Nauman (recluze) on Computing, Philosophy and more ...

Wrote a Book on Keras 3

Wrote a book that lays the foundation for practical deep learning development, beginning with core machine learning concepts and gradually building toward sophisticated neural network architectures. Whether you’re a b...

• Authoring
• Keras 3
• Machine Learning

Creating a dApp (Smart Contract) on Ethereum

I recently created a video course on creating a dApp on top of the Ethereum framework. Along with the detailed videos, I prepared step-by-step notes for the course. So, I decided to share them here for those who wish ...

• Tutorials
• Blockchains
• dApps

Using Deep Learning for Source Separation (Music Removal)

I wanted to share a case study on how open source can help solve mundane, every day, personal, real world issues.

• Geek Stuff
• Site
• Open source

Moved to Github Pages

I’ve moved once again! This time, I’m taking the show to Github Pages. In the past, I’ve advised students to stay away from Github Pages and just stick to Wordpress because I feel doing this whole static site generati...

• Geek Stuff
• Site

Software Engineering vs Computer Science

So, people who are interested in Computer Science have been asking me whether they should pick a Computer Science specialisation or a Software Engineering one.

• Courses
• Teaching

Split string to int vector in C++

As you guys might know, I’m not so fond of C++. The C language is great but the ++ additions are just not my thing. Here’s an example of why: If you want to split a comma separated string into integers in Python, it’s...

• Articles
• C++
• Geek stuff

COLAB Undergrad Roadmap

For the past year or so, we’ve been working towards creating a collaborative environment that can help undergrad students achieve their true potential in CS through augmented learning. 

• Pedagogy
• resources

Programming Fundamentals Course at NUCES

Just started the introductory course on Programming Fundamentals here in FAST NUCES. To all the new students who are visiting here, welcome! Make yourself comfortable.

• Announcements

New Course on Intermediate Level Python

I’ve just finished creating an intermediate level Python course. If you have had a course on basic Python and you want to take your skills to the next level, you can take this course to learn concepts that differentia...

• Courses
• python

Talk on Blockchain @ IMSciences

I’m scheduled to give a 1.5 hour talk on blockchains at IMSciences, Peshawar. It’s free so if you can make it, you’re welcome to attend.

• Announcements
• Blockchains

Hyperledger Fabric and Composer - First Practical Blockchain (Video Course)

I have just finished uploading a new video course about Hyperledger Fabric and Composer - First Practical Blockchain.

• Blockchains
• Courses
• Video

Linux Command Line - From Zero to Expert (New Video Course)

I have a new video course that helps aspiring computer scientists excel in almost any area that they decide to pursue by teaching them about the Linux command line – one of the best investments in time anyone working ...

• Courses
• Linux

Practical Deep Learning with Keras and Python (New Video Course)

I’ve just finished creating a new video course on Udemy about Practical Deep Learning with Keras and Python. It’s aimed at two types of people:

• Courses
• Deep Learning
• Keras

Deep Learning Experiments on Google's GPU Machines for Free

Update: If you are interested in getting a running start to machine learning and deep learning, I have created a course that I’m offering to my dedicated readers for just $9.99. Practical Deep Learning with Keras and ...

• Announcements
• Articles
• Deep Learning

Machine Learning Crash Intro

Update: If you are interested in getting a running start to machine learning and deep learning, I have created a course that I’m offering to my dedicated readers for just $9.99. Practical Deep Learning with Keras and ...

• Announcements
• Courses
• Machine Learning

Beginning Programming with Python

So, I’ve been teaching CS101 - Introduction to Computing this semester (Fall 2017). We picked Python as the language. I’ve compiled the videos and all the lecture notebooks. These are being made available in the hopes...

• Articles
• Pedagogy
• python

Deep Learning for Protein Function Prediction

Protein function prediction is taking information about a protein (such as its amino acid sequence, 2D and 3D structure etc.) and trying to predict which functions it will exhibit. This has implications in several are...

• Machine Learning
• python
• research

Machine Learning Video Lectures

Update: If you are interested in getting a running start to machine learning and deep learning, I have created a course that I’m offering to my dedicated readers for just $9.99. Practical Deep Learning with Keras and ...

• Announcements
• Machine Learning
• resources

Machine Learning Self-Study Track

I started with Machine Learning a while back and had a slightly hard time getting help from the local community. The reason was mostly because the Machine Learning community in general is way behind the state-of-the-a...

• Machine Learning
• resources

Learning How to Learn

I’ve just started with another Coursera course – this one about learning in general. The course is called Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects. It’s actually a fairly easy goi...

• Pedagogy

Backup Using rsync

Here’s a mini howto on backing up files  on a remote machine using rsync. It shows the progress while it does its thing and updates any remote files while keeping files on the remote end that were deleted from your lo...

• Geek stuff
• Tutorials

About Me

I am a teacher and researcher working in the field of computer science. Find out more about me on the About page or see my research output on the Publications page.

• Meta

How to Access Google Adsense Reports

So, Admob was acquired a while ago by Google and it was recently announced that the publisher reports by Admob would no longer be available through the old APIs. Instead, they now have to be retrieved through the AdSe...

• Tutorials

Back to Wordpress

Well, that was short-lived. I moved away from Wordpress – only to come back after around 6 months and one post. Seems like Octopress is too much of a hassle for someone as unstable as me. Maybe another time when I’m m...

• Announcements

Hadoop 2.2.0 - Single Node Cluster

We’re going to use the the Hadoop tarball we compiled earlier to run a pseudo-cluster. That means we will run a one-node cluster on a single machine. If you haven’t already read the tutorial on building the tarball, p...

• Hadoop
• Tutorials

Geting started with Hadoop 2.2.0 -- Building

I wrote a tutorial on getting started with Hadoop back in the day (around mid 2010). Turns out that the distro has moved on quite a bit with the latest versions. The tutorial is unlikely to work. I tried setting up Ha...

• Geek stuff
• Hadoop
• Linux

Writing Better English -- Avoid Very

I return with a minor post after another long break. This time, it’s about writing better English. Now, this isn’t humblebragging but I cannot be considered excellent at English writing – at least not by native standa...

