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Egypt 2008Hi, my name is Asif Baksh and I'm a web and database developer who hails from New York City. I currently work for a non-profit by day and freelance as a web designer by night. if you're still interested, read more.

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Google releases core development tools as open source

Author → Asif → in Tech
Nov5

Google has decided to release as open source several of its key application development tools, hoping that they will prove useful for external programmers to build faster Web applications.

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Solving a Sudoku using Recursive Subquery Factoring by Anton Scheffer

Author → Asif → in Tech
Nov1

Oracle Database 11g Release 2 introduces a new feature called Recursive Subquery Factoring. To solve this sudoku you first have to transforms this to a single string by appending all rows together For example (this is pretty genius):

"53  7    6  195    98    6 8   6   34  8 3  17   2   6 6    28   419  5    8  79"
 
with x( s, ind ) as



( select sud, instr( sud, ' ' )



from ( select '53  7    6  195    98    6 8   6   

34  8 3  17   2   6 6    28    419  5    8  79' sud from dual )



union all

select substr( s, 1, ind - 1 ) || z || substr( s, ind + 1 )

, instr( s, ' ', ind + 1 )

from x, ( select to_char( rownum ) z



from dual

connect by rownum <= 9

) z



where ind > 0

and not exists ( select null

from ( select rownum lp

from dual

connect by rownum <= 9)

where z = substr( s, trunc( ( ind - 1 ) / 9 ) * 9 + lp, 1 )

or    z = substr( s, mod( ind - 1, 9 ) - 8 + lp * 9, 1 )

or    z = substr( s, mod( trunc( ( ind - 1 ) / 3 ), 3 ) * 3

+ trunc( ( ind - 1 ) / 27 ) * 27 + lp

+ trunc( ( lp - 1 ) / 3 ) * 6, 1 )))



select s from x



where ind = 0

/

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Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking

Author → Asif → in Tech
Sep21

At least for Google's web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in web search ranking.

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UAE spying on citizens through an Etisalat BlackBerry update?

Author → Asif → in Tech
Jul15

Etisalat, the carrier responsible for bringing the BlackBerry solution to the United Arab Emirates, released a very suspect official update. A member on the official support forums did some detective work, and found some suspicious code in the update. According to the user:

“Blackberry subscribers for Etisalat (one of the official service providers in the UAE) received a WAP Push to download a JAR named “registration”

The description of the “update” was as follows:

“Etisalat network upgrade for Blackberry service. Please download to ensure continuous service quality.”

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Google Wave

Author → Asif → in Tech
May28

Wave: a mash up of twitter, facebook, gmail, and all things web 2.0.
Google's latest attempt at re-inventing email.
 

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Informer’s Role in Bombing Plot

Author → Asif → in Politics
May22

Everyone called the stranger with all the money “Maqsood.” He would sit in his Mercedes, waiting in the parking lot of the mosque in Newburgh, N.Y., until the Friday prayer was over. Then, according to members of the mosque, the Masjid al-Ikhlas, he approached the young men.

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Business of Detention Nominated for a Webby!

Author → Asif → in Politics
Apr23

 
The Business of Detention project is a U.S.-based online publication created by reporters Stokely Baksh and Renee Feltz, while graduate students at Columbia University’s Graduate of Journalism. Our desire was to create an innovative way to present the business of privatized detention services — using solid reporting skills and pairing that up with video and interactive info graphics. This was also an experiment for us in creating a platform for a news product, that largely went under reported in mainstream news when we started the Corrections Corporation of America investigative project in late 2007. That project became the first investigative-new media project for the University and has since won the Melvin Mencher Award for Superior Reporting and James A. Wechsler Award for National Reporting, and a finalist at the 2009 SXSW Interactive Awards. 

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