The Future of Search November 30, 2009

After long efforts, I chose my Final Year Under graduation Project as The new Semantic Ranking System for Search Engines.  I am have reading a lot on it on Internet and Books which really inspired me to work towards it.

We are basically working on Ranking Systems and writing our own Algorithms for Ranking system based on Semantics which includes the personalization of User queries means we are putting efforts on providing the Search Results to users depending upon the previous User Search History. So basically rule is “More you ll use the system, Smarter and personalized it ll become for You”.

Google has already introduced the demo of it but yet they themselves accept that they are far away from their perceived success but IBM through its Lab Research Project called “Clever Search” seems really promising but it is yet to make public.

We see Search as the horizon where Computer Science has yet to make progress. Neural networks and Fuzzy concepts have been successful in solving lots of Search Problems but when it comes to Web we sometimes puts our hands down.

In our project, we are working Using boolean Set Vector and Probability model to personalize the data. More details will follow on coming blog updates.

I got Nokia E61 with just USD 110 April 21, 2009

Just today I bought my new Nokia E61 cell phone having Qwerty Keypad and most importantly Wi-Fi feature available on phone. I am sure it is going make my life easy as I have Wi-Fi enabled home. But that’s not the new, news is that I got this phone with just 110 USD that means around 9k PKR…. Yupi…. Party

 

In case you thinking that what so special that I blogged on it. Then listen up, new Nokia E61i (Difference of Camera Feature only) is available in 28K that means 3 times more than what I paid. Don’t tell me it sounds good because it has 2 MP Camera.

How? is what one smart person must be thinking.

That’s Pakistan my jaan, Everything possible.

Cheers and let me have my life with my phone.

Programmers VS Architects November 27, 2008

In this semester, I had two very important courses and most interesting ones as well, Software Engineering and Computer Architects. And with thanks to God, I got very good and capable teachers to learn from.  Computer Architecture was taught by Professor Hasina Khatoon, M.S (Electrical – ‘83) from Stanford University and Software engineering was covered up by Sir Ubaid Aftab, M.S from Monch University Australia.

Coming to purpose behind writing this article is not to admire their teaching capabilities but to share my debating views on lessons which actually I learnt from these courses where on one side is being defended by Software engineers and other side Architects.

We have seen over the period of time that Hardware capability has been increased with exponential powers where as software’s are still lagging behind in utilizing this power, according to Architects. Architects claim that their progress hasn’t been utilized properly and up to the mark; they blame all this on software programmers. But have they ever thought from our point of view (Programmers)? I surmise if they have done so then they shouldn’t have claimed this.

Programmers from their first breath taught to think sequentially and suddenly architects add another processor and they want to us change our Genetic trends. How come you can change this genetics in no time? And most importantly how can you even expect this? Adding parallelism in programming isn’t as easy as adding another processor, folks. Architects have to do one thing at lower level and they think it will be as easy at higher level as well.

Bull Shit..!!!

Coming to software engineers problems, when they sit to design the application, not only they have to think about the system architecture but there are 101 more things to be concerned about i.e. Proper requirements gathering for information system, System Design and then proper implementation according to design.

Thus, I believe there is more burden and responsibilities on software engineer compared to Architects. The difference in the progress shouldn’t be criticized then as Law of diminishing returns applies here as does in Amdahl’s law.

I’ll be glad to continue this discussion if anyone agrees or disagrees with my point of view.

Note:  This blog wasn’t intended to hurt anyone feelings or to do professional biasing.

PTCL Smart TV September 15, 2008

Smart TV…? Thinking what it is this? Damn, It is Pakistan’s first IPTV (Internet Protocol Television). I hope you are aware of this thing, if not then I am here for you:
First of all, beginning with IPTV simply means transferring of Audio and Video data over internet. You can watch TV on computer, TV set (through set-top box) or even cell phone. It revolutionizes the world of television which we have been using it since our birth. May be this is new for Pakistan but it is quite prevalent in USA. Indeed, Indian market is already facing immense competition (Dish TV, TATA Sky and now Reliance) with marketing involvement of brand ambassadors like of stars like Shah Rukh Khan (for Dish TV).