• research
• Writing

Row-level Permissions in Django Admin

So you’ve started working with Django and you love the admin interface that you get for free with your models. You deploy half of your app with the admin interface and are about to release when you figure out that any...

• Django
• python
• Tutorials

AVL Tree in Python

I’ve been teaching “Applied Algorithms and Programming Techniques” and we just reached the topic of AVL Trees. Having taught half of the AVL tree concept, I decided to code it in python – my newest adventure. Bear in ...

• Geek stuff
• python
• resources

Random Chemicals to Reproducible Life

Back when I first became interested in science, one of the first areas I was interested in was Biology – specifically human evolution because of the hype it gets. The whole religion versus science becomes very pronoun...

• Philosophy

A No-nonsense OpenERP Installation Guide

This is a no-nonsense guide to the installation of OpenERP – the popular open source and customizable ERP solution – aimed at the complete newbie. Of course, there has to just a little bit of “nonsense” to get you sta...

• OpenERP
• Tutorials

Agent Mobility with JADE and JIPMS

A friend and I have been working on Java Agent DEvelopment Framework (JADE) for a while now. The idea is to enhance security mechanisms in the open source agent-deployment platform. The first step we decided to addres...

• Java
• Tutorials

Creating UML Sequence Diagrams with TikZ in LaTeX

Update: If you are interested in getting a concise intro to LaTeX along with my tips on best practices, checkout my course (for just $12.99) on Udemy here.

• Design
• Geek stuff
• LaTeX

LaTeX Screencasts

I’ve started putting together a couple of screencasts for those who want to start working with LaTeX. These are aimed at the extreme newbie who wants to learn the basics and get up to speed with the typesetting tool. ...

• Geek stuff
• Tutorials
• Video

F11, CS314 Lab Interim Results

Below you can find the individual scores for assignments and quizzes set in CS314 Computer Networks Lab for Fall 2011. Note that the course instructor will decide at the end of the semester how these get incorporated ...

• Announcements

CS 303 Software Engineering (NU) Administrivia

Update Sep 08, 2011: Lectures are now available on the Lecture Server. Please get the updates there.

• resources
• Students

Setting up Exim to Use Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is a Email Marketer’s dream come true. It allows you to send bulk emails to customers without fear of having your email land in their spam/junk folder – unless of course you’re sendin...

• Tutorials

Site Re-design

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• Design
• Geek stuff

Varnish Cache for Wordpress on cPanel

Varnish is an extremely easy to configure server cache software that can help you counter the ‘slashdot effect’ – high traffic over a small period of time. The way Varnish does this is by sitting between the client an...

• Linux
• resources
• Tutorials

Google Has Messed Up Social Once Again

I know I might be in the minority right now but that’s how I feel. It seems Google has learned little from Wave and Buzz. Here’s what I think has gone wrong this time.

• Articles
• Geek stuff

Arabic/Urdu Typesetting the Easy Way

As the regular readers might know, I’m a big fan and regular user of the LaTeX typsetting system. Keeping to the tradition of occasionally posting a LaTeX tutorial on the blog, here’s one that will be useful to all th...

• Softwares
• Tutorials
• Typography

Readability for the Web

I just came across this great feature in Safari (having downloaded it for Windows 7) that’s called ‘Safari Reader’. It allows you to read articles on any webpage in an extremely readable, uncluttered pane.

A Basic Naive Bayes classifier in Matlab

Update: If you are interested in getting a running start to machine learning and deep learning, I have created a course that I’m offering to my dedicated readers for just $9.99. Access it here on Udemy. If you are onl...

• Geek stuff
• Machine Learning
• research

ProFTPD with SFTP, MySQL and Monthly Usage Reports

To install ProFTPD with MySQL-based authentication and SFTP support, you need to download the latest version of the source code and build it with customized options. But first, some prerequisites. (These instructions ...

• Tutorials
• Web

Enabling Voicemail for A2billing

So you’ve setup a2billing and have everything working out, all the DIDs are forwarded to a2billing and all the call plans are set. All you’re missing is a voicemail system. Wait no more. Here’s how to enable voicemail...

• resources
• Tutorials

Helpful Tips for Newbie System Admins

Before you start reading this tutorial, let me remind you once again who the intended audience of this post is – newbie system administrators. If you’re an experienced admin and are going to laugh at my naivete for wr...

• Geek stuff
• Linux
• Tutorials

Installing Jira with MySQL

Jira is an extremely well-known issue tracking system and is used widely for project management in a wide array of fields. It has quite a detailed documentation but it’s in the form of a wiki and as we all know, wikis...

• Geek stuff
• Linux
• Tutorials

Creating Multiple Volumes on Amazon EC2

For those of you who have used Amazon AWS (EC2 specifically) for more than just testing would know that the / partition in an AMI does not go beyond 10GB. So, if you need more space you need to mount more volumes. Thi...

• Cloud
• Geek stuff
• Linux

Bash Script to Find and Replace in a Set of Files

Ok, so this might sound childish to the more experienced admins and programmers but I’ve always found the need to search and replace a string in multiple files. For example, if I have to work with an inexperienced pro...

• Geek stuff
• Linux
• Tutorials

Troubleshooting vTiger CRM Install on PHP 5.2

I recently had to deploy vTiger CRM 5 on a machine running PHP 5.2. Turned out that vTiger does not like PHP 5.2 because of some differences between PHP 5.0 and 5.2. As soon as you start the install script, you get th...

• resources
• Tutorials

Web Fax for Asterisk

Over the past few weeks, I have been working with the popular telephony software asterisk and all the stack that stands on top of it. I have (in coordination with a friend) setup asterisk, FreePBX, a2billing, fax for ...

• Geek stuff
• Linux
• resources

Auto Scale with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

In this video, we talk about Auto Scale feature of the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Auto Scale allows AWS to automatically start new instances of AMIs as more and more load is put on the instance. You can define trigg...

