Jupyter Labs & VIM Editor
A best of both worlds: VIM mode for rapid coding, inserting and moving around the text ever since the terminal days using key command shortcuts and Jupyter L...
Posts by Year
2020
Quantity vs Quality
Quality vs quantity is always a heated discussion in product development. Which one should be the best outcome? The story below of a ceramics teacher, taken ...
Booting DOS from a 10’ vinyl
Saw an interesting blog post at boingboing.net today: Booting DOS from vinyl. The original blog post is by Bogin, JR - Booting from a vinyl record where the ...
Game and Watch
Nintendo is celebrating its 40 year anniversary of Super Mario and 20th anniversary of its original Game and Watch with the latest one Game & Watch: Supe...
Remembering PC Magazine
Same time 12 years ago PC Magazine stopped its print edition. Tech magazines were as important as the computers during the evolution of personal computing. O...
Steve Wozniak & Apple II
A great blog post by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak “Why the Apple II Didn’t Support Lowercase Letters” on vintage computing website. In a question on why th...
Intel NUC Whitebook
Intel Corporation just launched a new whitebook laptop called NUC M15. Such laptop is expected to be a building block for partners to roll out Intel-based la...
Chess Queens Gambit
Loved the Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit. It is about the chess, but it is also about life, health, and competition. Pocket News has a nice collection of re...
Project Connected Home over IP
A step forward in increasing the compatibility between smart home IoT products is going on through the Zigbee Alliance. They just announced the Project Conne...
Emupedia Emulator OS
Emupedia EmuOS is browser-based emulator with the 90’s Windows theme for playing retro games online without needing to install. You can access it at emupedia...
Arm 1 and Apple m1
Ken Shirriff @kenshirriff shows an amazing comparison between the original ARM processor that was originally created in 1983 for the Acorn computer with 25 t...
Computer and the Mind of Man
Check out this 1962 video that was created by IBM titled “The Computer and the Mind of Man”. It features Dr. Richard Wesley Hamming from Bell Labs and Prof. ...
Computer-generated Music
Listen to the first ever computer-generated music recorded using Turing Machine, the Marc II, by the British computer scientist Christopher Strachey with the...
Lee Felsenstein
Lee Felsenstein is a computer pioneer and living legend. He built the first portable computer, the Osborne 1, and lead the Homebrew Computer Club. Check out ...
Usborne 80s Books
Usborne Publishing had popular programming books for kids in the eighties. They would help kids learn the basics of computers and how to program games for th...
non-English coding
Software programming languages are predominantly based on the English language. The non-English part is usually some sort of localization of text and numbers...
iSH
Ish is an iOS (iPhone/iPad) app that emulates a complete x86 Alpine Linux operating system along with a package management tool. Your iOS basically can turn ...
Apple Announcement
A significant day today in the technology world with #apple official release of their MacBook using Arm based processors. The M1 processor designed by Apple ...
Bibliography of Personal Computers
Check out the comprehensive bibliography on personal computers by Roy Allan on archive site. Published in 2005, it references over 280 books and 250 periodic...
Turbo Rascal
Dr Leuat, professor of astronomy at the University of Oslo, took the retro computing by storm with his recent release of a complete IDE for 8-bit and 16-bit ...
Atari
Atari, the maker of the original 2600 Video Computer System, is on the roll. They have a Atari Hotels in the making, Atari Token, a blockchain token system b...
Raspberry Pi 400
In the eighties, we used to having homes computers, such as the Commodore or the BBC Micro, with a keyboard integrated to it. All we had to do is to plug it ...
US Elections
The US elections, both 2016 and 2020, have demonstrated significant misrepresentations of actual outcomes. The poll predictions were way off. Also, the manag...
Computer Projections
Hopefully computer projections will work out nicely tomorrow and not terribly 😁 (cartoon taken from David Ahl 1977 The Colossal Computer Cartoon Book)
Game Off 2020
GitHub is sponsoring a build-your-own game jam for the month of November. The Game Off theme for 2020 is Moonshot. It should be a fun experience if you have ...
