Yes, the largest encyclopedia in the world, Wikipedia, is currently DOWN due to some DNS problem (or at least that’s the error I am getting). Down for at least the last 20 minutes and counting.
Wonder what the problem might be… Surely they have redundancy.
Here is a video that has been spreading around the Internet lately, coming from the UK. It is both interesting and scary at the same time! Imagine you in your little car getting pushed by a huge tanker truck (or lorry for our English visitors 
)… But it is not a gentle push, ITS AT 60MPH (almost 100KMH)!!!
And you know what the worst part is? The driver pushing you is either completely oblivious to the fact that your car is being pushed by him or is completely insane!! Anyways enough talk here is the video:
This is from the BBC:
Police say they are reopening an investigation after footage of a motorway crash near Wetherby was posted on YouTube.
A lorry was seen pushing a car sideways on the southbound A1 (M) on 13 January.
The haulage company responsible for the truck confirmed that no action had been taken against the driver after the police’s first investigation.
Police say there were no injuries and both vehicles were on the hard shoulder by the time they arrived, so the incident was treated as a “damage-only collision”.
Concluding the Bahrain GP, an exciting race, even though we don’t have all those surprises during pit stops (flaming fuel hoses and such 
)!
Finish line was something like this:
Vettel had some problems with his car which ended his first position to fourth. Schumacher gained just 1 position from 7th to 6th.
Interesting fact: Schumacher’s debut (1991) was also 7th in the starting grid.
This feels like its going to be an exciting season! Can’t wait for the next race…!!
Well, yesterday’s qualifying session was a surprise with Vettel getting pole. I bet even he was surprised himself! Tailing him will be 2 Ferraris, Massa getting second and Alonso third. Massa did a great job despite having been out of an F1 car ever since the almost fatal accident in Hungary last season. Unfortunately Schumacher is starting in 7th, I guess you can’t be the best immediately, after retiring for a while.
This is an interesting lineup, my other half being Brazilian, I am cheering for Massa!
Today morning I had decided to go and collect my Viva SIM card from the closest outlet to home, Al Jazira supermarket, Zinj. The Viva website mentioned that their branch there is open 7 days a week from 9am to 9pm, perfect.
I left home just under 10 minutes to 9am, its really close, and especially today being a Friday (weekend here), I was practically the only person on the road! I got there at 9am sharp. I wasn't expecting to be the first person in line, so I prepared mentally for the hugest queue in the world!
As I walked in I read the A4 paper signs, they were "Gold and Silver Regestration Only" (yes with the spelling mistake) and "Ladies Only" (I think with correct spelling). The "Gold and Silver" had around 5 people in queue, no ladies, and the 3rd queue was signless and long, so I guessed I had to stand on this one (probability that most people opted to book a free number, so more people in line = free numbers line).
Unfortunately it seemed liked they were still not open yet, I heard that sometimes they open on time, some times a while late, other times a full hour late etc… I stood on the same spot until around 10am, when finally it seemed like people were starting to move (since the area is small, the queue went around a wall, so I never had a clear view of the counter, and I wasn't ready to lose my place!!!). But I think people decided to get a drink or something (since it's inside the supermarket) and the queue appeared shorter…
A while later I could definitely notice that the queue was starting to move and people were getting their SIMs since I had seen some people pass by with the little Viva "wallet" and of course a smile in their faces like so 
!
The supermarket's security started asking us in queue if we had reserved a book prior since the queue was different. I was one of those that had booked online during their pre-launch promo. My queue was "Gold and Silver Regestration"… Couldn't they had made it clearer…? Anyways I didn't complain, that queue was much much shorter than the one I was in! Deceivingly…
To cut the story short, the people who hadn't reserved numbers were moving quick, the guy in front of me had picked his SIM way before me. It seems like the flaw is in their registration system, it is simply toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww… Yes I had to add all those letters to let you know how slow it is…
As a person who has already booked, here are the steps taken:
Was it worth it getting it a week only after launch? Well I had nothing else to do and was bored, standing in line reminded me of my school days and trips to airports such as Heathrow (where queues are long, but at least it moves!).
I will get another review up with the initial setup after getting your SIM (don't worry its much easier than SIM pickup day ).
