All that aside, you’ve probably also spent a considerable portion of your life on a PC. You’re used to it, familiar with it, and most of all, grown attached to it.

Among other things, these are a few reasons of the many reasons I think people take Windows with them when they move to a Mac. They either install Windows *just in case* or have their older laptop readily available for when they (almost always) need it. This branches to two main problems: not exploring, and porting your conveniences. I’ll elaborate.

Not Exploring

Out of the box, a Mac is far beyond your best companion. Aside from all the apps you’ll ever need for you to dive right into work, there are probably apps that you won’t know you need until later. If you decide to assume a Mac is yet another PC and not lurk around for what’s there and what’s not, you might never know what power lies within your hands. Always look for missing items and never hesitate to Google!

Porting Your Conveniences

Get used to the old (could be bad) habits and using them on your Mac. For example relying on GUI for all tasks. Mac is built on unix and has the same powerful terminal you expect to find on any linux machine. This lets you do extraordinary things with a few commands. Once you’re used to the new “Mac” conveniences, you’ll realize everything could be done better. ;-)

Remember, treat your Mac as a new environment. Don’t use your Mac alongside a PC at least during the first few weeks of your purchase. Get used to your new gadget because it is rewarding. Happy Macing!

I have no interest in birthdays or celebrations of that sort. They simply have (had) very little to zero significance to me. And since I’ve always thought of myself as an awkward person (probably still the same) when it comes to parties anyway, that made it all the lot easier. I don’t really look forward to being under the spotlight on my “special day” (still applies teehee) because of a lot of irrelevant reasons at the moment.

19/01/2012 marks my 25th birthday. Happily enough, 19/01/2012 also marks my 1st “surprise birthday party.” It marks the first time I was shocked to realize I’m surrounded by people that care enough to give you a special treat on your special day. People that will forever be engraved in my memory for how they made me feel on that single one day.

To all those that made this possible and were there, from the deepest spot of my heart, thank you. :-)

PS. Since I try and keep a lid on my birthday (it’s not on my Facebook and it’s not even in plain here on my website,) I spent quite some time during my shocking gaze trying to figure out how it went out. Apparently Ahmed Motaz (the extremely detail-oriented software engineer I so happen to work with) had noticed it on my CV when I applied for Zoboon, Inc.

My sincerest gratitudes and appreciation go to my parents for their faith and unlimited support to me.

I am also greatly thankful to Nourhan Labeeb, whom if it weren’t for her this thesis would have not been been possible.

I also owe it to Prof. Dr. Slim Abdennhader, Eng. Marlien Edward, and DFKI for giving me the chance to work on this project.

I would like to acknowledge and thank my supervisor Ralf Biedert for sharing his expertise and giving me guidance whenever possible. Also, I would like to thank Thomas Kieninger and Jane Bensch for making us feel right at home during our stay abroad.

Finally, I would like to extend my warm gratitude to my colleagues who accompanied me, some of which had agreed to being experimented numerous times — without them it would have never been the same. I would like to specially thank Dalia Badawi, Iman Mansour, Khaled Shokry, Loai Ghoraba, Menna Amer, Mohamed Emad, Mohamed Gad, and Rana Ashraf for their humongous moral support during the tough periods of my stay.

When attempting to write in an AutoCompleteTextView element, the on-screen keyboard doesn’t show. After changing views and going back to the Activity that had the element, the keyboard worked as intended.

Environemt

The on-screen keyboard worked as intended on the android 1.6 emulator. However on the Samsung emulator (2.2) and a Samsung device the keyboard failed to show.

Solution

You should not requestFocus by the autocomplete element. After removing the requestFocus the autocomplete worked with the on-screen keyboard every time it got focus.

Credits: @dina_helal for reporting. Thanks!

Why should there be “an experience”? What’s so different out there that makes it all worth the while, I wonder.

In short: nothing. (I bet a bunch of you aren’t surprised right now at me saying this, but that’s not supposed to surprise you. Read on.)

