run cron job in seconds

while scheduling a cronjob i found out that cron wakes up every minute and executes the jobs for that minute. i needed to run a job every 30 seconds. so what to do. i was confused. later i searched for it and found out it is too simply done. just add another entry that will sleep 30 seconds and execute the job. add these lines in the crontab -

00-59 * * * * root sh /home/me/myscript.sh
00-59 * * * * root sleep 30 && sh /home/me/myscript.sh

follow up: trip to birishiri

today i was requested on IM from mr 'bohemian'... he is interested to go to birishiri... and found me through this post. i wanted to help him, though i could not provide enough useful information i guess. in this trip i almost had to do nothin. because my friends organized the whole tour, i just joined the party and enjoyed. they hired a microbus for the whole day. the driver guided us to birishiri. my friends managed a boat and we went to the border through the river somessor. i got in and enjoyed and this is the exact same way i came back to dhaka... :)... anyway i asked mr 'Bohemian' about the source of my blog out of interest and found out that google is the culprit behind this total misunderstanding.
.....
me: amar blog kothe theke pailen... ektu jante ichha kortese
me: :)
Bohemian: ami google e dhoika birishiri netrokona lekhe search disi
Bohemian: then pailam
me: hahahahahahaha
me: joss
.....

moral: shob google er dosh... i didnt have the faintest interest to give any tour plan to birishiri. i apologize for not being able to provide fruitful information. i posted the pictures with no specific purpose... :)

tips: find a friend like i have and let him arrange the whole thing... ;)

blogger play

here is another interesting feature added by blogger. its called "blogger play". according to their blogger team one of their engineers whipped up a web page that would show them the pictures that were being uploaded in real time. the result was fun, often beautiful, but above all, compelling. and it really is great. if u have a good internet connection then this is something u can watch in idle time and it never gets too boring. this is an interesting slideshow, and a reminder of the diversity and vivaciousness of Blogger blogs.

when i started watchin this real time slide show, it reminded me of the local radio station!! and how? because u dont have to worry about making it and deciding the sequence, and it is totally random. when the first local radio station in dhaka "radio today" was launched i was glad just because of the freedom of not choosing what to listen. its just fabulous. :D...

links....

as a internet user i find mozilla firefox a very cool, lightweight, convenient browser. and the thing i like most about it is the extensions available to be used. anyways i wont elaborate the matter because most advanced user knows about it. let me get to the point, here is a very helpful extension stumble upon, which helps you find random sites of your interest. if you have enough time and sitting in front of the pc wondering what you want to browse, just install this extension and start clicking it stumble button. the rest is done by it.

here are some cool links that i found today...

1. reading test
2. Some storm pics
3. draw space
4. flash painting board
5. hey math

by the way... if u r not a firefox user... jump into it. it has a very good user experience and its totally free. Get your firefox from here.

ICE

We all carry our mobile phones with hundreds of names numbers stored in its memory but yet nobody, other than ourselves, know which of these numbers belong to our near and dear ones? In case we are involved in an accident or had a heart attack and the people attending us get hold of our mobile phone but don't know which number to call to inform our family members. Yes, there are many numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency? For this reason, we must have one or more telephone numbers stored under the name ICE (In Case of Emergency) in our mobile phones.

Recently, the concept of "ICE" is catching up quickly. It is simple, an important method of contact during emergency situations. As cell phones are carried by majority of the population, just store the number of a contact person or person who should be contacted at during emergency as ICE" (meaning In Case of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when they went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn't know which number to all. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose. Following a disaster in London , the East Anglican Ambulance Service has launched a national "In case of Emergency (ICE)" campaign. In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital staff would then be able to quickly contact your next of kin, by simply dialing the number stored as "ICE".

for more information check out here -
ICE official site
external link - ICE

why a screen saver is called screen saver?

sounds nerdy, right? well it might be it suddenly today this question clicked in my mind and searched the net and explanation was the one i expected. may be because this might have been in our graduation course material and i couldnt remember reading that.

well what does your mind say about this question? is it really saving the screen? seems dumb in the perspective of cpu usage. because the cpu can be in rest if your computer does not show screen saver. isnt it? ok. forgive me for stretching ....

