My university, Jordan University of Science and Technology decided to change its website design again. The current design was first announced by the university's computer center in July 2007, I blogged about it and I suggested changes, some of them actually took place.

Things are even better this time, the university is asking students to vote for their preferred design. They presented three different templates and people can vote on the one it looks better in their opinion, voters are also asked to express their suggestions.

It is good to see that JUST realized that the website should be first accepted by its students as many complaints came about the user interface, cross-browser compatibility and lack of some functionalities. Asking users' feedback is always good and of course it will result in a better looking and more functional website.

If you want to vote: http://www.just.edu.jo/vote

Labels: JUST

No, it is not a joke.

The seventh episode of The Simpsons' season 20 stars a Jordanian family whose son, Bashir, is just the new friend of Bart in school.

The most amazing thing is that the episode explitely mentions Jordan University of Science and Technology (My university) during the dinner with the Jordanian family, as the Jordanian couple met when they were studying at Jordan University of Science and Technology.

The episode gives a bright picture of the Muslim family, accused by Homer to be involved with a terrorist plot to destroy Springfield Mall.

At the beginning of the episode there are also parodies of Apple (the 'Mapple' store) as well as its CEO Steve Jobs (Steve Mobs).

Thanks to Ahmad and Jordan Mafia, who wrote about this before.

You can watch the episode here:
http://tv.spreadit.org/the-simpsons-season-20-episode-7/

Labels: JUST

What is was Open Source Day 2008?
Everyone knows that JUST has the highest Jordanian rate of IT nerds, technology fanatics and pseudo-hackers. What do you think they would be capable to do if they were grouped and led by a person like me?!? :)
We (i.e. JUST Open Source Group) organized an open day to promote 'open source' between Jordanian students and it seems it is the first time such an event occurs.
To realize the hugeness of the event, these are some of the things we distributed: nearly 1500 CDs and DVDs, Mozilla and SUN gifts and a lot of giveaways (1000 pens, 500 notebooks, 500 folders and 20000 stickers) 450 donuts and unlimited coffee!!

Open Source for Dummies
If you are not a geek or a computer nerd, you'll probably not know what open source means.. I will try to make things simpler by giving an example. Suppose you purchase a car... it may be a Lamborghini, Jaguar, BMW (or more probably a Kia Sephia if you are in Jordan ). However, after you bought that car you will be free to do what you prefer. You can open it, try to fix the car if it's broken, change its engine and other parts or even modify its style (in the 'Pimp my Ride' way)!
Things are different when we talk about computer applications. You do own your car, but it's impossible to "own a computer program" at the same way. A software company which sells a program allows you to only use it. You are even not allowed to see how it works or to know how it was programmed.
You can get more freedom by using open source programs. Open source means that a computer program is accessible to everybody and that the 'source code' (the orders given to the computer) can be modified and changed as you like.

Open Day Highlights
- The day started with a deep philosophical speech of Prof. Bataineh (our faculty's dean), who stated that open source is a modern revolutionary response against capitalism and corporate ownership. He didn't say this explicitely, his opinions were thinly covered by ethicism and his personal Sufi theological views. But nobody can deny that what he said in the opening ceremony was a strong attack against new economic doctrines.
- There was a panel discussion titled "What Future for Open Source in Jordan?" with three key persons: Hussein Kawasmi, who is a main member of Jordan Computer Society, Razan Khatib, an open source expert and manager of important IT companies, and Zaid Mdanat, whose company is the REDHAT partner in Jordan. Unfortunately, the discussion became similar to a struggle between some Micro$oft-lover students and the guests.
- Mr. Joseph Shomali gave a very useful presentation about using Open Source software and tools in 3D and console game development. His company is now developing a state-of-the-art 3D game (For PC and XBOX) which will be sold in North America and Japan . The lecture was a must-see for all the gamers!

Firefox and JUST mozillaclub
We made a good work to promote Firefox and other Mozilla products (Mozilla was one of our global sponsors together with SUN Microsystems). It was really nice to know that people's lives changed completely after they've discovered Firefox. Students were also shocked by the large numbers of cool and useful add-ons they can download for Firefox.
The Open Source Day was also a great opportunity to spread Songbird. Songbird is a desktop media player mashed-up with the Web which you can download from here. (Yes, it's really nice.. I love it)

Creative Commons in Jordan
I suppose the Open Source Day was the first CC-related event in Jordan . Mr. Ziad Marqa gave an extraordinary lecture about intellectual property and Creative Commons licenses. The lecture was extremely related to Jordanian laws, as Mr. Marqa is officially translating the CC licenses to Arabic to make them compliant with Jordanian laws. (Yes, he is really making a good work).
We had some wonderful guests like Donatella Della Ratta who is now working with Creative Commons to support and promote CC licenses in Arab World. Two artists, Eileen Simpsons and Ben White attended the Open Day as milestone to their wonderful project: the Open Music Archive, a database that contains free and creative music, especially that which has fallen out of copyright. (It is interesting that Jordan Times published a good article about them all).
All the parts agreed on the necessity to 'build' a CC-supporting community in Jordan .

