What IF?

December 28, 2008

It was the first death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto on Decemeber 27, 2008. I was going through an article posted at Pakistaniat and thought the same thing; i.e. What if, the incident would not have occured. Well, I believe that we cannot undo anything and thinking of WHAT IF is a foolish thing(in my view)….but I hope that ripples generated by her death should gradually remove the impacts on Pakistan. The article is short and nice and I found a good image there; indicating the Bhutto time line. May Allah bless her soul.

Time line for the Bhutto family


[iPhone] A great iPhone development resource

December 24, 2008

iPhone development is a new trend nowadays and it is very hard to find helpful material which might help the beginners. I’ll be updating this post with all the links of forums, sites, blogs which have guided me in my learning of iPhone development. So here we go…

  1. Stanford: iPhone Application Programming: To start, here is a link from Stanford, where they have introduced iPhone Application Programming as a course. They have uploaded lectures and coding samples which are very helpful.
  2. iPhone Dev Center: What else can be more useful than iPhone itself. SDKs, video tutorials, How to’s, library references, coding samples etc; all are available here to start and complete an iPhone application by yourself.
  3. iPhone Development Central: Another link for iPhone development Center with 600+ minutes of video tutorials.
  4. iPhone Programming by iCodeBlog: This is a good blog and also has a forum where iCodeBlog can even help you out with his knowledge.
  5. iPhone Noob: This is also a nice blog and I even have added this blog as RSS in my sidebar.

Remembering the GAMES which…

December 24, 2008

Today, I received an article “Boss by day, gamer by night: Tech leader’s favorite video games” from Computer World; and thought that although I am still not a big high techie or shot but still I can try to remember and list almost all games which I played since my childhood. It would be easy for me to share in future when I become a Tech Guru or something sometime later :)

It’s very hard to compile all games in one sitting, I have spent almost whole day and is still not finished with the games I played on my first gaming console :) So I’ ll keep updating the list form time to time ;)

So here we go…

Atari: Bowling

Bowling - Screenshot

Atari: BasketBall

Basketball - Screenshot

Atari: Bobby is going home

Atari: Angriff der Luftflotten

Angriff der Luftflotten - Screenshot

Atari: Sea Quest

Atari: Combat Game

Atari: Pitfall Harry

Spaceship using warp drive.

Atari: Space Invaders

Sega: Jim the Earthworm

Sega: Brian Lara 96

http://thumbnails.truveo.com/0004/50/29/502935D0CBE7FEE84E7CDE.jpg

Sega: Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker

Sega: Midnight Resistance

Sega: Ms. Pac Man

Sega: Super Pang

Sega: Robocop

Sega: WWF Superstars

Sega: Snow Bros.

Sega: Street Fighter II

Sony Play Station: Tekken 3

Sony Play Station: Dune 2000

http://www.juegomania.org/Dune+2000/foto/pc/1/1027/1027.jpg/Foto+Dune+2000.jpg

PC: Virtua Cop

http://perso.wanadoo.es/e/LUCI_FER/Imagenes/Virtua%20Cop%202_.jpg

PC: Command & Conquer

http://www.g4g.it/phpnews/images/Command_and_Conquer_95_free.jpg

PC: Age Of Empire II

http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/gs/strategy/age2x/age2x_screen003.jpg

PC: Civilization III

http://www.terragame.com/downloadable/strategy/civilization_iii_gold_edition/screen_1.jpg

PC: Civilization IV

http://z.about.com/d/compactiongames/1/0/E/J/civ4.jpg

PC: Counter Strike

http://www.dedley.us/external/images/counterstrike20condition20zero.jpg

…………. The above list is still not complete, I still remember many games but not their names :P Once I complete the list, I’ ll add some description and my experiences about all of them. ;)


The Story of Pakistan

December 23, 2008

The Story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement, is the story of great human ideals, struggling to survive in the face of odds and difficulties…

- Quaid e Azam (Chittagong, March 1948)

Story of Pakistan is the most comprehensive reference of political history of Pakistan. I prepared for my exams from here and got 90% result :) , jokes apart but it is a great site. It has information about almost all those heroes who contributed in their different ways to create Pakistan; and it also has information about almost all those who contributed to bring Pakistan into stability and enable Pakistan to face the modern age.