3D Monster Maze
Regarded as the earliest horror game, 3D Monster Maze game was first played on the Sinclair ZX81 in 1981. The player is put in a maze with only one exit and ...
Moved by Java
Oracle Java team released the historic timeline of Java as part of Java’s 25th anniversary. What I found interesting is that the Java language was first nam...
Raspberry Pi Server Hosting
I wanted to support the pioneering movement of Raspberry Pi as a serious edge computing device, so I migrated my personal site https://www.tarek.computer ont...
No Code
I was recently reading a 1977 article about the dawn of personal computers and its promises, such as home automation and business applications. That made me ...
CMU Hearsay I
Today we are accustomed to interacting with Alexa or Siri using speech recognition technology but do you know it started as early as 1972 with Hearsay I at C...
Reverse XML
In 2001, long before cloud storage, open-source, JSON or Markdown formats, and metadata of datasets were a thing, I had this idea of a content-representation...
High School Award
Found this in my archives. I was 17 years old junior at the American Community School Beirut. In 1991, the class was learning BASIC, which I knew already fro...
Computing Shows
There are several shows that I would recommend on vintage computing and the history of video gaming industry: “High Score”, “Silicon Cowboys” and “Halt and C...
Vintage Computing Sites
Vintage computing resources that I found on the Internet.
Vintage Computer Books
Various links to vintage computing books
Arabic Computing
Bookmarks related to Arabic computing
Altair 8800 Computer
Bookmarks related to the Altair 8800 Computer
Apple 1 Computer
Bookmarks related to the Apple 1 computer
Ada Lovelace
Today October 13 marks Ada Lovelace Day, an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and math. Ada is cred...
New beginnings in enterprise IT
I believe that we are witnessing a new beginning in enterprise IT. The demand for ARM processors will shape edge computing across data centers and in persona...
ebook chapter “IT Must Tell Its Story Better to Enable Business Success”
My e-book chapter “IT Must Tell Its Story Better to Enable Business Success” as part of “Mighty Guide - 9 Experts on How to Align IT’s Work to Company Strate...
TAO Member Spotlight
I got featured in Technology Association of Oregon website.
Signed copy of Adam Osborne’s book
A great accidental find! A signed book of “Hypergrowth” by Adam Osborne himself, the founder of the first commercially successful laptop computer, the Osborn...
My Home Brew Computer Club shirt
I am now a proud owner of the shirt that was worn at the Home Brew Computer Club in the 80s. I first saw the shirt worn and designed by the personal computer...
Doug Engelbart documentary released
Check the documentary of the revolutionary Douglas Engelbart who created the computer mouse and “the mother of all demos” in 1968 showcasing all fundamental ...
Time Magazine 1950 Cover of Mark III
what can be a great item to frame in my vintage computing office library? A 70-year copy of the first Time magazine cover that features a computer and refere...
Remembering Jerry Lawson
Same day in 1977 the home game console Atari 2600 was launched and ultimately revolutionized the game industry. The idea of plugging different game cartridge...
Technology Evolution Through Pac-Man
I think we can mark significant evolution of technology through 3 different milestones in which the game Pac-Man was used. For those who don’t know [Pac-Man]...
Microsoft Power Tools
For the techies that used Windows 95 in 1995, they may recall Microsoft Power Tools. Those were a bunch of freeware tools that did not go in the main operati...
Inventions & Documentations
Many past inventions, such as 17th century mechanical calculator machines or early 20th century computers, suffered from clearly identifying the innovators a...
2/22/2012
My dad passed away 2/22/2012. Cancer took him after a long fight. He was a pioneer in journalism and future thinking. He loved the pen and paper. He loved hi...
My College Days Story
A big wish for me came true this weekend when I had the honor to present in Palo Alto Silicon Valley to my fellow alumni at the American University of Beirut...
