Blogger New Lines

I've noticed lately that blogger.com has been messing with the new lines (CRLF, cariage return line feed), which was not the case earlier. Now after I write any post and publish it, I see it all written without any line breaks. I just have to edit it again and go to the HTML tab, and add <BR> signs after each line. But guess what, this doesn't help all the time, and also AFAIK blogging is meant for people who know nothing about HTML, so I am not supposed to edit the HTML code evary time I publish a new post on my blog. I can't get what is wrong with their blogging software now a days. I think Blueue was right when she told me she is going to migrate her blog to somewhere else. Tags: Blog, HTML, Gr33n Data

The Juve Scandal

The Italian Football Federation will open an investigation concerning Juventus boss, Luciano Moggi. The reason is the involvement in choosing refereeing for his team in Serie A matches. It was no secret for the football fans, especially the ones in Italy, that Juventus were given a little push by the referees to win titles in the Serie A. Source: Softpedia News
So, are we going to see Juve in the second division next year? And, is it possible to see the clubs involved in similar scandals here in Egypt punished someday?
Tags: Football, Italy, Gr33n Data

I don't want to see you, because if I do I will love you.

Our story today is about a Shiiy boy who is attracted to a Sunni girl, so he decided to ask her out, with a plan to propose to her.

• He: We are friends already, but I would like to ask you out, and be more than a friend to you.
• She: I do not want to see you, because if I do I will love you.
• He: And, is it a bad thing!?
• She: No, but ... RELIGION!

Tags: Social, Religion, Gr33n Data

Google Translate

To translate some web page into arabic, use the following tool.

From: EnglishArabicSpanishFrench To: ArabicEnglishFrenchSpanish

To link to this post, use the following URL:
http://gr33ndata.blogspot.com/2006/05/google-translate.html

Tags: English, Arabic, Gr33n Data

Two-factor Authentication

"Two-factor authentication (T-FA) is any authentication protocol that requires two independent ways to establish identity and privileges. This contrasts with traditional password authentication, which requires only one factor (knowledge of a password) in order to gain access to a system. Common implementations of two-factor authentication use 'something you know' as one of the two factors, and use either 'something you have' or 'something you are' as the other factor. A common example of T-FA is a bank card (credit card, debit card); the card itself is the physical item, and the personal identification number (PIN) is the data that goes with it.", Wikipedia The point is that if you rely on passwords only (something you know) then if anyone gets this password he can have access to the protected resources. So what T-FA does is that it adds another later of security. Ok you can know my password, but you have to get a finger-prints simillar to mine as well. The three most commonly recognized factors are:

• 'Something you know', such as a password or PIN
• 'Something you have', such as a credit card or hardware token
• 'Something you are', such as a fingerprint, a retinal pattern, or other biometric.

Tags: Security, Technology, Gr33n Data

An Apple, and A Shoe

The wireless kit lets Nike's new Air Zoom Moire shoes send fitness data to your iPod Nano — via a sensor you tuck inside the running shoe and a small receiver that attaches to the Nano. As you run, the sensor records your distance, time, pace and calories burned in real time and displays data on the Nano. At the push of a button, audio feedback is delivered through Nano's earbuds. You can customize a workout (how far, how long) and choose playlists to hear on the run. You can also set up a "PowerSong" that kicks in when you need to summon a burst of energy. From the Nano, you can upload workout data to Apple's iTunes and a new nikeplus.com website. You can track progress over time and compete virtually with other runners.The $29 kit will be available within 60 days at Apple stores and shops where Nike footwear is sold. "It's a really inexpensive accessory for two premium-priced products," says Ross Rubin of the NPD Group research firm. Of course, you'll have to spend at least $149 for the Nano and $100 for the shoes. Six other iPod-ready Nike shoe models are coming.
Source: USAToday.com

Tags: Technology, Sports, Gr33n Data

Montenegro Voted for Independence

PODGORICA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Montenegro ended nearly a century of formal ties to Serbia on Monday after its people voted for independence in a referendum that closed the final chapter in the story of Yugoslavia. The world's newest independent state has a population of just 650,000, with a rugged coast and even more rugged mountains in a territory about the size of Northern Ireland. Tourism is its planned ticket to prosperity as it strikes out on its own.
Source: Reuters

Tags: Former Yugoslavia, EU, Gr33n Data

Apple Mecca

"A cube-shaped building under construction is the top floor entrance of what is rumored to be a 25,000-square-foot, 24-7 Apple Computer store. The building is located on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th streets in Midtown Manhattan", News.com The building design is inspired by the Holy Kaaba in Mecca where Islamic pilgrimage takes place with its cubic shape and black colour, "also because it shall be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and hence shall be the place New Yorkers shall take a holy pilgrimage whenever they crave a new iPod Nano at 4:00 am", SFGate Tags: Apple, Mecca, Gr33n Data