"Before the proliferation of LCD screens, most computer screens depended on cathode ray tubes (CRTs). Images on a CRT monitor are generated using electron beams which are emitted from electron guns at the back of the tube, and manipulated by electromagnetic fields to form images line-by-line on the phosphorescent screen many times per second. In some situations the images displayed on the screen constantly change, but in other cases some areas of the screen, or the screen as a whole, change very little (the taskbar in Microsoft Windows, for example). When the same image is displayed on a CRT screen for long periods of time, the properties of the exposed areas of phosphor coating on the inside of the screen gradually and permanently change, eventually leading to a darkened shadow or "ghost" image on the screen. Televisions, oscilloscopes and other devices that use CRTs are all susceptible to phosphor burn-in, as are plasma displays to some extent. Screensaver programs were originally designed to help avoid these effects by automatically changing the images on the screen when the computer was not in use (thus "saving" the screen)."

[explanation from - wikipedia]

[update] - congratulations to bangladesh for the fantastic win against south africa, the number one cricket team now. :D

rent a protester!!!

bangladesh is a country which is going through continuous political crisis and for a country with such amount of poor people, the rich can always gather a crowd that will give slogan for him and clap at his words in the political meetings and gatherings. its a common trend in here. they rent the people, gather them for a day for demonstration and average people around the country will have a wrong impression of the team. it is one kind of showing off knowing where everybody knows the "truth behind".

anyways, the question is why am i jabbering about such a cheap trick? because germans are officially marketing the same product (supporter/protesters) in a manner as if they are giving rent to cars. check these links - bbc, german site.

german online rental market erento.com has now opened a section for protestors that are available for hire. in their words - "you have a cause but you lack supporters? you want to stage a demonstration but have no friends? there's no reason to sulk anonymously anymore. these days in Germany, protesters are available for hire." and they are young, good-looking, and available for around 150 euros (£100), more than 300 would-be protesters.

here you go rent them and have fun.

we should have patented this idea..... :-?

Hachiko the faithful dog

Here is a wonderful real life story with a moral at the end.

In 1934, a bronze statue of a dog called Hachiko was erected at the Shibuya Train station in Tokyo, Japan. The story of this dog is mentioned below.

Hachiko was born in 1923 and was owned by Eisaburo Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo. The professor used to take a train from the Shibuya Station every day to go to the university. Each day Hachiko accompanied the professor to the train station when he left for work. Upon returning, the professor would find the dog patiently waiting for his master and wagging its tail. This happy routine continued until one fateful day in 1925, when the professor was taken ill on the job and unfortunately died before he could return home. As usual, the dog waited at the train station that day for his master to return back. However, seeing that he wasn’t coming back, Hachiko waited till night fell and retuned back home. The next day Hachiko went back to the train station again, waiting for his master to come back. He patiently waited till sunset and then retuned back home. The dog was so devoted to the professor that he continued to visit the train stat
ion everyday for the next 10 years! The people who passed the loyal dog each day were so touched by his story that they erected a statue in his honor in 1934.

In 1935, Hachiko died at the very same spot where he used to wait for his master.

Moral and thinking elements - we should take a lesson from this story for ourselves. By reciting the kalimah of Tawheed, all of us have taken an oath to be loyal to our Master, Allah Ta’ala. Now, we should look deep into ourselves and check to see how much love we really have for Allah in our hearts.

the source i got from.
hachiko@wikipedia

psychology of color

i like the color blue, black and white. while browsing the net i found out that color has its own psychology. that is different colors have different effect on peoples mind. also the color you like is a representation of your thinking.

for example blue causes the body to produce calming chemicals, which is the reason behind most people use it on the bedroom wall. blue is also a color of depression and cold. which matches exactly with my type of mentality. i dont know how i end up buying blue shirt most of the time i go to market. its a mystery. it also symbolizes loyalty, thus can be used while facing an interview.

anyway i found these links very interesting. all of them explaining color on their own view. its fascinating how many things one can relate with a single color.