Sharing Alumni Experience
Geeking out on AI, machine learning, computing and medicine, as well as cloud computing and entrepreneurship with fellow professors, doctors, and alumni in S...
IT Transformation & Cybersecurity Forum
It was exciting to moderate two sessions in Seattle, one on cyber security to cover for the original planned presenter, and the other on “IT Transformation a...
“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” “ Steve Jobs
If you have not read the late Steve Jobs Commencement speech at Stanford in 2005 do check it below. “Stay hungry, stay foolish” he beautifully concludes.
The word “Technology”
Origins of the word “technology” : “technology (n.)
Apple “Think Different” 1997 Ad
“Think Different” Apple 1997 ad campaign that is so relevant for innovators and visionaries not just yesterday but every day today and for ever tomorrow
Return of Steve to Apple
P# 2 of Steve Jobs post
Steve Jobs in 1986 PBS Entrepreneurs Documentary
I am a big fan of Steve Jobs but it is important to watch how a mix of ingenuity and arrogance when Steve was young can lead to failed implementations. After...
Happy new year , techies and all!
Same time twenty years ago (year 2000) I was at an accountant office during New Year’s Eve watching over their servers and software to make sure the year 200...
RIP Chuck
I didn’t have a chance to write this until now, but I want to pay tribute to the late computer engineer Chuck Peddle who passed away on Dec 15 at the age of ...
2019
Proud Dad
I once gave up pushing my kids into computer science, but my teenager son Adam insisted to stick with digital art design. I was skeptical at first, maybe bec...
Innovation @ Banfield
We do a great deal of innovative activities here at Banfield. Like any innovation, some ideas become successful and would scale, while other ideas would get ...
US adults and tech knowledge
A recent Pew Research study found that majority of US adults answered digital related questions correctly only less than half of the time. Some security rela...
The old tech is new tech!
My teenage daughter is enjoying listening to her favorite singer on on a 30yr old vintage cassette (tape) playing Walkman. She finds such 20th century techno...
Sad month for IT publication magazines
Sad month for IT publication magazines. After 30 years of publication, the Microsoft Development Network (MSDN) magazine, which first started as Microsoft Sy...
NLP Then, Now, and What I Hope is Coming
My published article on Natural Language Processing technologies in Startup City Insider Magazine: NLP: Then, Now, and What I Hope is Coming
Uber & Airbnb to the rescue
If past governments could not turn Lebanon into a non-sectarian non-religious-divided society, mobile services apps such as Uber and Airbnb might do that. Le...
DIY risk taking
One essential characteristic in management and leadership is problem solving. It is coming to see IT professionals saying how they solved customer issues or ...
8-bit Symphony
If you are a fan of 8 bit retro computer games, especially the Commodore 64, combined with a mixture of symphonic orchestra and modern day electronic music s...
Tech Titans - Intentional Future Making”
I attended Tech Titans sponsored”Intentional Future Making” event at UTD. Speakers were Anne Balsamo, Dean of UTD School ATEC, Gwen Ishmael, Escalent SVP, an...
Dallas Innovation Task Force Q2
Just attended the second quarter task force meeting this year on innovation at Dallas run by the Dallas Regional Chamber. Special guests were Japanese delega...
Exciting Periods Ahead for Tech
I think that the remainder of the year and the following year will continue to be an exciting period for IT. Hype of AI has toned down a little, and now we h...
The C64 is back!
Subsequent geeky announcements can’t get any better these few days. I posted about Raspberry Pi 4.0 release earlier and now a much more exciting news for me ...
Raspberry Pi 4
The launch of Raspberry Pi 4 today is a big thing in the Maker space, IoT technologies, and low-cost but powerful computing at PC-level. A powerful device fo...
Gen Z in Corporate Strategy
In several forums on digital transformations that I attended in the last two years, I would ask the panelists on whether they are incorporating Generation Z ...
AI should not perfect the human voice
Been thinking that machines must not perfect the human voice. That’s because racial and gender discrimination has hurt our generations for a very long time, ...