• Geek stuff
• resources
• Tutorials

Getting Started with Amazon EC2 - Install, Configure, Connect

The second in the series of Amazon Web Service tutorial videos. Here we describe how to create a keypair for shell access to an Amazon Machine Image instance, how to do basic firewall configuration to enable remote lo...

• Cloud
• Geek stuff
• Tutorials

Introduction to Amazon Web Services [Video]

The first in a series of videos by CSRDU about Amazon Web Services (AWS). Here, we talk about the different web services and technologies offered by AWS. It’s supposed to make sense of the different services that AWS ...

• Cloud
• Geek stuff
• Tutorials

Inserting Source Code and LaTeX in Wordpress

A friend of mine asked me the other day how ‘pretty printed’ source code can be inserted into wordpress posts. Here’s how:

• Geek stuff
• resources
• Tutorials

Install, Configure and Execute Apache Hadoop from Source

Hadoop is Apache’s implementation of the brand-spanking new programming model called MapReduce, along with some other stuff such as Hadoop Distributed Filesystem (HDFS). It can be used to parallelize (or distribute) a...

• Geek stuff
• Linux
• Tutorials

Venturing into Arabic Font Design

I started using Arabic (and Urdu) scripts quite a while ago. I came across the whole non-latin script problem when I was developing a software for a government agency related to land revenue. In the development of thi...

• Geek stuff
• resources
• Typography

HCI-F07

This post will provide a way for students of HCI (Fall 07 - FAST-NU) to keep track of their results throughout the semester. Quiz/assignment scores and exam grades will be available through the spreadsheet embedded be...

• Announcements
• Pedagogy
• Students

Quoth Ubuntu, 'Nevermore'

I installed Ubuntu two days ago and was surprisingly pleased by the responsiveness and general outlook of the OS. I spent a day getting everything just the way I like. It booted up really fast and I was very pleased w...

• Geek stuff
• Linux

Moving again

I remember posting on my blogger account that I was moving to Wordpress.com. It’s that time again. I’ve moved all the contents of this blog to my new home: http://www.csrdu.org/nauman

• Announcements

Regression with Gradient Descent in Low-level Matlab

Update: If you are interested in getting a running start to machine learning and deep learning, I have created a course that I'm offering to my dedicated readers for just $9.99. Access it here on Udemy. If you are onl...

• Articles
• Geek stuff
• Tutorials

Writing a Skeleton Linux Security Module

I recently had to write a Linux Security Module (LSM) for one of my research projects and I was surprised to find that there are few tutorials out there and most of them don’t work because of the discrepencies in kern...

• Articles
• Geek stuff
• Linux

Why I'm leaving facebook

I’ve had enough. Some of my friends initiated the boycott a few months back but I wasn’t convinced. I was mistaken. Facebook has, time and again, refused to take action against hate speech and hate groups that operate...

• Articles
• Islam
• Personal

A much better (and useful) eclipse plugin

It’s been four days since I started working with eclipse plugins and I finally have my first useful plugin. It’s useful for my research purposes and hopefully for a small audience interested in my work. It might also ...

• Android
• Geek stuff
• Java

Writing a Minimal Eclipse Plugin

I have tried, on multiple occasions, to write an eclipse plugin. I always gave up in the middle of the process though, what with the different versions of eclipse floating around and the discrepancies between the tuto...

• Java
• Tutorials

Confusion amongst Zaid Hamid Fans

Zaid Hamid is cornered. He has nothing to say and nothing to clear his name with. As one of my friends put it, “there is no need to expose Zaid Hamid”. He is clearly deviated but some people still don’t get it. So, I ...

• Articles
• Islam

The Lies of Zaid Zaman Hamid

For those who can’t bother to read the whole thing, here’s the short version: Zaid (Zaman) Hamid is a supporter of Yousuf Ali Kazzab who claimed prophethood for himself and was convicted by a court of Pakistan on thos...

• Articles
• Islam

Building Xen from source on Ubuntu 8.04

After struggling with XEN’s source for around two weeks, I’ve finally managed to get it working on a Ubuntu 8.04. It was fairly straight forward with a few bits and pieces of trouble. That is mainly due to the problem...

Down the Drain

I started teaching at IMSciences around a month ago. Today, I got the news that I’m being kicked out, mid-semester. I’m not surprised because I knew what was going on behind my back. I’m not mad. I’m not angry. I’m no...

• Personal

Create Ubuntu Live USB in Windows

If you’ve ever had trouble installing Ubuntu because you couldn’t use a CD (because of a bad CD, a thoroughly malicious drive or, as in my case, a small-form CD stuck in your slot-load mechanism), you might want to re...

• Geek stuff
• Linux
• Tutorials

IMSciences BCS 5 Result Sheet

The result sheet (which will be updated after marking of each test/quiz) for BCS 5 at IMSciences can be found here. Let me know if you find any discrepancy.

• Announcements

Back from CCS/STC 2009

I arrived back last week after attending the 16th Conference on Computer Communications and Security (CCS09) and Fourth Annual Workshop on Scalable Trusted Computing (STC09) in Chicago, USA. The conference was really ...

Kaghan Valley

I recently went to Naran in Kaghan Valley of NWFP (Pakistan). The place is amazing and I’d just bought a new SLR camera. So, my friends and I shot quite a few pictures of the place. I’ve uploaded them in many places b...

• Artworks
• Personal

Matlab 7 under Windows 7

Update: If you are interested in getting a running start to machine learning and deep learning, I have created a course that I’m offering to my dedicated readers for just $9.99. Access it here on Udemy. If you are onl...

• Articles
• Tutorials

Flashing Android Dev Phone 1

This tutorial is about flashing your Android Developer Phone 1 with your own custom build. It will provide a concise description of steps involved along with a special portion on how to port Google’s apps on your cust...

• Android
• Articles
• Geek stuff

Getting Started with Android Dev Phone 1

We received our Google Android Dev Phone 1 yesterday and immediately ran into trouble. We don’t have a supported carrier here and we couldn’t get our own carriers to work with Android because we didn’t have the APN in...

• Geek stuff
• research
• Tutorials

Study smart with StudyBlue

StudyBlue offers a social networking approach to studying. You can create classes, add professors, join networks and share documents and class notes not only with your classmates but also with those from other college...

