Patrick's Talk about Me and Egypt

Life @ Microsoft Revealed ;)

Video 4 :)

This is amazingly funny :)

Life At Microsoft - The Truth Revealed

24 Hours in Seattle

Video 3 :)

Work Life Balance at Microsoft

Video 2 :)



Video: Work Life Balance at Microsoft

Perks: A Microsoft guy tries to use all his benefits in one day

Video 1 :)



Perks: A Microsoft guy tries to use all his benefits in one day

Is Microsoft Fun? (Aka View

A question I usually get, is working at Microsoft fun compared to other companies like Google? Or it's just a place for geeks :)?

Will answer this question through the next days, stay tight ;)

Egyptian Fighter!

Airborn :-)

Enjoy :-)

Masha2 Allah!

I am air born :)

Since the old days I always wanted to be a pilot, and this stayed with me until I recently saw an ad on the Internet with a coupon for a discovery flight with $99 (discovery flight means a small 1-lesson course in which you get a taste of what flying is and you even fly around with the aircraft for a while to taste this), so I thought why not to begin learning flying now?

Is it the time?

I think so.

So I went there yesterday and I got my first discovery, which including pre-taking off check-list (internal/external) and then the instructor let me take off with the plane and then play for a while up there and then he landed the plane (it's so hard to land it without enough knowledge, but it's easy to take it off).

Any way after that I decided that I'll continue until I get my private license, and then I may go with the instrumental rating (enables you to fly completely depending on the avionics only) and may be after that to take instructor license :)

 

That what the plane we flew yesterday (Cessna C172 Skyhawk N1152Z):

 

 

This is air force 2 which seems be having it maintenance done on that day:

 

And finally it's me :) :

iPhone, it's not just a phone

Allah made me funny

Those guys are really funny :)

http://www.allahmademefunny.com/

Poll #4: How do you think about us Egyptian as whole?

So finally, now regardless of "we've kind hearts" and we "live in peace", and issues like that, I am talking professionally, what do you think about our value as "Egyptians" (only those who live inside Egypt) for the man kind?

And please give reasons for your opinion.

N.B: I don't hate being Egyptian, but I see a HUGE amount of negative issues more than any other nation in the history (as a nation which was one day the most advanced one on the planet)

Poll #3: How many Egyptian do you think will take any professional criticism personally?

Again, in continue for the last post, the final question:

If you went to your college, and told any professor that his way of teaching is not good and that you can't understand anything, what do you expect that he'll do?

1. Give you bad grades in his subject (or even make you fail in his subject)?
2. Tell you that you're rude and then you'll probably find that you've lost one year in the college (or may even lose the whole college).
3. Tell you "Thanks for letting me know, you're a honest person"?

Knowing the fact that you told him this sentence exactly:

"Dr. X, I am just having an opinion about the way you Sir are teaching us, I just don't like it because I can't understand very well from it, can you please Sir just try to make it slower?"

And just apply the same issue on any other person (police officer, your neighbour, etc).

Poll #2: How many people do you think will accept to marry a rapped girl?

In continue for the previous post, and taking this post as a reference, this time the question is simple:

We all know that when a girl is rapped that she's a victim, we all agree on this and I am sure than about 80%-90% of the population actually agree on this, but the question, how many people do you think will accept the following:

1. Marry the rapped girl (or letting their son marry her) and at the same time all the people around them know this fact (someone may marry a rapped girl as long as no one know this fact).
2. Accept her as a best friend for their daughter (again while all the people around them know that she's rapped).
3. Accept their daughter to bring her to the home normally.
4. Don't look into her as someone who "did sex before" and look into her as normal as them?
5. Finally, looking into her as a completely normal girl which doesn't have any difference than their virgin daughter or sister?

For me, I see that most of the population won't allow any of the above, so if anyone saw any case which is not like this, please let me know, because all the cases I knew about won't accept any of the above.