color psychology
meaning of color
color symbology

congratulation to Dr. Mohammad Yunus

Dr. Mohammad Yunus is the first Bangladeshi to win a nobel prize ever. this is certainly a matter to be proud of. my heartily congratulations to Dr. Yunus and his dream organization Grameen Bank. by the norwegian authority for the nobel prize for peace 2006 selected Dr. Yunus and Grameen Bank

"for their efforts to create economic and social development from below"

his innovative program 'microcredit lending' helped millions of poor family, mainly poor women to be self employed and get rid of poverty. as those families dont possess the credit, that is required by conventional banks, to allow them for loans. the microcredit loans of grameen bank defined easier ways to get to them. so that they dont have to beg anymore. not only that, most families have improved the standard of living.

when i heard the news, i thought Dr. Yunus got it in economics. but the idea is "fight against poverty is also a struggle for peace."

congratualtions to Dr. Yunus and Grameen Bank once again to bring such an honor for him as well as for the country of 140 million people.

a little story for the traders

In the times of Umar (Radiallahu Anhu) there was a severe famine. All the people of Madinah were suffering due to the shortage of food. A caravan made up of a thousand camels loaded with a large stock of food grains belonging to Uthman (Radiallahu Anhu) arrived from Shaam (Syria). Several merchants offered to buy all of it. He asked them what profit they would pay. “Five per cent,” they said. He answered that he could get higher profit than that. They began to argue with him, saying that they did not know of any merchant who would offer him more than their quote. He said to them, “I know of one who repays a profit of more than seven hundred to a dirham (Arabian currency).” He then recited the verse of the Noble Quran in which Allah Ta’ala mentioned this profit. “The likeness of those who spend their wealth in the Way of Allah, is as the likeness of a grain (of corn); it grows seven ears, and each ear has a hundred grains. Allah gives manifold increase to whom He pleases. And
Allah is All-Sufficient for His creatures' needs, All-Knower.” (2:261).

“O traders! Bear witness with me that I donate all this to the poor people of Madinah!” said Uthman (Radiallahu Anhu).

Source: Related by Shaikh Habibullah Mukhtaar in his book “Bringing Up Children in Islaam” in the chapter of Generosity.

blogger beta

while using the blogger, i wondered why the blogger team isnt upgrading the system. dont they care about anymore! because it has loads of issues to solve. blogger beta is the solution to many of those issues. i had ignored the beta blogger for some time now. if you are a blogger and havent heard of it yet, then you might be delighted to know about this new approach.

the main problems squared up are -
- dynamic serving - what happened in the old blogger was that it would create static HTML files on your account every time you published, and those files would remain there unchanged until your next update. adding a new post in blogger beta is just updating the database. pages are created for the visitors dynamically, on the fly. no more replublishing and waiting for the indicator to reach 100%. i hate the waiting.
- categorization of the posts - which the blogger developers are naming as labels. the much talked about issue for the old blogger. now you can put the posts according to the tags that suits it and visitors can view them caetgorically. i saw and found old bloggers managed ways to categorize the posts using a third party, and it wasnt automatic and needed a good amount of effort.
- site viewing permission - some bloggers dont want their posts to be seen in public. in my thoughts their blogs are semi-private or semi-public. means they want a selected amount of users to access it. which actually doesnt make sense to me. well this can be done now. you can limit the blog to invited persons, or even only to the authors.
- widget elements - drag and drop widgets for the templates are added along with the template code editing.

the known issues -
- only IE 6 and firefox is supported till now.
- english-only
- third party services will not work.

you can add your wish here, if you have a good idea.

everything is going in the good direction, but slowly. i was wondering how i can switch to the new blogger beta and found out it is being given very slowly. only a low percentage of people who log in to blogger will see the option to switch over. the lucky ones will find a blue box in the sidebar of their dashboard. click the "learn more", and you will be guided through the switch over. everyone will get the option eventually sooner or later. but i dont like the idea of waiting. it kills me....:( and i didnt like the idea of leaving the old blogspace and starting over from the very beginning. i have to wait for it till the crack-heads can find my profile suitable! but if it seems a good option to leave your old home, start a new account in the gmail(you need a gmail account to create your profile). and start having fun.