Halt and Catch Fire - Netflix
Been watching “Halt and Catch Fire” on NetFlix for the second time. It spans the history of computers in the 80s and later the Internet in the 90s through a ...
Sad story about print books
Sad story on the decline of print books used by students and faculty in their studies or checked out at libraries (over 60% decline). Nowadays digital articl...
Watching car races on TV
When cars were all mechanical and less tech and TVs were black and white with antennas, watching car racing was so memorable. You can’t replay or pause like ...
Keep Learning
These days students graduate and become the new interns/young professionals in the workforce. Energy is high and spirits are up. They want to make a differen...
Are Keyboard Shortcuts Still Shortcuts?
I remember the time when we as students first learned to program on early versions of PCs and terminal machines connected to a mainframe. Word processor soft...
BASIC First Lines of Code
I will write about Microsoft Build conference soon but one important photo that I feel any developer would appreciate is that of the first lines of assembly ...
Posting course achievements on social media
Lot of social media users tend to publicize their LinkedIn or Coursera course achievements. When we were at college, we would not post on walls that we compl...
Embrace Gen Z into the Workforce
The corporate world should seriously embrace Generation Z into their workforce. Those born after 1997 are entering the workforce this year. Their approach in...
planes should keep us alive
All the news about planes crashing, planes burning, planes disappearing, planes stalling, and more of these is so devastating. It is true that one has a high...
Key tech announcements this past week
Key technology announcements in the last few days for software developers, blockchain, and data science. Both Amazon and Microsoft launched their managed blo...
Innovation Spring in Dallas!
I participated in several events around Dallas this month of April, and each one is proving more and more that Dallas is a great hub for innovation. Here is ...
Entrepreneurship in Dallas
For Dallas Entrepreneurs, soon-to-be, or any of my Dallas contacts, you should check out the following entrepreneurial sources in Dallas. The DEC (Dallas Ent...
Is agile an urban legend and waterfall a taboo in project management?
Stamping a project as agile does not guarantee a successful execution; flagging a project as a waterfall does not ensure a failed implementation either. For ...
Cool 8th Graders, Computers & Games!
It is my 3rd year volunteering at Lamar Middle School (Lewisville ISD), a nearby school to our house in Texas. I kept accepting the volunteering task of pres...
AI & Games at Grade 8 Career Fair
I am showcasing today AI gadgets to Grade 8 midddle schoolers at Lamar Middle School (Lewisville ISD) next to my house. The students have a career fair event...
b2b companies should hire like b2c
I believe that an effective strategy for b2b (business to business) companies to innovate and grow is by powering their talented resources as if they are b2c...
Dallas Startup Week - Scaling without stagnating for corporate firms’
It was a pleasure and honor to represent Thomson Reuters at the panel on “scaling without stagnating” as part of corporate innovation. The event was hosted b...
My Story with Pink Floyd
Sometime between ‘91 and ‘92 I accidentally saw Pink Floyd Another Brick in the Wall part 2 video on MTV - the scene where school kids turn into .. Loved t...
Why 22 hour game-playing and listening to 68 episode podcast matters?
Thimbleweed Park is an award-winning point-and-click game released in 2017 as a tribute to similar pc and Commodore 64 adventure games in the 80s. It is crea...
Minecraft or Fortnite for your career?
A common past/present/future dilemma in the professional space is what I learned from yesterday, which job is available today, and what to learn for tomorrow...
2018
AI Index 2018 Report
AI Index is an academic/business partnership research lead by Stanford University. The 2018 report was recently released and is made available under Creative...
Lightning Talk - Course Sentiment Tweets with AutoML
I presented a 15-minute lightning talk on leveraging AutoML for sentiment analysis.
Give or Take
There are two types of people. Those who give more than they take, and those who take more than they give. The ratio between give and take can vary from zero...
AutoML - expert AI for the inexperts and businesslike
Nearly everyone around by now has either heard or used artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in some form or fashion. Some students are alre...