Labels: JUST, Open Source

If you are a Student in Jordan University of Science and Technology, you use or develop open source applications, and you are interested in spreading the open source philosophy please join us at:

www.just.edu.jo/opensource

Labels: JUST, Open Source

In an unordinary email received by all the students of my university, Prof. Sameer Bataineh has sent his best wishes to them on the occasion of Eid al Adha in a very unconventional way.
Prof. Bataineh, the dean of our faculty and instructor of computer ethics, has sent an email attached with a greeting card, but rather the Hallmark-style sentences the card was saying:

People may endure tons of oppression,
but the oppressor does not tolerate a single word said against injustice,
and who says this word is slaughtered
on the day of sacrifice

Is there any reference to Saddam's execution on Eid al Adha last year? Or is it a generic phrase coined for every single Arabic dictatorship?
By sure the political tone is quite high here, I greet Prof. Bataineh, who is well admired in our faculty, and I will ask him about any other hidden meanings in this unusual greeting. And Happy Eid to all!

Labels: JUST, Politics

Labels: Arabic, JUST

From ScienceDaily.com:

IRBID, Jordan, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Jordanian scientists have discovered potato chip flavoring can increase the longevity of concrete.

Awni Al-Otoom of the Jordan University of Science and Technology found sodium acetate -- the ingredient that helps give salt and vinegar-flavored potato chips a tangy snap -- is the key to a new waterproof coating for concrete.

Al-Otoom and colleagues note concrete -- the world's most widely used structural material -- is so porous that water soaks in, corroding steel reinforcing bars and meshes that strengthen concrete roads and buildings. That, in turn, causes cracks as water expands and contracts during freeze-thaw cycles.

But the scientists discovered sodium acetate easily seeps into concrete and swells when exposed to water, blocking entry of additional moisture. Under dry conditions, the crystals shrink to their original size and allow moisture to evaporate.

The net result is "a significant reduction in water permeability (that) can be expected to increase the service life of the concrete," the scientists said.

The study is detailed in the Aug. 1 issue of the journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

Labels: Fun, JUST, Technology

The guys of the Computer Center have made a good job, after the more-than-six-months beta test, the new website of JUST has been officially launched : A cutting edge look, better performance and more functionality!

If you are a JUST student and you enter www.just.edu.jo on your web browser you will get a surprise, the old ugly site of Jordan University of Science and Technology changed look definitely, it has been replaced by a new site with a better choice of colors, styles and an enhanced functionality. The user-friendly interface provides two menus, the one on the top with services for students, alumni and visitors, and the right one for academic services, this one changes as you visit different sections of the site.

Based on ASP.NET technology, with a relevant utilization of AJAX features, the new site offers some newer technologies and, for sure, a more innovative design compared with the previous site, however there are a few things I think the Computer Center should work on:

I promise that I'll carry these points to the Computer Center (I'm in good relations with them), and if anyone has a suggestion leave a comment :)

Labels: JUST, Technology

Labels: Arabic, Fun, JUST

Yesterday I've got the mid exam for our multimedia laboratory (when we work on multimedia applications like Photoshop, Flash and Premiere). I was surprised by the exam's only question; they demanded us to design a poster for the movie Master and Commander (visit its IMDB page), I've heared about the film but never watched (this is a chance to do it), anyways I wasn't imagining such a question, in fact the other section made a poster about Jerash, we were lucky and had something less formal... in reality I always try to search for something 'strange' or out of ordinary in our curricula, lessons or exams. You know, after three years of same routine, university life becomes more and more annoying...

Let me explain how was the exam... You have an hour to utilize several (very-low resolution) photos, you have to arrange them and make the result attractive as much as possible. No internet connection, the instructor specified what text you had to write, but you are free in matter of cropping, selecting and rearranging various elements on your image, as the style you choose for text layers... Ok, all this was accompanied by Miss Ulfat -our instructor- personal review of the movie and the actors, together with her telling off not to cheat (how can someone cheat in Photoshop?)...