For someone that has lived all his life in the middle east, Europe in general and Germany in specific are different in almost every single aspect. People are different, language is different, system is different, culture is different, weather is different, cars are different, women are different (that had to be mentioned alone for obvious reasons), food is different. Everything is different.

To be honest, for some time during my six months stay here in Germany that was all I could see. Differences. And you’d think to yourself: why would I say nothing is different then?

Because all of a sudden, at some point also during my (long) stay, things didn’t look so different.

I got used to it.

I got used to the people. I got used to the language (sort of.) I got used to the system. I got used to the culture (sort of.) I got used to the weather. I got used to the cars. I got used to the women (not really, I couldn’t in a million years.) I got used to the food. I got used to everything.

And then it all made sense. Much like everything else, things are relative. It’s what you’re used to compared to what everyone around you are used to. Once you adopt, you don’t feel different anymore. Once you and them do the same things without giving it much thought, it doesn’t become a barrier.

All aside, I learned a few things from my stay. I’m not exactly sure if Germany or Europe were behind it (to some extent they were, you’ll see why) or was it merely me living alone that did the trick.

• Administration Work — first day we came here we had to sign up for a bank account. We had to sign up for our apartment rent. We had to sign contracts with our company. We had to do paper work I’ve never had to go through in this detail. This has grown my tendency to walk into places and get things done.
• Traveling — it saddens me I had to know from a German colleague that Egypt has one of the best diving locations in the world – the red sea. Why can’t a bunch of friends organize a trip to somewhere at least inside their country (I was going to say around their country) and rent a place and go for it!
• Germans are not super — Germans are human. Some are super smart, some are super dumb, some are super productive, some are super workaholics, some are super lazy, some are super friendly, some are super mean. Some are normal. Some are even sleeping under the bridge because they were too drunk to go home the previous night.
• Appreciate what you have — the hot summer days are a dream for some people. (Those that don’t mind wearing less. A whole lot less. But yeah, still, a dream for them.) Petrol costs about 8 times more.

It’s true that if you compare both systems, one might be overwhelming. But this whole relativity theory has really gave me hope about Egypt’s current situation. If a new system is implemented, a new stronger more humanly system, people will eventually get used to it. People will adopt it. Live with it. It doesn’t take long to adopt and it shouldn’t be too hard to teach people that it’s all for the greater good. I can only imagine how iconic Egypt can be if the system was upgraded. If a better standard has been set.

Then again.. I was talking with a German colleague again today and driving came up. I quote myself: “If I had to pick a place to drive, Egypt or Germany, I’d pick driving in Egypt. Every. Single. Time.” It’s what I love and it’s what I’ll choose. But when the decision comes for a better community and better standards for everyone, I will gladly give it up for the vast majority that hate it.

Most the time while I’m sitting right here in my room in front of my laptop, slightly dimmed down so my eyes won’t hurt me, I’d feel the exact same way I used to feel sitting in my room back in Egypt, in front of my laptop, slightly dimmed down so my eyes won’t hurt me. Only difference is, back home I’d be on a far more comfortable mattress and expect my mum to walk in with a bowl of fruits perfectly cut ready for me to gulp زي البغل.

Aside from being dumbly easy, this configuration has always tempted me to be a tumblr user with my domain. Reason being, I could host my email MX record configuration at GoDaddy which means I ensure a better quality or uptime for my precious email records – which in plain English means I get my emails all the time.

Judging by the fact I rely a whole lot on those records to receive my emails, I kinda need to make sure that’s properly handled before settling for a specific setup.

When I decided to use my personal blog (this one), I usually set my nameservers records to my host and from my own cPanel (here at FrontServers) I would setup all my other records – namely, again, my MX records which deliver my emails gracefully to Google/Gmail.

That’s pretty cool considering I can keep all my configuration at my host and forget about GoDaddy, but then, the problem arises when my host is down. Every time my host is down, my emails won’t arrive because they wouldn’t know where to go (or be accepted at all in case I accept emails on this host) because the actual host is down — all records are dead.