Android Project Approved

Our second research and development project has been approved by the National ICTR&D Fund, Pakistan. ICTR&D is a highly reputable funding agency and funds only state-of-the-art projects in the field of informa...

• Announcements

How's about Corporate Microblogs?

This is a more of a brainstorm than an idea and I have no idea if this already exists. But here’s the thought anyway.

• Geek stuff
• Web

HTC Hero

HTC (the guys who built the first Android phone for T-Mobile) have released a new Android-based smartphone called Hero. It’s an amazing piece of technology and looks really cute. We’ll be trying to get our hands on th...

• Announcements
• Geek stuff

Using Twitter

I’ve been an ardent fan and promoter of all social networking sites for a long time now. I’ve brought many people to twitter and I’ve even setup my own local laconi.ca server. However, in light of recent news surround...

• Personal
• Philosophy

Google Wave: Re-inventing Online Communication

Google is aiming at killing email altogether!

• Geek stuff

Gap Between Industry and Academia

I gave a talk today on the gap between industry and academia and what the students can do to bridge that gap. You can take a look at the presentation file below. Topic of the presentation was “Bridging the Gap between...

• Announcements
• resources

Video Lectures Uploaded

For those who are interested in the activities of SERG but can’t come over to the end of the world (Phase 7 in Hayatabad), here’s a resource that you might benefit from. Video lectures of workshops conducted by SERG m...

• Pedagogy
• research
• resources

CCS Submission Complete

We’ve completed our submission for ACM Conference on Computers and Communications Security (CCS2009). Like SACMAT08, this was exhilarating due to the amount of effort it requires just to get each and every sentence ri...

Oxford Visit for Trust 2009

My visit to Oxford was concluded with a two-day travel back. It was back-breaking (my back is still broken) because of all the walking and the sitting. The paper I presented can be seen on the publications page and th...

• Announcements

JSR321 Early Draft Release

JSR321: Trusted Computing API for Java Platform is now released as Early Draft. Download EDR here (provided under the restrictions of a cost-free review license, which is delivered in detail with the specifications).

• Announcements

Google 12th for "search" on Google

That cryptic title basically means that if you search for “search” on Google, the first result you get is for live.com. Surprising but what’s more so is that Google is 12th on the result list – coming after such giant...

• Geek stuff

Second thoughts

For the first time in my life, I’m having second thoughts about living in Pakistan. I’ve always argued that there’s no shortage of opportunities or resources in Pakistan and that if someone wanted to work here, it can...

• Personal

Git Introduction

Difference between SVN and GIT The usual answer: SVN is to GIT what revision control is to distributed versioning system. What in the crack pot is that supposed to mean? The answer is pretty simple: a revision control...

• Geek stuff

End of an Era Coming Up

With Bill Gates already out of Microsoft and Steve Jobs taking a sick leave from Apple, I believe it’s the end of an era for consumer computing. It is my opinion that Jobs is about to leave Apple for good. They just w...

GPS Functional on Openmoko

Today, we (actually, Shaz and Sanaullah) got GPS working in the Openmoko phone. We couldn’t get a fix inside the lab but we got one within a minute on the roof. The values didn’t seem to make sense at first but after ...

A Brief Intro to Security in Java

Disclaimer: This is not a how-to for implementing security frameworks. It will focus on the research aspects of Java Security Managers. If you need to find out how to implement the code, follow some of the references.

• Articles
• research

Inside assisted GPS

A nice article from arsTechnica which explains the basics of assisted GPS. Take a look:

• resources

Setting up Ubuntu

I’ve just finished setting up my Ubuntu desktop just the way I like it – uncluttered and usable. Here is a list of programs I’m currently using:

• Geek stuff

Men under threat from 'gender bending' chemicals - Telegraph

According to Telegraph.co.uk:

Trusted Computing, Mobiles and the Project

I’ve been unable to write blog entries for a while now. It’s been mostly updates and rants and this post is more of the same. I’m working on stuff which, while not ‘confidential’, can’t be repeated in publicly accessi...

Blog of Trust and Mobiles

I came across (once again, after a long time) this blog called Blog of Trust with lots of information about Trusted Computing, Remote Attestation and mobile platforms. The author (according to the About page) is an em...

• resources

Dynamic Behavioral Attestation for Mobile Platforms - Project

A new research and development project has been approved for SERG by National ICT RnD Fund. This project is being carried out in collaboration with Samsung Information Systems America (SISA). Details can be seen at th...

• Announcements

Posting Updates on SERG

Remember to read updates on openmoko experiences on our group’s blog. I can’t post copies here and SERG blog will (migh?) include experience reports from other members too.

• Announcements

Getting started with Openmoko

For record purposes, here’s what I did to get Openmoko working. 

• Tutorials

VM-based Information Flow for Policy Enforcement

Regarding paper titled “A Virtual Machine Based Information Flow Control System for Policy Enforcement” by Nair et al. 

• research

Writing a basic SELinux LPM

I couldn't find a straight forward tutorial on how to create an LPM in SELinux. So, here goes. Notice that this is for educational purposes only and would only take you so far. You need to study the implications of LP...

• Tutorials

Ididwork.com

We’ve been trying to find a solution for managing out team and the time spent on the projects by each team members. I’ve come across ididwork.com but it still lacks one thing. There’s no way of reporting the hours spe...

"How should we react?"

[A Fatwa by Mufti Ibrahim Desai of South Africa]

• Announcements
• Articles
• Islam

Joined JCP for Participation in JSR321

I have joined the Java Community Process (JCP) which is a platform for creation, review and approval of java specifcations in the form of Java Specification Requests (JSRs). My motivation is to participate in JSR321 “...

• Announcements
• Java
• research

Common Sense and Folksonomy Book

My masters thesis has been published by VDM in the form of a book. It’s my first published book and it’s an achievement for me. See it hereon Amazon.

• Announcements
• Artificial Intelligence
• Web

SACMAT Proceedings Online

SACMAT’08 Proceedings have been posted online at ACM. Visit here to see our “Model-based Behavioral Attestation Framework”.