V for Middle East

Yesterday I've entered the movie, V for Vendetta. The movie is nice, it is set in a near-future Britain, an extreme fascist single-party state has arisen, called Norsefire and led by Adam Sutler, that maintains control of the country through food shortages (arising during the nuclear winter), government-controlled media, secret police, a planned economy, and concentration camps for ethnic, political, and sexual minorities. Actually, I think that the story itself was supposed to be set here in the Middle East, where such stuff already exist, without the need to be set in the near future. "The film is directed by James McTeigue (first assistant director on The Matrix alongside films) from a screenplay by the Wachowski brothers. Natalie Portman stars as Evey(E.V.), and Hugo Weaving as V, Stephen Rea, John Hurt, and Stephen Fry". By the way, vendetta means revenge as I've never heared this word before.

Sources: Wikipedia, V for Vendetta Official Web Site, and IMDB.

Tags: Movies, Cinema, Gr33n Data

Microsoft, Swimming in the SSL Tunnel with the Whale

"Microsoft plans to buy SSL VPN vendor Whale Communications, taking in-house a company with which it already had an alliance to blend Microsoft's ISA Server software with Whale's remote access, application firewall and access-control devices. Whale technology also includes endpoint protection, the scanning of computers that are trying to access networks to determine if they meet security policies. The technology checks whether the operating system is properly patched, whether a designated anti-virus application is turned on and updated, and whether a personal firewall is turned on and configured properly", Network World It's really interesting to see Microsoft entering such market and compete with other SSL VPN vendors, but can Microsoft - the software company - compete with pure networking vendors like Cisco, and Juniper, or even Aventail which is an SSL VPN vendor only. "Microsoft says it doesn't plan to get into selling appliances, but will make the Whale software available to hardware OEMs". So is it acceptable to have your SSL VPNs terminated and secured by some software installed on a vulnerable OS like windows and not a hardened appliance with purpose built OS. There is also an open source software that can do the same thing on Linux called OpenVPN, which I think can suits your needs if you think it's enough for you to deploy your SSL VPN tunnel terminator as a software running on a general purpose OS like Linux. Tags: Security, SSL VPN, Microsoft, Whale, Gr33n Data

iopBlogs

iopBlogs is a feed aggregators that allow readers to monitor feeds from different geographical locations, in one place. The project is made by I'm On A Plane, which started as a Blog and now runs a number of projects and blogs in different categories. There is an aggregate for each country, and you can see the Egyptian aggretaor here. Tags: Blog, Technology, Gr33n Data

Everybody Hates Raymond

Lately I've been watching a British Sitcom series called Coupling, which made me ask myself why are we supposed to see American movies and series only. Have a look at those famous Arabic satellite channels like OneTV, MBC2, and MBC4 and you will see that they only have American stuff like Friends, Seinfeld, etc. They are good ones I know, but there are other countries in the world which have good media as well and may be better than USA sometimes. Let's not talk about those pieces of shit series like Boston Public, Boston Legal, West Wing, Crossing Jordan (I just like Jill Hennessy but hate the series), Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and The City, Alias, etc. and shows like Oprah, The Insider, Dr Phil, etc. who really suck. Here I found a list of the Top100 British Sitcom made by BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/sitcom/winner.shtml Tags: TV, Media, Gr33n Data

McAfee SiteAdvisor

McAfee SiteAdvisor is a cool tool, it is installed as an extension to your web browser (IE or FireFox) and then it can tell you whether a certain site is safe or not, it also mark your search engine results with red, green, and yello marks telling you how safe each of these results is.

"Our easy to use software for Internet Explorer and Firefox summarizes our safety results into intuitive red, yellow and green ratings to help Web users stay safe as they search, browse and transact online. Our goal is to pioneer a new approach to Web safety and make the Internet safer for everyone"

McAfee SiteAdvisor: http://www.siteadvisor.com/ Tags: McAfee, Web, Internet, Security, Technology, Gr33n Data