Coins Riddle

December 17, 2008

There is a room with 100 coins, each coin has two sides: one black, the other white.

10 of the coins are with their white side up, the other 90 are with their black side up.

A blind man enters the room. He can do what ever he wants… what does he have to accomplish in the end is that he’ll have two groups of coins, so that in each group there are same number of coins with their white side up ?


Guess the ages

December 17, 2008

A conversation broke out between 2 friends:

Thomas: Peter, how old are your children?
Peter: Well Thomas, there are 3 of them and the product of their ages is 36.
Thomas: That is not enough.
Peter: The sum of their ages is exactly the number of beers we have drunk today.
Thomas: That is still not enough.
Peter: OK, my oldest child wears a red hat.
Thomas: OK, now I get it. Their ages are …

Any guesses???


I. Human?

December 15, 2008

There have always been ghosts in the universe. Random species of human form, that have grouped together to form unexpected distinctions among each other. Unanticipated, these species engender questions of each others religion, culture, resources, location and even the nature of what we might call the existence . Why is it that when some species of different communities are left in darkness, they will burn each other for the light? Why is that when they are alloted some space, they will kill each other on security issues, rather than facing the problem together? How do we explain this behavior? Random species of human form? Or is it a mistake of nature? When will they understand the true meaning…… of each others existence ?


40th Birthday of Mouse

December 6, 2008

This week the famous computer mouse celebrated it’s 40th birthday, but the question arises whether the new growing technologies will make the mouse obsolete or not.

Forty years ago this week, the computer mouse made its first public appearance at a technology gathering in San Francisco.

The device was the brainchild of Doug Engelbart and his team at Stanford Research Institute in California, who were looking for a new way to control their computers. Before the mouse scrolled its way onto the scene, the team had been using light pens, similar to those favoured by radar operators during the war, to navigate around their screens.

Although the team tried a variety of new input methods, it was the mouse that proved the most successful. “The mouse won in every category [of tests], even though it had never been used before,” recalled Mr Engelbart. “It was faster, and with it people made fewer mistakes.”

No-one can remember who started calling the wooden device a “mouse”, but the name stuck, and the gadget went on to become one of the most significant developments in the history of computing. Apple was the first company to really take the idea of mouse control to the mass market, but it was Microsoft, who developed an entire operating system around the input capabilities of the mouse, that cemented its place in the public consciousness.

For years, the mouse has remained the pre-eminent computer controller. While the rubbery track-pad may have made way for infra-red sensors, and some mice now offer so many buttons and personalisation options that they wouldn’t seem out of place on a space shuttle, its simplicity and ease of use has guaranteed its place in users’ hearts. In fact, just this week Logitech, one of the biggest mouse makers in the world, announced it had turned out its billionth mouse.

But the mouse could soon find its days numbered, as hardware manufacturers and software developers seek new and improved ways of simplifying the interaction between people and technology.

Some experts predict that within the next decade, the mouse could be consigned to the digital scrapheap, as more and more computer uses turn to touch-screens and gesture-recognition to control their computers. “I very much doubt that we’ll be using the mouse in 40 years’ time,” says Steve Prentice, an analyst with Gartner.

For more information


The Stories behind Hollywood Studio logos

December 6, 2008

I came across a post with similar name and could not resist to read the stories behind couple of Hollywood Studios. It’s good to know how some inspiring minds work. :)

Following are some Hollywood Studios, which have their logos background stories disclosed.

DreamWorks SKG: Boy on the Moon

In 1994, director Steven Spielberg, Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and record producer David Geffen (yes, they make the initial SKG on the bottom of the logo) got together to found a new studio called DreamWorks.

Spielberg wanted the logo for DreamWorks to be reminiscent of Hollywood’s golden age. The logo was to be a computer generated image of a man on the moon, fishing, but Visual Effects Supervisor Dennis Muren of Industrial Light and Magic, who has worked on many of Spielberg’s films, suggested that a hand-painted logo might look better. Muren asked his friend, artist Robert Hunt to paint it.

Hunt also sent along an alternative version of the logo, which included a young boy on a crescent moon, fishing. Spielberg liked this version better, and the rest is history. Oh, and that boy? It was Hunt’s son, William.