To solve this problem, I experimented with setting an A-record for my domain that points to this host instead of globally setting my nameservers to here. This way I can still handle my records, all of them, from my GoDaddy control panel. This way, I never have to worry about my host going down again because all my records would be safe, hopefully forever available, at GoDaddy.

To know your A-record point to address use a simple dns lookup on one of the nameservers your host provides you with. Assign that to a global match (@) and you’re set to go. You’re just going to have to keep in mind your subdomains in this case would not function as flawless as usual since you’d need a separate A-record for each.

Source

As I hoped, a mother came on with a babywagon. Placed the baby in spot right in front of me, giving me a wonderful time to see that gorgeous smile he had, and walked to the driver to show her ticket.

Fast forward a little, she’s sitting a couple of seats in front of me on the other side of the bus but in my sight still. Baby on his grandma’s lap with his soother in mouth. He’s laughing quite a bit and playing around too. Soother falls out of his mouth, on the floor and rolls under the seats and obviously getting all dirty. Mum finds it, grabs it and quickly hides it.

Kid calms down a little, then cries for his soother. Mum tries to get his mind off it but the kid just stays upset. He’s so upset I knew his mum would find it hard to calm him down. Or even keep up with him this much upset. He looks like an angel, so sad. So depressed. Mum looks at him, stares at him. Wonders what to do. The scenario is impossible to duplicate in words, the looks on her face is so touching.

She puts the soother in her mouth. Sucks it clean for him. Puts it so gently back in his mouth.

The things our mothers would do for us – so we’d get what we want, and us still not being harmed – are priceless.

ربنا يخليكي ليا يا امي

Almost 45 minutes later (NOT to blame my internet connection, because I’m pretty sure it’s as fast as gets) I see a simple installation application.

After installation is complete, computer restarts and it takes me almost an hour to be back up again. (Emphasis on ‘takes “me”‘, my MacBook is really a special case with these things – I have my reasons.) I see a gorgeous new welcome screen for me to enter my username and password. Clock, AirPort status and time are visible on the upper right corner. I’m asked to update Java automatically and then I’m set to exploration.

First thing I notice is the new default swipes. Basically it’s the reverse to what you’re used to and expect, but identical to how you swipe iOS devices. First couple of times it was irritating but by now I’ve gotten used to it – quite natural if you’re used to using the trackpad too. You also get the sexiest UX when you scroll past your limits, such a pleasant experience. (Good luck Microsoft copying that, because without the trackpad you’re light-years behind.)

Next is the FullScreen mode. I fire that up and I see exactly what I expected – a FullScreen application. Problem is.. I couldn’t leave. I know there has to be a shortcut or something I need to do to exit but until this moment I don’t know of it. I had to quit the app to get out. (Update reader Calco commented below on possible workarounds for switching to other open apps while you’re in FullScreen mode. ⌘+⇧+F seems to toggle FullScreen mode nicely.)

Next I noticed was the new Finder UI. The grey scale theme for the Finder is absolutely breath-taking, then comes the new scroll bars. Absolute delight I’m telling you.

Next I noticed was the Launchpad. iOS replica but really useful in case you browse your Applications folder frequently. If you’re anything like me the Applications folder can get really slow to load and the Launchpad is an excellent substitute.

Because the Launchpad seemed to be such an important interface I’d like to keep handy, I next went to the System Preferences to explore what’s new. Other than a couple of relatively minor additions, the major changes were made to, as expected, the Trackpad section.

Last but not least (for now), was that the new UI has um, not exactly broken, but made my Dock notification icons less readable.

Let me know your first impressions in the comments below. Happy roaring!

Update I’ve had Mercurial issues right after upgrading (check your install and PYTHONPATH). Although this post seems to have fixed the issue, a comment on that page suggested a newer version was posted to fix that. Download the 10.7 version from the binaries here

Update 2 I also came across All My Files which is kinda new to me (confirmation?) It presumably contains an aggregate of all your documents in a single window.

Twenty Eleven surely looks a whole lot cleaner, pleasant on the eye, and is far more easily configurable in case I decide to change things around in the future. Let me know what you think.

Update Yeah yeah, updated again. Bite me. (In my defense I like this one more though.)