Foundry Integrates Snort with Its Management

Foundry Networks one of the leaders in end-to-end switching and routing equipments has decided to integrate snort - the well known open-source IDS - into its management system. The foundry INM management system can collect sFlow logs from the different switches in the network giving it a complete view of the traffic in this network. The new approach by transforming the sFlow into PCAP format and sending it to snort in order to analyze it will make it able to detect many network attacks and take action by blocking such malicious traffic or even limiting its bandwidth. This is not the first time that Foundry integrates snort in one of its products, they have done it before in their SecureIron by plugging the snort engine in its hardware, giving it the ability to detect and block malicious traffic. But the integration with the management server makes it capable to detect traffic on different switch models and not to be limited to a specific model without any performance degradation in the switch. But the question now, as far as I know, the sFlow doesn't send the whole packet nor even send all the packets that passes by the device, rather than that it takes samples from the traffic, so will this limit the detection capabilities. Finally it is good approach to have layers of security, and not to be limited to single security device in your network. So this is not going to be an alternative to IDS's and IPS's, however it will add an extra layer of security to your network. Tags: Networking, Security, Gr33n Data

TEData Worldcup

The idea of making the ADSL users of TEData watch the WorldCup live games as an IP Stream, with VoD for the Matches highlights and goals review is really cool. They have done some VoD demos earlier but this is the first time to offer something real using such technology. But the question now, will such thing be feasable? Are the current ADSL sppeds going to support such huge traffic? Are they going to make a dedicated PVC's for the customers for such stream away from the current Data PVC? Are there many customers who may be interested in watching such event on their PC's? Or TEData must offer them some Set-Top Boxes or PC to TV Video Converters. By the way, it seems that the Non-Technical May thing has failed, see you soon in the Non-Technical June.

Tags: VoD, ADSL, Gr33n Data

Wireless PC to TV Video Converter

Wireless PC to TV Video Converter, http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-TV_GWB-4000.html And this is a wired one, http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/PC-TV_video_adapter.html Does anyone know if such thing can be found here in Egypt, and how much does it cost? Tags: Wireless, TV, Gr33n Data

Work or Play

You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play. By Warren Beatty Tags: Quote, Life, Gr33n Data

MSN Personal Messages

This is a collection of personal messages or nicknames that some of my MSN contacts are using currently.

• Mess with the Best, Die like the Rest.
• Sometimes the Heart Sees what is Invisible to the Eye.
• Lord of The Pings. (This guy works in an ISP)
• Hakuna Matata.
• Working Hard, or Hardly Working.
• Infinity is the Limit.
• Marry a Woman/Man you love to talk to. As when you get older, the conversation skills will be important.
• New home, new life, ... and a wife.
• Nobody notice what I do, until I don't do it.
• Illusion never changes into something Real.
• Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
• My Heart Speaks a Language I don't Understand.

Tags: Quotes, Social, Gr33n Data

CrushCalculator.com

This is an old trick, but worth trying.

"Butterflies in your stomach when you catch sight of that special someone? Is it lust or is it true love? Will it work out or will it be just another futile attempt? Before you pop the all important 'I love you', use our Crush Calculator to find out if he or she is The One!"

Click here for CrushCalculator.com Tags: Internet, Romance, Gr33n Data

Alaa of Manalaa is Arrested

It seems that arresting bloggers is going to be this year's hype here in Egypt. First it was Abdul Kareem, then came Malek, and now Alaa. What the heck is going on!? And who's going to be the next victim? Tags: Blog, Egypt, Gr33n Data

Grid Searches for Avian Flu Cure

In April, the UK grid of computers that crunches data from particle physics experiments was used by scientists to study the avian H5N1 virus. The grid simulated the reactions of 300,000 chemical compounds to find which ones might combat the bug. Source: BBC News By the way, I've decided not to publish any technical posts this month, but I think that this can be considered as a not-so-technical one. Tags: Avian Flu, Cure, Gr33n Data

Just for Virgins

BERLIN (Reuters) - A brothel has become the first in Berlin to offer special deals for virgins with prostitutes trained in the delicate art of catering for customers who have never had sex, a German newspaper reported Friday. "It's the first house of love in Berlin that specializes in taking care of beginners," wrote the daily on its front page. Source: Reuters This is funny, isn't it ! Tags: Germany, Virgins, Gr33n Data

May 2006, The Non-Technical Month

I have decided not to post any technical stuff in my blog this month, no more Networks, Programming, Computers, Linux, iPod, Hacking, etc. Tags: Non Techno, Blog, Gr33n Data

Green Data: What Do You Like To See Here?

Green Data: What Do You Like To See Here?