 

Ok, this was my work (I think I can do better if I'm not under pressure in a 60-minute exam) and the real poster of the movie...

Labels: JUST, Personal

A photo exhibition entitled 'Harmonious China: Aspirations and Dreams' was held last Wednesday in my university and was opened by our president and the Chinese Ambassador, Mr. Gong Xiao Sheng.

On the way to the exhibition hall, I was discussing with some friends what exactly the word 'harmonious' in the name of the exhibition means, if it was necessary to include such a term and most important what was the goal of that word. (The Arabic translation was not so clear; this made us opening such unnecessary debate) After half an hour we have reached the hall, there were more than a hundred students waiting in the narrow corridor the reaching of the ambassador, we were really shocked for how many people were there to attend the official opening ceremony, unfortunately, after we have seen that the crowds were even increasing and other students were arriving we decided to delay our visit to Thursday.

Thursday

When you enter the exhibition a giant photo of Mount Qomolangma stays majestically in front of you, Qomolangma is one of the most impressive peaks of the Himalayan Mountain Range, and its picture was grandly covering the entire left-side wall, aside of this picture the official logo of the exhibition built up from English, Arabic and Chinese scripts. Similar graphics representing Chinese sayings and proverbs were present in different parts of the room.

The visitor is then guided to have a detailed look of the ancient civilizations that made up historical China; in this section you will see old temples, magnificent buildings and ancient ruins, these images are gently faded to pictorial expressions of the grandness of Chinese culture, traditions and folklore, the ancient legends and myths are proudly inherited by modern people, who are fine custodians of these traditions.

Modern China splits out suddenly… today's families, customs, habits are surrounded by technology and modernity, an evidence of China's economic power.

The Chinese way-of-life, the faces and the expressions of the society all materialized in these artistic photos. Good feelings are hold until the end of exhibition, when you become understanding that photos are not chosen at random, nor the proverbs, nor the name of the exhibition. Man and land, religion and atheism, technology and traditions… yes, they are conflicting but they harmoniously compose together a modern country, a great civility named China.

(Well, I'm not the only one who had enjoyed the exhibition; I was constricted to wait nearly 10 minutes before I had access to the guestbook)

Labels: Art, JUST

VERY GOOD THING

Elections were held Thursday (first delayed for bad weather). The good fact is that the Islamists have issued a political brochure with a big Jordanian flag and they defined themselves as 'patriots', it was a very appreciable action, this means they finally discovered there are some Jordanians here in this university... Another good fact is that my friend (a CS candidate) I strongly supported last week won with a very large margin (nearly 70% of the votes)... And most important is the fact that the deanship of students' affairs has prohibited the attachment of any form of electoral posters, for the first time we have clean walls during the electoral campaign!

GOOD THING

Our university finally decided to render public the laptop offers for students. Our president, Dr. Oweis more than one year ago announced that several laptops will be distributed to students for reasonable prices, the university has now a wireless network in which every student is able to connect to the net from his own laptop, in a near future, lectures in the IT faculty will be given 'digitally' to students, who can make and submit their works through the net. However, it seems the prices of the pc's will be high... but, to be serious, the offer is quite good, some student-related features include an anti-theft feature to alarm students in case of notebook theft, voice recording feature with two array microphones to enable clear recording of the lectures and a finger print ID to secure notebooks from access by others.

BAD THING

Our faculty's stupidity is well known, but this time they've exaggerated... The DCCA2007 conference, one of the most important in my university during last years, was held during first exams, I've seen some instructors were not happy of the small numbers of students that have attended the sections, however, they wanted that, in the 4-day conference I had 4 exams, if there was any form of intelligence in this department they would have postponed the exams... or even better annulled them :) Some volunteers told me they were not treated so well, the university did not offer them even a mean of transportation to the airport; in addition some said that the conference was only a promotion to put a big quantity of $$$ in one instructor's pocket (?)

Labels: JUST

Today I've finally finished my exams. But I also took the wrong step of seeing the grades of my previous exams... Blah! they're so ugly, I did not do so well this semester :(

Labels: JUST, Personal

(I mean programming)
As a matter of fact we have nearly 19000 IT students now in Jordan, by adding those that learnt programming not by university the number rises to the double, a number much bigger than market needs. I will show with this post a reason for why computer science students are many times better than other programmers, I intend with 'other' those even know a programming language through a teaching centre, by self-learning or even computer engineering and CIS students.

