Quantum Entanglement: Paul the Octopus explained

If you didn't heard of Paul the Octopus, it’s a Psychic octopus that Germany used for predictions to its World cup games.

So far Paul did a 100% prediction in 6 games.

Here is its prediction for Germany VS Spain in the semi final.

So how did this work?

Paul's first predictions (Ger vs Eng) (Ger vs Ser) and (Ger vs Arg) might have been a mere chance, but not the last one (Ger vs Esp). Quantum Mechanics took care of this one.

After the win of Germany against Argentina 4:0, Paul the Octopus received a huge media boost, through social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) not to mention the classical Newspapers, and TV.

This media explosion amplified Paul Quantum wave function (the frequency on which the Octopus works) most people now believe in Paul, some for the mere love of their teams, and some even for religious reasons.

All these people sending their approved thoughts and true believe to this creature makes this wave function amplifies exponentially. These thoughts become so sharp, so clear, so thin that increases what physicists called the Energy Density and make those thoughts move to a part of the brain called the Frontal Lobe. At this time, those thoughts, those ideas, those concepts materialize into tangible events. These events cause the predicted team for example to play harder, the other team get tensed, distracted thus make more fouls the other team get more free kicks, and so many random events may occur to support the predicted team. Events that are unleashed from the shared Super String.

Now, some of you will say well, not all people believe in this octopus and I totally agree. Some don't believe and they deny it but deep inside they have this fear of his predictions becoming true. This fear is enough to materilize into a potentional amplifer for Paul Wave function. Some people won't believe Paul at all, but they are few compared to the masses. Which make their wave function nearly neglectable.

This is the new science of Quantum Entanglement, Everything is connected.

Firefox 3.6.4 won't crash if your FarmVille froze, too late?

Google Chrome had this by default, the crash protection technique, which is basically the act of isolating each plug-in (like Adobe Flash) in a separate process. So when the plug-in goes into an infinite loop or froze, only that process gets terminated but the Browser will be intact.

Recently Mozilla has released Firefox 3.6.4 which includes this feature and so many other bug fixes.

Firefox has been there for a really long time as a lead browser, only to witness Google Chrome infiltrating its business with its cut-and-dried sexy features. Last thing we know FireFox is mimicking Chrome.

I was a FireFox user and Developer. I just switched to Chrome weeks ago and I tell you as a user Firefox 3.5 to 3.6.3 crashes for 2 times a day on average and while developing it crashes from 10 to 15 times a day.

Now I'm using Chrome, it never crashed and developing a new extension for Chrome was much easier and faster than firefox. For instance I do not need to restart the browser each time I update my script. With Firefox you need to restart the browser, and you have to wait for 3 to 5 seconds so Firefox Process get freed from the memory.

This is good, but with this momentum, I see that lots of FireFox users will defect to Chrome.

Rettiwt V1.0 for Google Chrome

OK. Firefox didn't prove to be as good as Chrome. I'm speaking from a personal usage as a user and as a developer.

Last month I developed a Twitter Extension for FireFox. It took me half the time to redevelop the extension Google Chrome, debugging and testing and recompiling are much easier.

Here is a quick list of the functionality

No Login Required, simply use the Twitter web normally.

1. Classic Retweet with Editing (RT).

2. Automatically parse YouTube videos and embed them into the status itself.
So if one of your following post a link to a YouTube video, the extension automatically fetch that video and display the frame in the status itself. You don't have to do anything.

3. Add all your following into a listbox so you can easily select and reply to them.

4. #FollowFriday Button that appears only on fridays.

5. Reply to All

6. Quick Emoticons

Enjoy

Download here.

How long will it last?

Recently, I was selling a suite of GIS applications to a client. The suite was built in .NET framework 3.5 on top of ESRI ArcGIS.

After I explained to him the new system functionalities he was convinced of the great effort spent in the system, and then he asked me this question.

"How long will it last?"

"Sorry sir I didn't get you"

"This .NET thing, how long will it last? We built our system just 5 years ago on COM technology, and now you tell me its out-dated and that the .NET technology is much better but not fully compatible with COM. So I have to change my whole system with yours. How long are you expecting the .NET technology to last until something totally 'better' to replace it"

He sighed and continue "How long I shall expect to change my system .. again? 5 more years or more?"


So what do you think?

An Idea: Smart-SIM

Telecom companies in Bahrain like Batelco, Zain and VIVA (aka fifa) have certain packeges for mobile services (postpaid and prepaid). Each package contains certain features by a given price. Here is the postpaid table from the leading company in Bahrain Batelco.



As customers we choose packages arbitrary based on the package price thinking we would save more, however, this is not the case. Customer preferences differs from one to another. For example I make a lot of international calls or a lot of calls to a certain local number. But I really might be in the wrong package which eventually costs me even more money.