Advertising Space

Inspired of Robbie Williams' "Advertising Space", I have decided to dedicate this blog post to anyone who'd like to introduce people to his/her own blog/homepage. Just leave a comment with a brief intro. about your site, and obviously a link too. Tags: Blog, Advertisements, Gr33n Data

The Dutch Drug Policy

The drug policy of the Netherlands is based on two principles:

• Drug use is a public health issue, not a criminal matter
• A distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs exists

A distinction is drawn between hard drugs (which bear "unacceptable" risks; e.g. cocaine, heroin and ecstasy) and soft drugs such as the psychedelic psilocybin mushrooms as well as cannabis products: hashish and marijuana (as defined in the Dutch Opium Act). So-called coffee shops are allowed to sell soft drugs openly, and to keep supplies greater than the amounts allowed by law for personal use, though they are only allowed to sell individual customers the amount allowed for personal use. The coffeeshops' wholesale suppliers, however, are still criminalized. In practice, the limit of the "for personal use" clause is 5 cannabis plants per person for growing, or possession of 5 grams of hashish or marijuana per person. Source: Wikipedia, Drug policy of the Netherlands Frankly, I cannot see any difference between the so-called Soft Drugs and Alcoholic drinks, and I think that coutries who alow Alcohol are supposed to allow Hashish and Marijuana as well. Let's face it, they both have the same effect, so why allow one and ban the other. Here in Egypt for example, Selling Alcoholic drinks is allowed - with some license I think - while drugs are banned on the other hand. However I think we shall (best case) ban them both, or (worst case) allow them both. Tags: Drugs, Alcohol, Gr33n Data

Niña Pastori

"She is currently one of the most important cantaoras. She started singing when she was very young, following in Camarón's footsteps, but when she burst onto the recording scene her style changed, and she passed from traditional flamenco to the reality of her generation, with songs that were more commercial. Paco Ortega and Alejandro Sanz discovered her and launched her career in front of the public at large when she was seventeen with Entre dos puertos, a record that was aimed at a teenage audience, but which managed to sell over one hundred thousand copies, reaching all ages and social layers. Her style and her image, which was flamenco, young and poppy, converted her into one of the up-and-coming artists on the Spanish music scene". EsFlamenco

Niña is one of my favorites, with her special voice and music. However, sometimes I need to read the lyrics to get what she says, may be this is because of my poor Spanish language :-)

My favorite songs of her are "Amor de San Juan", "De Boca en Boca", "Como Me Duela", " Puede Ser", "Que Pena", and many others.

Tags: Spain, Flamenco, Gr33n Data

Zapatero, Equality for Women in Business and Politics

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's self-described "feminist" prime minister, has begun his most ambitious effort yet to guarantee equality for women in business and politics, demanding that women make up at least 40 percent of the candidates from any political party and 40 percent of the members on corporate boards. The initiative, which is expected to go before Parliament in June, is a signature proposal of Zapatero's campaign to make Spain a world leader in the expansion of civil liberties and the promotion of gender equality. His government says that the initiative is necessary to combat the stubborn vestiges of the patriarchal society over which General Francisco Franco presided until his death 30 years ago. Source: International Herald Tribune Actually, I don't think that making rules can help in something like that, what if there isn't many qualifid women in a certain business!? Tags: Spain, Feminist, Gr33n Data

Ban The Laptops

As the professor lectured on the law, the student wore a poker face. But that was probably because, under the guise of taking notes on his laptop, the student actually was playing poker — online, using the school's wireless Internet connection. The scenario is not uncommon in today's college classrooms, and some instructors want it stopped. So they have done the unthinkable — banned laptops. Source: Yahoo News I think we here in Egypt are not going to suffer from a simillar problem in the following 20 years at least :) Tags: Computers, Law, Gr33n Data

Toyota Beat Chrysler's Sales

Toyota beat Chrysler's sales totals 219,965 to 190,095 in April, part of a larger trend that showed a bad month for domestics and a good month for Toyota. It's not the first time it has happened, but it might just give Toyota the boost it needs to surpass Chrylser's year-end sales totals. However, Chrysler expects strong sales of the Caliber and other forthcoming vehicles to edge the littlest member of the Big Three ahead of Toyota by year-end. Source: Autoblog.com It seems that Toyota is on its way to be the number one automobiles manufacturer in the world. Actually I am really surprised by the number of Toyota Corolla's in the Egyptian strees, although it is not a cheap car at all. Tags: Cars, Toyota, Gr33n Data

Check The Time And Date Now

The time and date now is 01:02:03 04/05/06 Tags: Fun, Time, Gr33n Data

Suicide Babies

People born in spring or early summer in the northern hemisphere have a 17 percent increased risk of committing suicide than those with birthdays in the autumn or early winter, researchers said on Tuesday. "Our results support the hypotheses that there is a seasonal effect in the monthly birth rates of people who kill themselves and that there is a disproportionate excess of such people born between late spring and midsummer compared with the other months," Dr Emad Salib, of Liverpool University, northwest England, said in a report in the British Journal of Cancer. Source: Reuters Tags: Science, Society, Gr33n Data