UPDATE: If you don't believe that this is true, and Egyptians will treat her well, then can you tell me why only 5%-10% of the rapped girls and rapped girls family actually report the rapping?(From ministry of interior reports and some un-official reports and organizations).

Because if people are treating them well, then why they don't report it?

Why they feel it's shame and they shouldn't report it?!

Poll #1: What do you think about Egyptian youth in colleges?

A debate has been going on lately about the current generations and whether they are good or they don't even deserve to get the free education they are getting, in my opinion, 85%-90% of the students in those college don't even deserve to be there for the following reasons:

A- Students in colleges like Arts, Law, Commerce, etc.

1. Most of them care only about what they will be wearing tomorrow, and how to approach the other sex, and how to get the most recent mobile phone and stuff like that.
2. They don't have any idea what they are doing in this college.
3. They don't have any plans for their future.
4. They hardly succeed in the college.
5. They graduated without any much knowledge about the issue they were studying.

B- Students in what called "Top Colleges" (i.e. Computer Science, Medicine, Engineering, etc), I'll be talking about Computer Science but I know that this issues apply on the other colleges from my friends inside them:

1. When you find a student who took a place in the college and doesn't even like computer (actually he/she hates computer so much!!!!)
2. When learning programming and computer science for him/her is only for the sake of getting higher grades.
3. When he/she is in his final year, and doesn't even know a very primitive terms like Object Oriented, break point, #include, namespace, dynamic link library, linker, etc (I am not talking about the meaning that you can get by typing define:word in Google, I am talking about understanding it).
4. When their graduation project is anything as long as it gives them more grades.
5. When they do the same subjects' projects without even looking into the code (just get the code from anyone).
6. When they ignore anything related to the field as long as it doesn't give them any additional grades.
7. When they look into anyone who do anything normal as a "genius".
8. When reading for them means "shit".
9. When talking with them in technology means that you either "a geek" or just "showing off" even if what you're talking about is really nothing!

I know that the system itself sucks, but I am talking about a specific issue, now knowing the fact that we got a percentage of about 10%-15% successful graduates from these colleges, then now we know that anyone could succeed inside, so if you failed, it's your fault.

Now to the poll question, do you agree with these issue and that they actually exist or not?

Microsoft Surface!

I was looking to talk about this new innovation from Microsoft for a long time, but I was waiting for someone to post a video which I can include here in the blog, and finally it happened:

What do you think?

Isn't it really cool?

Now you can see the official surface web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

By the way, surface is based on Windows Vista

Apple: What's the deal?!

Few months ago I saw this video from that journalist in New York Times, and I just ignore it because it was unprofessional and very idiotic.

But when I see that Apple used the exact same points in that video in a public conference, this was really a surprise for me on how Apple is doing marketing as if they don’t have any real thing to do marketing for!!! (Especially after they was about to die before)

To summarize what they are talking about, they mentioned these points:

1. New Vista Search: in Mac OS it’s on the top and in Vista in the lower menu.
2. The Vista Calendar: that Mac OS has the same calendar.
3. The photo organizer.
4. The Chess game


Although as you see that the point mentioned above are far away from being “The OS Main Features Which proves that Vista is a copy of Mac OS” let’s answer them all:


1- New Vista Search:

Search was there in the start menu since the first windows version, it was a menu item and now it's a textbox!!!
And it was there in old windows with the same look like now if you installed Windows Desktop search (or even Google Desktop search) and have Windows Desktop Search bar on explorer, so it's not new at all!!!

2- The Calendar:
It was there since years, and it was there in office (i.e. Outlook) as well since years with the exact same interface!!


3- The photos Organizer:The interface was like this in Windows XP, the only addition is the shape which is ok now after the DX addition, and one more thing, does Mac OS X support the same feature in Vista Photos organizer exactly (I just saw the interface in the video), also Mac OS doesn’t have features like building DVDs on the fly.