Yesterday, I've finally delivered my term paper for the PL course (In the department we abbreviate concepts of programming languages by PL or CPL). In the term paper we have to write up the major differences between three important program languages, these languages are chosen randomly, mine were Smalltalk, C and LISP.

Majority of students were initially unenthusiastic of the course, the fact we studied a detailed history of programming languages including FORTRAN, COBOL and ALGOL was not so interesting neither of practical use, but things changed when we began to understand the real 'spirit' of programming, not to know how to program but to know what is programming.

First-year programming courses will teach you how to get a result by a number of steps, you are totally obscured of what is made behind the scenes, what the compiler does, what you are really doing when you write a statement or what this programming language have some constraints or not.

A good programmer should have a practical knowledge of a language, but this is founded on fundamental theoretical approaches, It's not just chance that we study automata theory, discrete mathematics, Chomsky's hierarchy and hundreds of other topics. Without these essentials it seems difficult, or impossible to really understand the significance of implementation or the meaning of any program.

Labels: JUST

Today I've gone to my university, although the bad weather and snow-covered roads, for only one reason: I've had a UNIX quiz.

I've waked up at temperature surely less than zero, and then I thought if it was more convenient to leave my home and start a gelid day, or to stay home. I've opted for the first, although the quiz was 'optional'… but here, the fact the quiz was optional is irrelevant, when you are even in need of a single mark (on hundred) you will try to get it in anyway …

However, I've reached the university; I've headed to the hall happy to take my quiz until one of the guys of UNIX course stopped me to ask: Where are you going? Don't you know there's no quiz … ehm… and don't you know our instructor traveled away?

Minute of silence… is he serious or today is April fool's day?

It's not the first time our UNIX lecturer (Mr. M.S) tease us. A Sunday, one reserved only for exams (no lectures) we were forced to go to university to take another quiz but we found Mr. M.S absent.

Ok, Mr. M.S left Jordan today to gain a PhD in the US , but it was so difficult to inform us of your travel before, or you've known of only at ten o'clock this morning? You were late at all your lectures, and at a number of them you never come, we take our first and second exams after nearly two weeks of their predetermined date, but what you've done today is really enough…instructors here always criticize students they are undisciplined, but you are worse than us one hundred times…

Labels: JUST, Personal

Today, the deanship of students' affairs in JUST held a nice art exhibition in the show room hall beside al-Farouq hall in Engineering Faculties Complex.

Up to 40 drawings are on view in this exhibition, all of student Shorouq Shabsough (Pharm, 5th year) and this is the fourth time these artworks are shown to the audience in our university, although several other exhibitions for this artist were hold in JU, Yarmouk University, Mutah University as well as Saudi Arabia. Shabsough fully merited the third place in the nationwide prize for drawing - 2002.

Artistic Technique: The major intension of the artist is to deposit all her energy in these oeuvres that are based on an essential thought of a principle, a sentiment or a feeling from which she mixes several colors in the most proper way, aiming to express herself in boundless freedom and liberty.

The other side of the works is represented by her strong sense of belonging to Jordan, so she depicts the passion to her country by pure fantasia. She lives again by these paintings her Caucasian origins and testifies the relationship with ancestors; Circassian culture and folklore are evidently mirrored in her artistic personality.

Labels: Art, JUST

Opening multiple windows... Take a look at windows' back Changing the desktop...

Yesterday, Dr. Basel Mahafzah, our Computer Architecture instructor showed us a short video of a 3D operating system (or more technically, a desktop environment for MS Windows and SunOs), and told us it was developed by a group of students for the OS class in their university. The project's name is Project Looking Glass, it was developed almost in Java and it's large supported by Sun Microsystems, the whole code is open source with a GNU General Public License (GPL) license. After the short installation, you'll be able to move and rotate windows as if they were sheets of paper (or more precisely, as if they're made of glass), you can even write on the back of any window! The fact is: why students from Techno do not develop such things? They never thought of taking up similar projects…and this is in some way strange, since we have –technically- the needed abilities and knowledge…we need only will! One of major things I hate in my university is the fixation of students and instructors to only one thing: marks, so here it's an endless action-reaction between poor students, which study to get decent marks, and between psychopathic (!) instructors trying to make exams even more difficult. We have as result large numbers of students who have very little time for, or don't wish to carry up, something out of the ordinary. In this way, we have killed any form of creativity… To download the video, click here. To download the project, visit this page. (PS: Me and my friend Nasser have thought of making something similar, perhaps for graduation project… and don't steal our idea!)

Labels: JUST, OS, Personal, Technology