• resources

Google Alerts for Research

If you’ve been working on research papers, you must realize how difficult it is to keep track of latest papers and upcoming conferences. So, here’s the solution. Use Google Alerts to set up alerts for yourself. Here’s...

• resources

Updates

It’s been a while since I wrote something abstract here. I hardly get the time to write something that’s not a paper or part of a (research) proposal. I’m writing this now because of one reason: I’m looking for people...

• research

Writing a New Data Connector in Shibboleth

I’ve been working on the Shibboleth project, trying to implement the identity management framework and trying to extend it. You’ll have to wait for a paper or thesis for more details about the work we’re actually doing.

• resources

XPath Example

A simple XPath example using JAXP only:

• Java
• Tutorials

Web Services Example 1

After creating a successful environment for web services in Eclipse, it’s time to take things to another level by writing a service that actually does something. Here, we create a web service (still a simple one) whic...

• Java
• Tutorials

Web services using Apache Tomcat and Eclipse

After working for almost a week with outdated and severely complicated yet unhelpful tutorials for web services using Eclipse (Europa), I decided to put together a simple, step-by-step, to-the-point tutorial on how to...

• Articles
• resources
• Tutorials

Submission to SACMAT

We’ve just submitted a contribution to SACMAT08. For those of you who don’t know it, SACMAT is the conference for access control. There are many big names in the program committee and its one of the most prestigious c...

• Announcements

Funny UST Scandal Virus Removal

If you’ve been hit by the Trojan masquerading as an avi – “Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe”, you need to read this post.

• resources

UML and Patterns

UML is an essential tool in SE today. I’m especially interested in finding ways of introducing MDE to students and for that UML and OCL are an essential requirement.

• resources

Internal Evaluation Marks Published

Internal evaluation marks for all my subjects are now online. They will be updated to reflect the latest.

• Announcements

Course Notes on Different Subjects

I came across this homepage of Frank Pfenning – a CMU professor. He has lots of course handouts on different subjects including compilers, logic programming, automated theorem proving etc. Shaz, you might find the com...

• resources

Web Typography

An important but neglected aspect of designing for the web – and in many places, for print – is typography. It’s really important part of presentation. Here’s an presentation describing typography for web. It has audi...

• Design

Robot Car Race

If you’re wondering what AI people are doing nowadays – and you might be doing just that if you’re trying to finish the final assignment I set for my AI course – you might find this link useful. Stanford guys seem to ...

• Artificial Intelligence

BuzzWord and Adobe AIR Review

I just got signed up for Virtual Ubiquity’s “first real word processor for the web”. It’s called Buzzword and it’s lovely. I’ve just seen the first introductory document but many things have caught my eye.

• Geek stuff

Isabelle group on facebook

I’ve created a facebook group related to Isabelle. I hope to get people working with Isabelle onto that group for collaboration. If you’re interested in either Isabelle or formal verification, join up!

• Isabelle

Deploying Visual Studio.net + Crystal Reports Projects

If you’ve been having trouble with deployment of Visual Studio .net 2005 (C# or VB) applications which use Crystal Reports, rest assured.  You’re not alone. You can find many posts and blogs saying you should add the ...

• Articles
• Tutorials
• VB.net

City University and Me

The update is a little late (a week late to be precise) but it’s here.

• Personal

Eclipse, Java, C++, Lisp, LaTeX and Isabelle

I’ve recently re-discovered Eclipse. My first encounter with it was back when I was learning Prolog. I worked with it and while I liked the work-flow, I never got to using it full-time. It’s back and it’s staying.

• C++
• Java
• Lisp

Conference Management Software

Two of the better conference management software: Both are free and both are based on PHP/mysql. I prefer the MyReview software because of the better management. Take your pick.

• resources

LaTeX Resources

Instead of trying to write lots of LaTeX help myself, I’ve decided to post links to good LaTeX resouces. Here’s one which is very comprehensive. I may write crash-tutorials about specifics but there’s really no need t...

• resources

Using Tables with LaTeX

Using tables with LaTeX is a little tricky. The good thing is, once you get the hang of it, it’s really very clean. Here’s a crash-tutorial on how to use tables.

Back to Peshawar

After attending CSEE&T and ICIET conferences, I am back to Peshawar. Besides getting to travel half way around the globe without spending much, I now have two publications to my name. You can take a look at them h...

• Announcements

20th International CSEE&T - (in progress)

I’ve been in Dublin City University (DCU) for two days waiting for the conference to start. Today was the first day. We had a presentation from two guys from Carnegie Mellon University. The presentation, besides being...

• Announcements
• research

UML and OCL Official Specifications

I’ve been working on formalization of UML and OCL for some time. Of course, specifications are necessary for formalization but they’re also helpful for learning the tools themselves. If you’re working with UML and/or ...

• Design
• Formal Methods
• resources

Installing and Configuring HOL-OCL

I’ve just finished installing/configuring HOL-OCL (except for the X-symbols configuration). This was a pretty complex process and the documentation is pretty scattered. Here’s the flow I followed:

• Formal Methods

CSS Layout

I wrote this article back when I was learning to cope with CSS layout. It’s not the best one around but it’s certainly the simplest. It assumes you’ve been working with CSS for font styles and colours and are comforta...

• Articles
• Design
• Tutorials

Thoughts on Z

I’ve worked with Z notation now for a complete specification and here are my thoughts regarding the experience.

• Formal Methods
• Z Notation

PDFs from THY

Isabelle is a great tool for automated theorem proving. I don’t need to tell you how great. It also comes with a great PDF generating tool which can help you create proof documents really easily. Here’s how you can cr...

• Formal Methods

Z Notation Example

This is the first formal specification I’ve created using Z Notation. It’s based on the usual Birthday Book example but is a little different. It also has some information regarding use of ZETA for type-checking the u...

• Formal Methods
• Z Notation

Zeta + HOL-Z Presentation

Here’s the second presentation in the series. It deals with how HOL-Z can be used. It is only a skeletal presentation because honestly, you need to do a lot of reading before you can work with HOL-Z. This is just a ro...