Your Viva "wallet" contains(it is not really called a wallet, its the first thing that came to my mind when I saw it flipping open…):
I might add a picture of it later so you guys see what I mean .
I have just compiled the first release of what I think a portable version of Chromium (the web browser that is Google Chrome’s source) should feel like. It even comes with an Incognito executable (no more creating shortcuts or remembering to open an Incognito window etc…).
Since builds are outdated within mere hours, I will not be updating it for every build released by Chromium’s build bot. Instead I will update it every few days with the latest release (at the time) that has passed all of the tests. Updating it is as simple as downloading a zip file and overwriting the files!
Details and download link found here.
If you have any questions or suggestions about Chromium Portable you may leave a message over at the CP page or contact me through the form.
For the past few days I have been playing around with Chromium (not Google Chrome) browser and trying to make it portable and at the same time make it work with PortableApps. After a bit of tinkering I have successfully built it to almost PA specs.
Chromium is very much like Chrome except there is no Google branding, doesn’t come with an automatic updater, no Google unique ID sent along with your searches and you have few extra (but not that much of an impact) features. It works fully with extensions and themes found in Google’s Chrome gallery.
By making it portable (and in the PA format) it works with the PortableApps menu (along with associated icons) and all data as you browse will be saved on your USB drive instead of on the host computer.
There is a portable Chromium for PA already, but that version seems to require access to the registry whenever you want to run (since at university students have no admin rights, it didn’t work there). Plus I wanted it starting in Incognito by default (in case my drive gets lost at least there are no records of sites I visited, cookies, passwords etc…).
I will release it probably some time over the weekend, once I have to time to tweak it to PA format. It will use the latest built version of Chromium (but will come with update instructions, which is very very easy don’t worry), the default paf installer will come with starting as Incognito by default but I will offer the other .exe that you can replace for non-Incognito startups (which will then allow you to use extensions, since Incognito mode does not work with extensions).
I will get a post up and have a dedicated page to it when its ready, keep checking the blog !
Midterms “season” has begun at university. So far 1 down (databases) few more to go this week and over the coming weeks. I already got the result of my databases midterm, it was way better than I expected.
I thought I had lost more than 2 points (yes I was 2 points short of a full mark ), especially in a the fill in the blanks part where I kept thinking “this should be filled here, oh wait no this looks similar as well, maybe its here, maybe here?…”
The exam had a practical part where we had to use Oracle, create some tables and run some queries. I am glad it was open book (no searching online, only using files available for the course), because when I tried to run some queries from the top of my head I had messed up with the syntax or ordering of clauses.
However, with so many slides and documents available I couldn’t find a way to rename an attribute or field. The only document that was close mentioned that it was not implemented before Oracle 9i (in the past you had to create a new column using the new name and copy over the data from the old to the new). (Un)Luckily for me, we had 9i installed so the feature exists, but the document was written for older version of Oracle…
After going back home and doing a quick search I found what I had to do:
ALTER TABLE tableName RENAME COLUMN oldColumn TO newColumn
Now I know !
It’s that time of the year again here in Bahrain. It’s time for the 7th Bahrain Grand Prix starting in approximately 4 days! Those unfamiliar, the Bahrain GP is the Formula 1 race that has been held every year since 2004, when Bahrain became the first country in the Middle East to host Formula 1.
There are many changes this season, teams wise, track and of course rules and regulations.
Teams
Track
The Bahrain GP track has changed significantly ever since its debut, actually just a part of it, with added twists and turns. Below you can find the old track (2004-2009) and the new track (2010), source Wikipedia:
The new track has the part from turn 4 to turn 5 modified, the light gray piece has been added with extra turns as shown below:
The new section starts at turn 5 all the way to turn 14! This has increased the track length by approximately 400 meters give or take. It will be interesting to see how old (and new, but mostly old) drivers handle this new track after being used to the previous layout for all these years.
Rules and Regulations
Where Can I Buy Tickets!!
Well if you are in Bahrain most malls will have the F1 stand somewhere inside. If you are from outside of Bahrain you can try the Bahrain GP site for more information including buying tickets.
To those coming from outside Bahrain, I wish you a pleasant stay in this wonderful country and I hope you enjoy the race!
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