Specifically speaking IPTV majorly includes:
•    On Demand Video Service
•    High-Definition TV
•    Pay-Per View
•    Paying of channels that you want to watch
•    Scheduling of programs according to your time

Though it is coming with DSL package at this moment thus wouldn’t be available to larger part of Population of country but hopefully PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) will increase its connectivity soon. But even coming to Karachi, Most people are not opting for this because of:

1. PTCL’s creditability issue (destroyed by the admin before privatilization)
2. Unavailability of major Indian channels (Star Plus, Zee TV) because of being official Banned from Information Ministry
3. Discomfort ability with new technology (as it is always been)

The way to success:

PTCL’s main competitor is not World Call which is also offering cable tv with its internet service but local cable operators who are covering the 97% of market with their cheap service. Thus PTCL has to majorly focus on local cable operators who are providing all channels (even banned one) with effective customer support as they don’t have big network to cover up.
The only way to forward in this regard is:

1. Official Un-banning of Indian channels or making sure strictly it is strictly followed by cable operators as  well.
2. Improving their credibility with the help of focused marketing
3. Proper awareness of advance features of Smart TV as they have been lacking the proper marketing strategy so far.

I am sure, IPTV is the future of television in Pakistan and already PTCL has taken first step to make sure that future belongs to them.

-    For me It’s not bad to use monopolies until and unless it doesn’t hurt customers or general public.

The Art of Blogging May 27, 2008

Blogging is very common though but still irrelevant to lots of people especially in south Asian countries. For instance, in my university batch out of 120 students only 3 owns a blog though we are students of technology. The major reason isn’t they don’t like to write or they don’t an art to write but it is they have never enjoy writing. Even I don’t consider myself as a writer but I love and enjoy writing. I love to express as every human does but every person has different way of expressing himself. When I started blogging, I remember, it was hot sunny day; I was thinking why should I write? In technical terms, why should I blog? Truly speaking, I didn’t have any answer because I didn’t have any reason actually. My first blog “No Theory in LOVE” Theory was more or less like a joke from writing perspective.

Before moving on, I want you to know basically what is blogging?

Merriam Webster: ‘A Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.”

Wikipedia: ‘Is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.”

In today’s world, blogging has become trend of expression. Expression of freedom and I don’t mind saying that blog has been the best product of web 2.0 so far. It actually fulfills the promise web 2.0. People have started expressing their political views, technical gossips, health mania, religious dilemmas and much more. Not only do those, but even governments don’t ignore them. Take the case a Saudi blogger who was put behind the bars last year only because he wrote on US-Saudi relations which US didn’t like much. Big corporate giants and small fishes, both using the blogs as new way of marketing. Take the example of vista team, they own a blog where they put updates frequently and answer the questions of people as well. So blog is not a one-way communication only.

The best about blogging is, it is something which you can show your grand children, funny haan!!! It is, I know. But it is true as well. For instance it has been almost a year now since I started my blog and sometimes I go back and read to previous articles, something’s really make me laugh. I mean, Wow. But it still feels good. I am wondering how about reading this same article or blog in age of 60. Isn’t it exciting?

Coming to point, some one asked me recently “what you get from blogging?” I replied ‘start blogging first’. Really, there is no answer to a question when it comes to expressing your emotions and feelings. I love blogging especially when I feel stressed. It makes me feel relax. Sometimes I reply to this question, ‘I don’t want a girl friend that’s why I blog’…Sounds strange haan – An stupid answer to an stupid question.

There are lots of advantages of blogging; prominently it inspires you to read. When I started blogging, I not only start thinking about my next article but I also started visiting many blogs and I really read a lot after that. Secondly, it improves your writing skills exponentially and the best thing is even you don’t notice it. In the first few months of blogging, there were few visitors on my blog even some harsh days makes the counter zero. I feel disappointed but now my blog has enough visitors which really push me to write more and more. Thank you all. After this journey of a year, I noticed there is a good way to raise blog readers that is “Tags”. The better your tags are the better the trap is and yeah pictures as well. Understanding the Google’s image searching algorithm, which functions mostly on text even when you are looking for a picture, this thing helps you as well because I tried it and I become quite successful in it. For instance, the header picture of eyes present on my blog, I renamed it to beautiful picture believe me alone on this I used to get on average 30 visitors daily using Google’s image searching.

So blogging is bit a tough nut to crack in the beginning same as like opening any new business. It teaches you to be patient. And yeah last but not least it grows your friendship circle.
Happy blogging.