4- The chess game: Since when built-in games are an OS feature which is used to identify an OS?!!!!!!
And for the chess game, did Mac invent the chess game?!!!!!!!!
It's just adding all popular games in the free games section, and you know what? Open the about section of the game: "Chess Titans developed for Microsoft Corporation by Oberon Games", mmm interesting, may be because Mac can’t have any more games so Chess will be a Mac OS feature!!

There's even a normal customer who said nearly the same as I said:



And about Mac OS, it’s not even a complete generic OS, it still doesn’t support some protocols, which makes it impossible for Mac machines from talking with some other machines over the network, also I am sure that APIs and framework are hard like hell, or how does it happen that there’s not much software products out there for Mac like Windows and Linux?!!


Now let’s jump into some Vista features, may be they are also copied from Mac and I don’t know!!

(original post in hany's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/hanybarakat/archive/2007/05/04/windows-vista-must-know-features.aspx)

#1. SuperFetch:
SuperFetch is basically a feature where the OS collects information about how you use your computer, how do you open applications and what loads after what... etc. The OS uses these information to preloads your applications into your system memory so it'll be ready when you need them. Needless to say this saves a lot of time and increases the system response time and performance.

#2. ReadyBoost:
Windows Vista introduces Windows ReadyBoost, a new concept in adding memory to a system. You can use non-volatile flash memory, such as that on a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive, to improve performance without having to add additional memory. It's easy to use Windows ReadyBoost. When a removable memory device such as a USB flash drive or a secure digital (SD) memory card is first inserted into a port, Windows Vista checks to see if its performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, you are asked if you want to use this device to speed up system performance. You can choose to allocate part of a USB drive's memory to speed up performance and use the remainder to store files.

#3. BitLocker Drive Encryption:
It's a data security feature introduced in Vista. BitLocker enhances data protection by bringing together two major sub-functions: drive encryption and the integrity checking of early boot components. By default it uses the AES encryption algorithm in CBC mode with a 128 bit key, combined with the Elephant diffuser for additional security.

#4. Built-in Diagnostics:
Windows Vista contains built-in diagnostics—collections of instrumentation, troubleshooting, and resolution logic—to resolve external problems that affect the way Windows Vista behaves. It provides a number of diagnostic scenarios—including Network Diagnostics and troubleshooting—to address some of the most common and costly problems facing PC users.

#5. Windows photo gallery:
Is now easier with features like fix (color, brightness, red-eye... etc.). The more amazing about the photo gallery is that you always have a saved original backup of the image no matter how many times you edit it. Windows Photo Gallery lets users organize their digital photo collection in its Gallery view, by adding titles, rating, captions, and custom metadata tags to photos.

#6. Parental Controls:
These controls help parents determine which games their children can play, which programs they can use, and which websites they can visit—and when. You can review easy-to-read activity reports that show how your children have been using the computer. Monitoring your children's computer behavior not only makes it easy for you to keep track of what they are seeing, hearing, and doing, but it also enables you to refine and modify parental controls based on actual feedback.

#7. Windows Defender:
Superior scanning and removal technologies use up-to-date spyware definitions created by Microsoft, with help from Windows Defender users who submit reports of potential new spyware.

#8. Backup and Restore Center:
The Backup and Restore Center gives you one place to manage all backup-related features. Windows Vista include a useful innovation to help you protect your data: Shadow Copy. This feature automatically creates point-in-time copies of files as you work, so you can quickly and easily retrieve versions of a document you may have accidentally deleted.

#9. Windows SideShow:
Wouldn't it be great if you could read an e-mail message, confirm a meeting location, or check a flight reservation without turning on your computer? Windows SideShow is a new technology in Windows Vista that supports a secondary screen on your mobile PC. With this additional display you can view important information whether your laptop is on, off, or in sleep mode.

91 more new features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/100reasons.mspx

Microsoft Photosynth Rocks!

Photosynth is an amazing new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that will change forever the way you think about digital photos.

Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.
With Photosynth you can:

• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
• Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
• Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
• Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.

Microsoft OFone

By the way, this is a Spoof: