz. The only recollection of why I called it Spiderz is the fact that in real life spiders spin webs and that was an excellent metaphor.
I recall having other names on my mind which I’m thankful I didn’t select because they all sound so funny and irrelevant today. Not that they are not good but we just have too many ’softs’, ‘infos’, ’syss’ and ‘americans’; phrases that look too common in a brand name. Funny I should say, they keep growing in number and it keeps diluting their branding even more. Anyone realize that International Business Machines also use an acronym, ‘IBM’? (But that’s another branding story…)
Spiderz is a great brand and I’ve seen that most people find it quite awesome. They say it with that greatness that you’d want to say a good brand’s name out!