hey you blogger developers(with a shouting tone and waving hands)!!!!! ---- i want to switch over....:D

new service of google

as a software engineer, companies like google, yahoo, mozilla etc are dreamland to me. they are constantly building softwares to support internet users. i always wondered how did people live the days without google! there is a new saying, "you wanna know something? ask google!"

ok, im gettin a little too excited. let me come to the point. google has launched a new service called the news archive search. its a specialized search engine that has numerous news/article sources like the New York Time and the Guardian from UK. along with that news aggregator, websites which collect and display news stories from multiple sources. users can search for events, people, ideas and see how they have been described over time. users can get an historical overview of the results by browsing an automatically created timeline. it also includes whether the news is free or needs a fee. related news results of a time are grouped together.

features -
- search diverse source
- browse timelines of events and stories
- identify key time periods
- discover variety of viewpoints

so the news geeksNpricks jump for it. go google go....:D

source : BBC, About

phoenix

myths and mythical characters always fascinated me. i have read a lot about this subject. but the only problem is i cant remember the details much. here is what i have found -

phoenix, is a sacred mythical bird/firebird, that dies in flames and is reborn from ashes. it is a male bird with beautiful gold and red plumage. according to the myths it regenerates when hurt/wounded/attcked by the enemy. that makes this kind an immortal one. you just cant eliminate them all. it lives around 500 years and when the time comes it gathers cinnamon twigs in his(its a male bird) nest and ignites the nest. the phoenix along with its nest burns to ashes, from which rises a new young phoenix. it is called fenghunag in chinese, bennu in egypt, huma in persian and garuda in sanskrit.

these myhtological creatures are very romantic. :-?

source - wikipedia

permanent vs temporary tattoo

while arguing with shakia ive got interested to knw about the total tattoo thing. and i enjoyed the research....;)... what is a tattoo? in the terms of wikipedia - A tattoo is a mark made by inserting pigment into the skin: in technical terms, tattooing is micro-pigment implantation. pigment is a kind of material that absorbs some color of the light and reflects a particular color [students of science already knw that]. what is meant by tattoo is the insertion of pigments in the skin, permanently. actually there are two kind of tattooing available. one is permanent - it will fade a little with ur aging but u cant wipe it up, unless u cut ur skin deep enough to remove those pigments[which is way out of question, right?]. and another kind is the temporary one. in bangladesh, pakistan, india and in some other countries the henna tattoo is popular amongst musilm women.

scientic explanations of permanent and temporary tattoo - when henna is applied on the skin only the outer layer of skin, epidermis is colored with it. and as we are continously losing our skins the henna tattoo will last 1-4 weeks dependin on the various terms. but it certainly will not last for a life time. some tribes used to cut their skin and rubbin some color on the resultin wound. which became permanent, but the procedure was painful and barbaric. in the late 1800 Samuel O'Reilly designed a tattoo machine, which has a niddle to pierce the skin and reach the 'dermis', the inner layer of the skin, and puts some color pigments there. the number of times it will pierce ur skin depends on the resolution u want...;)... anyway, it might not be barbaric anymore but painful enough.

though islam doent allow the permanent tattooing it allows the henna tattooin only for the women. im quoting two lines -
- The Messenger of Allah (peace be on him) cursed the tattooer and the one who is tattooed, the shortener of teeth and the one whose teeth are shortened. (Reported by Muslim.)
- Make up is considered an abuse of natural skin but women are allowed to wear henna patterns. so think twice before having a permanent tattoo....;)

today we are given a half day off as our CEO is coming from usa. so im takin the opportunity to write blogs...:D... i have found this news about manhole cover thieves in europe. now bangladeshi, specially people of dhaka knw that manholes arent supposed to have covers, as the thieves are workin hard. but guess what same events are happening in Belgium. tsk tsk, now we can say Bangladesh - we are always ahead....:P

tattoos - not safe

i read in a magazine that there is a new generation called "generation djuice". specially the "yo" kids with their tryin to be cool attitude are called the Generation D, or Gen YO which is a similiar generation like the hippies. they have piercin in bodyparts where normal people dont expect or imagine. the next point they might catch up with is the tattoos and such. it didnt happen till now because this kind of service is not available here in bangladesh. i will not be surprised if i find one tattooing shop here in dhaka someday from now. but beware to have somethin written/etched permanently on your body. u might end up havin written "pervert" or "slut" on your skin. and u cant wipe it up. and how? check the link. Souf Oaklin Online

50k GB DVD!

Professor V Renugopalakrishnan of the Harvard Medical School in Boston claims to have developed a layer of protein made from genetically altered, light-sensitive microbe proteins which could store up to 50K GB or 50 terabytes. The light-activated protein, found in Halobacterium salinarum membrane, is also known as bacteriorhodopsin (bR). It captures and stores sunlight and converts it to chemical energy. When light shines on bR, it is converted to a series of intermediate molecules each with a unique shape and colour before returning to its 'ground state'.

By modifying the DNA that produces the bR protein, Prof Renugopalakrishnan and his colleagues were able to produce an intermediate that normally last for a few days to lasts for more than several years. They also engineered the bR protein to be more stable at the high temperatures generated by storing terabytes of data. They said the new technology will ultimately pave the way for a binary system to store data. "What this will do eventually is eliminate the need for hard drive memory completely," said Renugopalakrishnan.

Prof Renugopalakrishnan believes the protein layer could allow DVDs and other external devices to store terabytes of information.The new protein-based DVD will have advantages over current optical storage devices including next-gen DVD wannabe Bluray and HD-DVD because the information is stored in proteins that are only a few nanometres across.

"The protein-based DVDs will be able to store at least 20 times more than the Blue-ray and eventually even up to 50,000 gigabytes (about 50 terabytes) of information. You can pack literally thousands and thousands of those proteins on a media like a DVD, a CD or a film or whatever," he said at the International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Brisbane.

Source: QJ.NET - Gadgets Blog - 24/7 Coverage of the latest Gadgets news - Article Detail
NB: the total information is just copied from the link...;))

google page rank

i always wonder, what would happen if there were no google search engine to help us find sites we need. also how do they rank the pages. how one pages come to the first search result for some terms..... and offcourse what brilliant software engineers these ppl are!!!... has a dream to work in the google!!:O... yeap may be an impossible dream, a rather expensive dream. but dreams are dreams. so no problem.

i have a toolbar that shows the google page rank. ranking frm 0 to 10. and saw almost all the time that my blogsite has 0 out of 10.. :( ... today and one day earlier this month this site of mine was showing ranked 5!!!.... i dont knw how... then refreshed the site to verify... page rank stays at 5.... i was so glad..feeling on the top of the world.. after an hour i checked again. and bam. its down to earth again. 0. zeeeerrrrooo!! huh. or should i say duh!

im confuesed now. whether the pageranks shown for other sites are really true. or just some random rnaking!!!

u can check this link. it tried to describe also. but too much confusing.

beer from ur taps?

what if u r an alcoholic and one day u open ur tap to find beer instead of water!!!... sounds wishful thinkin.. or may be crazy!... but it happened in europe... hmm. dont believe me.. check this link.

frm this news in the bbc, suddenly i remember the days of iut. being the university far frm dhaka i used to stay in the hostel... and man i enjoyed those days most - sadly whn the days whr ending it was becomin more interesting!!... thr was a besin and a tap in every room of iut. one day in the first yr opened the tap to wash my face and found out coke is coming out of the tap!!.. astonished and dumbstruck i touched the water and found out it is actually water... the rust of the steel pipes actually got mixed with the water... and it seemed like coke...:P... i wished it is cocacola!!... tested it a little... yakh !!... hahahahaha... just wanna say dont try this..;-)

by the way im not alcoholic..:P ... i just want cocacola from my tap, please.

search by google

one day whn i was bz in my office doing 'toilet cleaning!', one of my frnd dipu knocked me in the IM and said "tareq, go to the google and search by ur full name and add iccit with it"..... i was confused! bcoz searching my name in the google doesnt make any sense, does it? as he requested once more i reluctantly wrote "tareq mohammad yousuf iccit" and clicked search.... i was amazed that the first item actually refering to me....!!!

well the fact is that i have a paper published in the journal of iccit 2005 and this paper is uploaded in the net.... but one thing made me really amazed, the efficiency of google.... yes i knew earlier that google is the best.... now i believe it.