The idea is to design a service that will run through the customer database each 3 months or so and analyse their calls/sms etc and project it on their current package. For instance, if the customer is making too many international calls it would be great to send her a report in an email or MMS that you will save XXBD if you changed your package from BD2 to BD6 and attached is the math. Or you can tell her that you make so many calls and Messages to this number, if you add it to your favorite numbers list you will pay almost half the price. Provide the customer with an option to send an sms to change his package.

This way your customer will really know how much you really care. They will stay loyal, in the long run, your customer churn will increase dramatically only by the word of mouth effect. Simply because this act is remarkable.

Abbas Khalil briefly explains how the telecom companies in Bahrain are leveraging their business from a strategic point of view.

How free Anti-Virus Software make money

Ever wondered how a free AntiVirus software can make money besides advertisement? Well, continue reading.

Imagine you are game manufacturing company. You spent tens of thousand of dollars to develop a computer game. Weeks later a cracker releases a patch to break your computer game so users can illegally play it without license.

What do you do?
You can spend more money making the game uncrackable (and that's difficult)

OR

You pay Anti-Virus software companies (like avast) to add that patch/crack to their database as a trojan-gen (which stands for Trojan general category). Below is a picture of a patch for all Game House games. Avast treats it as a general trojan, although I didn't notice any internet activity from the file.



Now users with these Anti-viruses cannot use the patch to crack your game up. This creeps them out and maybe (just maybe) they will be forced to pay for the game.

Change Layers Data Source in an MXD document

I have developed this tool only because our engineers needed it badly. It happens that its difficult to change the data source of a certain layer file to a new one. You have to do it one by one.


So this ESRI ArcMap tool help you do just that. Just register it and enjoy.

Download here

Email me should you have any suggestions/Comments/bugs.

Twitter Mass Unfollow Tool (Enhanced)

I have enhanced the Twitter Mass Unfollow tool to include the images of the users, now its even easier to sort and recognize the weird followings.



Enjoy.

Now this is Customer care

Authentication has become a serious issue nowadays with customer support. Companies use technology to SPAM their customers with ads and offers.

We feel customer care as more like an advertising firehose. The company doesn't really know us and frankly doesn't really care about us.

We miss the human interaction, handwritings and the spelling mistakes in emails.

Last month I was in Lebanon for work. I go almost everyday to have dinner in BOBs Dinning - Verdun, and I leave my comment after each meal with my email address. I remember once writing that the Grilled Chicken was cold when served to me.

In the 17 of May I received an email from the Guest relation officer of Bob's, addressed to me. This was the body.
"

Dear Mr. Hussein,

Thank you for the feedback that you mentioned in the Comment Card filled at Bob's-Verdun.



We want our guests to enjoy their dining experience, so your comment regarding the "Grilled chicken" platter is a serious concern for us.



Let us express our deepest apologies. You deserve only the best service and food quality, especially when you visit Bob's.



Therefore, I would like to ask of you to give us more details as to whether you informed the waiter about it, did he replace the item, … so that we can know exactly what needs to be improved.



If you do not mind disclosing your contact number, I would truly appreciate you emailing it to me so I will be able to better assist you in the future.


Waiting for your feedback,

Regards,
Rita Mehanna
Guest Relations Officer

"


This email is not sent by a computer, because my comment was carefully selected, my email has been fetched from the comment sheet, and the problem is carefully and specifically addressed in the email as you can see in the email. Computers can't do that.

I don't know about you, but I'm gonna continue eating in that restaurant.

The most ugly mashups in Web 2.0

Thought since I have added more tools to my website it worth to show it.

Hold the mouse on each tool to see its description

And yes you will never find an uglier design.

TMUT: Twtter Mass Unfollow Tool

When I started to use twitter I used to follow everyone and I ended up with more than 600 friends of which more than 300 are spam.

Unfortunately Twitter doesn't allow you to remove unwanted followers as a bulk, you have to remove them one by one which is a tedious process.

So I created TMUT

Twitter Mass Unfollow Tool






Enjoy.

Rettiwt V0.2: FireFox Extension for Twitter Web

I have noticed a lot of users use Twitter web when they are on their machines. It's better save much time and no need to download or install any application.

I thought I could inject few more features into this already available tool. Hence I created a FireFox extension.

Being new to FF extension development and a fan of rapid development, I added only few features (will add more later):

1. Classic Retweet with Editing (RT).

2. Automatically parse YouTube videos and embed them into the status itself.
So if one of your following post a link to a YouTube video, the extension automatically fetch that video and display the frame in the status itself. You don't have to do anything.

3. Add all your following into a listbox so you can easily select and reply to them.

4. #FollowFriday Button that appears only on fridays.

See the picture

Download the extension here











Installation
1. You should have FireFox installed.

2. Install the Extension, by clicking on the link above,
(Note it will ask you to OpenWith or Save, Choose OpenWith and Choose FireFox Application)

3. Close FireFox and open it again.

4. Visit Twitter.com and enjoy.


Shoot me any new features you would love to add at @hnasr