AI/ML supporting hometowns of international students: what, how and why?
Nearly everyone around by now has either heard or used artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in some form or fashion. Some students are alre...
Some Winter Thoughts
Various thoughts I felt like posting on different occasions on LinkedIn.
‘Applied AI/ML in the Workplace – Geek Food for Thought’ – UT Austin presentation
Last Thursday we presented “Applied AI/ML in the Workplace – Geek Food for Thought” at the University of Texas in Austin Computer Science department. Thomson...
‘AI & I at Work’ – University of Texas at Dallas MIS Club Presentation
Update: Link to the presentation via DropBox Note: you need to download the presentation and turn it into presentation mode to access the videos. Also, chec...
English on non-English NLP and machine learning projects
Whenever I ask a bilingual (English + another language) students or professionals working on machine learning or artificial intelligence if they considered d...
X is not Y and is surely not Z in the Digital Age
Witnessing over 20,000 women in tech attendees at #GHC18, majority of those by pure observation seem to be in their early twenties, hence Generation Z (those...
He said “if you want a playground, go find another job”
Roughly six years ago while working at my previous employer, I asked one of the technology leaders, who might have had a bad day, why we don’t have a tech pl...
Women in tech
Cheers to Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer, Grace Hopper, who pioneered computer programming with COBOL, and all the women in tech who run code, p...
I am I in AI
I am addressing this to starters and professionals in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence. It is part of a talk I plan to do at the Uni...
Don’t Panic. Focus and Learn New Skills
Technical professionals are under pressure to learn something new for fear of missing out on the latest technologies. Non-technical professionals fear that t...
Not just the world is round but the technology world is round as well
If the world is round then so as the technology world is round as well. In the late seventies and eighties, the BASIC language and Assembly Language were hot...
Welcome Walden students to a great new academic year
Welcome Walden University students and all students to a great new academic year. It is natural and even expected to feel the high adrenaline when starting t...
Ant Intelligence
“Ant Intelligence” podcast with Dr Deborah Gordon on DataSkeptic is my new favorite podcast episode that I highly recommend for computer and data scientists....
Sunday notes - blogging on the go
Busy times ahead for me at Thomson Reuters. Before I talk about that, I am just happy that I managed to find a very convenient way to blog post using Jekyll ...
Dallas ISD Student Event
As part of Thomson Reuters community engagement, my team and I met with Dallas ISD high school students who visited the University of Texas in Dallas campus....
Dallas Data Science Conference 2018
I presented at IDEA 2018 Dallas Data Science conference. At the conference, I demos Google Collab, Google AIY with Raspberry PI, and even ran a basic machine...
Commodore 64/128 FTP Sites
I found this set of FTP sources for the Commodore 64 and 128 from one old mailing list Commodore FTP Sites Listing Last update 21 Aug 2009 by Cameron Kaiser ...
Build with Watson
Last night I played around with IBM Watson Internet of Things and Bluemix cloud services platform using their developer tools. IBM changed their developer p...
Google AIY
Setting up Google Voice AIY was an easy challenge but getting Google Vision AIY took a deep toll on me to successful solder the smaller Raspberry PI Zero W g...
2017
Dallas Meetup on Deep Learning
My friends, Aamer Charania, Babar Bhatti, and I had a meetup on artificial intelligence and deep learning at Thomson Reuters office in Carrolton Texas. Aamer...
Reverse XML - lessons that I learned for millennial sake
In April of 2001, I was so much into XML and had some innovative ideas of my own. I was working as a software engineer at Knowledgeview. The company was heav...
Retro: Atari & Commodore days 1981-1990
This is how my life with computers first started.
2016
Recalling the PhD experience
Woke up at 5am this Saturday morning for some research and work before the family wakes up. While doing some digital clean up on with my old Evernote notes, ...
Financial Sentiment Analysis
As part of my Phd dissertation at Walden University, I developed an application that would analyze the sentiments of tweets that include the stock symbols of...