• Formal Methods
• Z Notation

ZETA Presentation

I’ve just finished creating the first presentation about using ZETA for creation/analysis of Z Notation. It’s a basic presentation and is not meant to be used as a reference. See a good book for Z notation (Using Z is...

• Formal Methods
• Z Notation

HOLZ and Zeta

Installing HOLZ isn’t as easy as you may think it would be. After much efforts, I’ve managed to do it and I thought I should post it here to save you guys some time.

• Articles
• research
• resources

Gmail, firefox and fonts on Linux

If you’re like me, you’d hate the default look of web pages (especially gmail) on firefox in Linux. I was beginning to think something was wrong with firefox because the rest of Linux fonts look alright. This is what ...

• Geek stuff
• Linux
• resources

The hapennings...

Well, it’s been a long time but I’m finally back. The reasons for such a long absence are countless but boil down to just one: I got lazy.

• Announcements
• Geek stuff
• Linux

CSC422 Fall 06 - Internal Evaluation

This is the final listing of Internal Evaluation for Fall 06 semester of CSC422 in City University. The marks submitted in final evaluation sheet to the examination section are not properly categorized (because of una...

• Announcements

mooflex : Content Management System

One of the best designs of a web app I’ve ever seen. Lovely work. And they’re also offering an object oriented Javascript framework for free!

• Design
• Geek stuff
• Softwares

Samhawks goes online!

Sami is a friend of mine and a fellow photographer, programmer, designer, philosopher and God knows what else. He’s finally got his own domain+site. Visit his site and pay special attention to his photography. I’m sur...

• Announcements
• Friends

McCarthy on Intelligent Design

I recently came across an article by a famous computer scientist John McCarthy titled, “Scientific Forms of the Religious Hypothesis”. It is an informal discussion of the possibility that the world we live in is progr...

• Articles
• Artificial Intelligence
• Islam

CSC-422 Fall 2006 Internal Evaluation

I’ve compiled all the marks for quizzes and assignments for Fall 2006 of CSC-422.

• Announcements

Windows Live Writer

I simply can’t find a blog posting software good enough to be used with wordpress. Wordpress’ dashboard itself is just not fast enough - especially on my 56k dialup. Let’s see if this post (using Windows Live Writer) ...

Having trouble with colours?

Well, worry no longer. For all you designers out there who’ve been having trouble with picking the right color, go see kuler. It’s sort of like Color Schemer. Lovely themes designed by the users. Do add your own to it.

• Color
• Design
• resources

A Simple PathSearching Agent

I’ve recently started working on Intelligent Agents. I chose to work with Java because I’m more confortable with object oriented approaches and there’s more AI literature based on Java than any other language.

• Artificial Intelligence
• Java
• Softwares

"Outcast"

Just finished another space project. It’s uploaded on deviantArt because I can’t access Gfx.

• Artworks
• Design

Completed the WSP Challenge

I’ve finished all questions of the World’s Smartest Person Challenge 2006. I’m pretty sure about 11 of those questions. Three were ok. The other 11, I had no idea. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

• Announcements
• Geek stuff

Ilm

Muslims have a lot of misunderstandings regarding “ilm”. You would’ve seen promos saying “Ilm is incumbent on all muslims, so send your children to school” and the such.

• Islam

World's Smartest Person Challenge

We may not be the “World’s Smartest Person” but it never hurts to give the brain a little exercise. International High IQ Society is conducting an intelligence tournament at

• Announcements

Claiming Technorati Profile

To claim my blog, I have to post this link in my blog:

MIT Video Lectures

I’m always surprised when someone tells me that MIT’s OCW is not free. It stands for “Open Courseware” for God sake!

• Pedagogy
• Personal
• resources

AI and Lisp course notes

I’ve started working on my AI and Lisp notes. You can view them here.

• Announcements
• Lisp
• Students

Comic Sans - "only its parents could love it"

I’ve been saying this for a long long time. Here’s a quote in case you need convincing:

• Design
• Typography
• Web

VB.NET extra class #3

Although none of you have actually said anything about the assignment I set (except maybe the usual ‘it doesn’t work’), I’ve decided to give you guys one more chance. I’ll be taking a class on Wednesday, August 16. So...

• Announcements
• Students

VB.NET extra class #2

I won’t be taking any more extra classes of VB.NET untill I’ve received some response from students regarding .netTiers and Codesmith assignment I set in the first lesson.

VB.NET extra class

As promised, I’ll be giving extra lessons for VB.NET in City University for all who are interested. Please understand that these are not step-by-step tutorials. I’ll be giving you guidelines only and I expect you to d...

• Announcements
• Students

TinyLittle Password Keeper

TinyLittle Password Keeper is, as the name implies, a tiny software for securely saving all your passwords in one place. It has the following features:

• Tutorials
• VB.net

Peshawar gets on Earth!

Last time I installed Google Earth, Peshawar was only a vague shadow of a land. I installed beta of Earth 4 yesterday and located Hayatabad. The images are now copyright 2006 and are pretty vivid. I’m putting an image...

Using Codesmith and .netTiers

I recently came across Codesmith and .netTiers. It’s one of the best things to happen to me since i started working in VB.NET. You can view the details of what these two are in their sites. Here’s the gist:

• Tutorials
• VB.net

Mulana Yunus Patel (DB)

I received this very useful link through a mailing list today. Maulana sahab is a khalifa of Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar sahab (rehmatullah alaih). The site has lectures, dua`_s and books for download. I’ve downloaded the ...

• Islam

Yum, Yumex and Kyum

One of the problems I always faced with linux was the installation of new software. I’ve been trying to get a good lisp IDE installed for more than three weeks - without any success.

• Geek stuff
• Linux

Fedora Core 5 -vs- Windows XP

It took me a year but I’ve finally moved my stuff over to Linux. I had to. I’m supposed to be a geek.

• Geek stuff
• Linux

Over to Wordpress

Ok, since blogspot simply refuses to appear on any system here in Peshawar, I’ve decided to move over to Wordpress.com. At least I can write my blog here. Anything that goes in blogspot ends up in a blackhole. I can r...