The DreamWorks logo that you see in the movies was made at ILM from paintings by Robert Hunt, in collaboration with Kaleidoscope Films (designers of the original storyboards), Dave Carson (director), and Clint Goldman (producer) at ILM.

dreamworks-logo

Warner Bros.: The WB Sheild

Warner Bros. (yes, that’s legally “Bros.” not “Brothers”) was founded by four Jewish brothers who emigrated from Poland: Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner. Actually, those aren’t the names that they were born with. Harry was born “Hirsz,” Albert was “Aaron,” Sam was “Szmul,” and Jack was “Itzhak.” Their original surname is also unknown – some people said that it is “Wonsal,” “Wonskolaser” or even Eichelbaum, before it was changed to “Warner.”

wb-logo-history

Paramount: The Majestic Mountain

Paramount Pictures Corporation was founded in 1912 as Famous Players Film Company by Adolph Zukor, and the theater moguls the Frohman brothers, Daniel and Charles.

The Paramount “Majestic Mountain” logo was first drawn as a doodle by W.W. Hodkinson during a meeting with Zukor, based on the Ben Lomond Mountain from his childhood in Utah (the live action logo made later is probably Peru’s Artesonraju). It is the oldest surviving Hollywood film logo.

The original logo has 24 stars, which symbolized Paramount’s then 24 contracted movie stars (it’s now 22 stars, though no one could tell me why they reduced the number of stars). The original matte painting has also been replaced with a computer generated mountain and stars.

paramount-majestic-mountain-logo

20th Century Fox: The Searchlight Logo

In 1935, Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Company (back then mainly a theater-chain company) merged to create Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (they later dropped the hyphen).

The original Twentieth Century Pictures logo was created in 1933 by famed landscape artist Emil Kosa, Jr. After the merger, Kosa simply replaced “Pictures, Inc.” with “Fox” to make the current logo.

twentieth-century-fox-logo

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM): Leo The Lion

In 1924, studio publicist Howard Dietz designed the “Leo The Lion” logo for Samuel Goldwyn’s Goldwyn Picture Corporation. He based it on the athletic team of his alma mater Columbia University, the Lions. When Goldwyn Pictures merged with Metro Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures, the newly formed MGM retained the logo.

Since then, there have been five lions playing the role of “Leo The Lion”. The first was Slats, who graced the openings of MGM’s silent films from 1924 to 1928. The next lion, Jackie, was the first MGM lion whose roar was heard by the audience. Though the movies were silent, Jackie’s famous growl-roar-growl sequence was played over the phonograph as the logo appeared on screen. He was also the first lion to appear in Technicolor in 1932.

The third lion and probably most famous was Tanner (though at the time Jackie was still used concurrently for MGM’s black and white films). After a brief use of an unnamed (and very mane-y) fourth lion, MGM settled on Leo, which the studio has used since 1957.

mgm-leo-lion-logo-history

Columbia Pictures: The Torch Lady

Columbia Pictures was founded in 1919 by the brothers Harry and Jack Cohn, and Joe Brandt as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales. Many of the studio’s early productions were low-budget affairs, so it got nicknamed “Corned Beef and Cabbage.” In 1924, the brothers Cohn bought out Brandt and renamed their studio Columbia Pictures Corporation in effort to improve its image.

The studio’s logo is Columbia, the female personification of America. It was designed in 1924 and the identity of the “Torch Lady” model was never conclusively determined (though more than a dozen women had claimed to be “it.”)

jenny-joseph-columbia-torch-lady In her 1962 autobiography, Bette Davis claimed that Claudia Dell was the model, whereas in 1987 People Magazine named model and Columbia bit-actress Amelia Batchler as the girl. In 2001, the Chicago Sun-Times named a local woman who worked as an extra at Columbia named Jane Bartholomew as the model. Given how the logo has changed over the years, it may just be that all three were right!

The current Torch Lady logo was designed in 1993 by Michael J. Deas, who was commissioned by Sony Pictures Entertainment to return the lady to her “classic” look.

Though people thought that actress Annette Bening was the model, it was actually a Louisiana homemaker and muralist named Jenny Joseph that modeled the Torch Lady for Deas. Rather than use her face, however, Deas drew a composite face made from several computer-generated features.

columbia-pictures-logo


New version of WordPress

December 6, 2008

The wordpress has updated the Dashboard interface. A lot of information and options are now available in a much simpler way…. too cool

Nice work “Team WordPress” (Y)