• Personal

Me in City University

I’m about to finish my class in Brains Degree College. I think I’ll be teaching VB.NET for the next 100 years. I’ve already got another one in City University. It’s a BCS and MCS merged class of about 25.

CSS Heaven, Dreamweaver 8!

Just tried Macromedia’s (now Adobe) Dreamwever version 8. It’s simply great. It’s the only editor I’ve seen so far which manages to capture the soul of latest developments in CSS. It creates CSS layouts automatically!...

Quarks in Flash

I’ve been busy as a bee trying to finish the flash verion of Quaks website. It’s almost finished now. The skeleton is up and only a few screens remain. It’s basically just text that remains now. Even that is ready. I ...

Finally, a Class!

I’ve finally managed to attend a class (as a student, that is). My MS classes have started today. For those who don’t know (and for some obscure and unfathomable reason, still care) I’ve gotten myself admitted in MS p...

No blog here!

I don’t maintain a blog here. My “official” site is www.recluze.net and my blog is on blogger.

CSS Layout

I’ve finally finished writing (and publishing) my article on “CSS Layout”. I’ve converted it into a handy PDF all pretty and formatted. Took me two days just to format it in InDesign. (I had to learn the tool while do...

Backrub

Google’s orginal research papers (when it was called BackRub)! I’ll give them some time too. I just have to at least see these papers, even if I don’t understand them.

Macromedia is now Adobe

Just went to Macromedia’s site. Adobe’s completed the merger and Macromedia is no more! I love Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Just hope Adobe keeps the good features of Macromedia. It’d be a waste if they decide to ditch ...

Eid Mubarak

Wish a very happy eid to all my friends and readers. (Whatever few there are.)

Internet through Power Cables

We still haven’t got DSL here and I hear they’ve started offering internet through power cables! Current Communications have partnered up with Google too. Take a look at How It Works.

Analyze your site

Ok, webmasters who haven’t used Google Analytics yet need to wake up and give it a go. It’s a very useful tool for visitor tracking. Reports about pageviews, visits, loyal visitors, useful content, referrers and other...

I'm back

I’m back. With a new template. It’s not fully functional yet so, bear with it for a while.

CSS Designing Intro

I have completed my article on CSS designing for the experienced HTML coders. I’ve submitted it to A List Apart. I hope to get it published there. If it doesn’t I’ll publish it here instead. (It won’t nearly be as goo...

Me on vectors

I’m into Illustrator now. Here’s my description of my first work in vectors:

css Zen Garden

Take a look at CSS Zen Garden if you’re still working with Dreamweaver and bloated HTML tables for designing your sites. Honestly, you need to stop. I’m surprised Dreamweaver’s still using that technique for screen de...

Completed Test Walk

I finished the test phase of my Ultimate Walk on Monday. The walk was from Nowshera to Peshawar. Here’re the details:

Singularity - An OS in C#

Microsoft research is working on Singularity which, if I gather correctly, is an OS written in C#. They say it’s about reliability more than performance. It has to be if it’s going to use .Net’s CLR. That thing is blo...

Back to Work

I’m finally feeling a little better. Been quite ill the past half a month. I couldn’t do anything. No AI, no LISP, no Photoshop. No designing! All I have been able to do is read and blog. Better get back to work now.

Windows Live!

Windows Live Yes, Microsoft’s reply to Google’s Personalized Homepage. I didn’t think I’d have to say this but Microsoft’s finally beaten Google at something. (Well, ever since Google started rolling anyway.)

Yay! I won!

deviantART: sirgerg: Contest Results

Xen - Linux's VM

Computer Laboratory - Xen virtual machine monitor

4D Photography?!

Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera

Not Another IQ Test!

No, this isn’t just another average IQ test. I came across this test (or rather, these tests) a year and a half back. Most tests I’ve seen are more about understanding of English than about intelligence. This one (alt...

Creating Icons

[SimpleBits Anatomy of an Icon](http://www.simplebits.com/notebook/2004/08/23/anatomy.html)

Fontography!

A disagreeably facetious type glossary

ClearType Configuration for XP

ClearType Tuner Step 1: Turn on Windows XP ClearType

A Free Offline Explorer

HTTrack Website Copier - Offline Browser

New Yahoo and Hotmail

They say stuff like “Gmail’s blown away” and “Much superior to Gmail” but the only thing I see is that they’ve turned the usual web-based mail experience to the usual desktop experience. Find screenshots of Yahoo Mail...

Linux back in demand

Microsoft’s in more trouble. Google’s great work with linux has finally convinced the computing giants that Linux is the only possible replacement to Microsoft’s monopoly on desktop operating systems. Linux is now bei...

Some really good fonts.

These fonts may not be very versatile but they’re good for formal stuff. Especially if you can’t spend a fortune on Adobe’s Fontfolio.

Bookmarks on the Web

I’ve been looking for an online application for storing my bookmarks for ages and it was sitting right under my nose. del.icio.us is just the thing I wanted. I have yet to see though, how it imports my hundreds of boo...

ComponentArt Webui 3.0 and AJAX

If you haven’t used WebUI3.0 for ASP.NET, you’re missing a very neat component. Do give it a try. Neat menus, grids and other controls. This article gives an introduction to the AJAX features of the tool.

The New Microsoft Office User Interface Overview:

The new Office (version 12) sees a total rewamp of the UI. I don’t think this would be such a good move. People don’t accept changed easily. As me and some of my friends are used to saying: “Never underestimate the st...

Windows Vista Build 5231 Screenshots

Joe Cashman’s put these screenshots of Windows Vista Build 5231. Although you can only see the interface changes from these shots, they look pretty cool. I wasn’t much for the XP interface but I think I’m going to mov...

The Intelligent Door Handle

Now that’s putting technology to use! If that ‘added advantages for elderly…’ wasn’t there, I would’ve said someone needs to get a life! As it is, it’s a pretty neat trick.

Google Reader

Google’s awake again. This time it’s the RSS feed aggrigator. I’ve seen the famous Newsgator Online and I must say, although Newsgator probably had more features (although not apparent), the Google interface is much f...

Web 2.0: The Buzz

The Web2.0 Conference has just finished. What’s Web 2.0? It’s an idea (for lack of a better word) that people should be the publishers of content on the internet as well as the consumers. Here’s a Wired news article o...

Amazing Blurred Backgrounds

Here’s for those photographers who’ve been visiting my blogs. There must be someone.

Atlas Project

Of course, soon we’re going to need an IDE to do all things AJAX for us. Microsoft’s started working on this with Atlas Project. I bet Dreamweaver will have some support for it in the very near future. Probably as soo...

Another AJAX tutorial

Well, since no one’s paying any attention to my questions regarding the use of AJAX, guess I’ll have to go along with the current implementation of the technique. For that, I’ve found another thorough article.

Adsense and Google

I recently came across this article that explains a lot about how Google’s primary source of income Adwords works. Give it a read. Although it doesn’t explain anything about the algos, the logic is pretty interesting ...

Must see ... if you haven't seen the real thing

Satellite images have always been my favourites. Now I’ve got a way to get all I want. And what beter way to start than with MasjidulHaraam and Masjidun Nabi?

Failure in the White House

Looks like machines are finally starting to get more intelligent than humans. I came across this on Google’s own blog. Do a search on ‘ failure ‘ in Google and see the first result that comes up.

Calculus and Me

I’ve been working on Calculus and Analytical Geometry for about a month now. I’ve used lectures by Dr. Faisal Shah Khan of VU, Pakistan. I would rank him with some of the best teachers I’ve ever studied under. He buil...

Challenging Internet Explorer

You keep saying I write nothing about non-Google stuff. Here it is then:

XForms!

For my web developer friends, XForms technology is something that you can miss, but not for long. This is what ASP.Net’s server-side forms are all about. W3C’s working hard on this and it’s going to be in as quickly a...

What does Google do that Microsoft doesn't?

Well, maybe Microsoft does do it. Just not that openly. Google makes sure it can attract the best of brains from computers and business. How? By telling them they won’t get the one worst feared thing: boredom! For tho...

Blog Markup Language

Darren Neimke has done wonders. Dunno why it took so long. Maybe because so much’s happening on the commercial side that the Giants are not very willing to invest time in something as ‘small’ as blogs. Service indepen...

Microsoft learns yet again from Google

Out of Microsoft Sandbox comes Start.com. Take a look and tell me this isn’t taken straight from Personalized Google. I mean, come on guys. Do some innovation. It won’t do much good simply following Google’s tracks. T...

GoogleNet! Sounds interesting.

I was wondering what Google was doing with a web accelerator. Sounds like they’re heading into the ISP business as well. Seems like a very good idea since they’re already offering ad-based services and (as many are pr...

Massachusetts and MS Office

The home of MIT has some more problems for Microsoft. Just recently, Massachusetts government proposed a plan to use OpenDocument format (open source and based on XML) for all official purposes.

Service independence in online applications

One of the things that all the internet-enabled applications need right now is service independence. This is to say that the way we connect to a certain application should have no effect on who we can communicate with...

"Stop Saying 'Like'"

I came across these posters on SquareFree blog. I know a few people who can learn from this.

My new artwork on Gfxartist.com

I uploaded another artwork on Gfxartist.com after a very very long time. Sami’s new camera did a real nice job with a steel glass. I called it Dark Crescent. I’ll upload another one soon.

WordPress

I was surfing and came across this really nice-looking blog. I just had to find out how the guy had made it and guess what! It’s a free software.

Paul Graham and Stefan Marti

Just came across these really good links. The first one is for those who hate writing (or are bad at it). Take a look at some very good pointers to good writing:

Footnotes in XHTML and CSS

Just came across a very good link for inserting footnotes in web pages. This is extremely useful pages publishing researches and articles. Take a look: Format Sidenotes with Javascript and CSS.

Google OS and Microsoft's .NET

Take a look at this:

Hotmail Beta

Finally! something about Microsoft too!

Some great links about the future of the web

In my opinion, creating a cental, free, cross-platform operating system lies in the very near future of the web. (That free part being optional actually but I like putting it in there.)

Google Desktop 2 and Google Talk

I’ve been working on these two for the past few days and I must say that Google’s softwares are only getting better! A lot better.

Google goes instant!

Well, it’s finally here! Google’s instant messaging software. It’s called Google Talk and from the look of it, it’s pretty cool. Just a 900k download taking less than 5 minutes even on the slowest 28k connections, it ...

XML Hardware Processing

Ok! NOW we’re talking XML. Intel’s started worrying about hardware processing XML data. This should lead to all sorts of interesting stuff. Hardware actually understanding data!

More evidenve in favour of browser based "AJAX"

Here’s a lil more evidence in favour of my last post. This is Scott Isaacs, a web guru, talking about the problems faced during development of AJAX based apps.

AJAX: Is it really that hot?

I’ve been reading a lot about this AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML). Just recently I discovered the process by which it works and I was astonished to see that it took people so long to actually realize this poss...

Designing - 2D and 3D

This blog is designed to be a source of sources of inspiration/education for upcoming artists/desgners. It’ll cover both traditional art and digital art (2D and 3D)

Artificial Intelligence - A roadmap

A blog about my doings with Artificial Intelligence. It’s supposed to be used to educational purposes. As well as to keep myself organised.

Extras

These are works which can’t be categorized in any of the other places. I’m planning on doing some research in my MS. Those papers will get their own section. These are papers/articles or other stuff that I did as a ho...

Art Galleries

I really can’t manage to put my artworks here on my own site. First, it’s too annoying. Second, I won’t get many views and comments. I publish my artworks in two galleries as of now.

Portfolio

[This page is a work in progress….]

Links

[This page is also a work in progress ….]

About Me

Foremost I am a Muslim and Pakistani. And I am a student/designer and just recently, I’ve finished my B.Sc (Hons) in Computer Science. I was born in ‘83. Do the math to get my age.