Al-Yahoo Bin Scammer

It's funny how online fraudsters never give up in trying to dupe people their money. I have received many 419 emails before but none was as funny as the one I reproduce below. The scammer seems to target Muslims specifically, talk of niche market.

DEAR FRIEND,

I AM ABU ABDULLAH JAFAR WALID. I AM 44 YEARS OLD.I AM A CITIZEN OF JORDAN, BUT I AM RESIDENT IN CAYMAN BRAC ISLAND LOCATED SOUTH OF CUBA.I WAS BORN AN ORPHAN. I HAVE NO FATHER OR MOTHER, AND I HAVE NO RELATIVES.

I STRUGGLED AND WORKED HARD AND ALMIGHTY ALLAH BLESSED ME ABUNDANTLY WITH RICHES.I USED TO BE A DEALER IN GOLD AND DIAMONDS.I AM NOW OLD AND SICK.I HAVE NO WIFE AND I HAVE NO CHILDREN.I DID NOT GET MARRIED DUE TO A PERSONAL REASON I CANNOT DISCLOSE TO YOU.

FOR 2 YEARS NOW I AM SERIOUSLY SICK AND I AM PRESENTLY IN HOSPITAL. THE ILLNESS GOT COMPLICATED AND I SUFFERED A HEART ATTACK WHICH HAS AFFECTED MY SPEECH AND HEARING.I CAN NO LONGER TALK AND I AM ALSO DEAF. HALF OF MY BODY IS PARALYZED.

I SEND YOU THIS MAIL WITH THE HELP OF THE PRIVATE LAWYER ASSISTING ME. I CAN ONLY MOVE MY RIGHT HAND, AND I AM ABLE TO WRITE LITTLE WITH IT. WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN IS BEEN SENT TO YOU VIA EMAIL BY MY LAWYER AND CARE TAKER.

I HAVE LITTLE TIME SO I HAVE COMMITTED IT TO SPREADING MY WEALTH TOWARDS BETTER HEALTH CARE FOR MANKIND IN THE HOSPITAL WHERE I AM, I HAVE GIVEN THE MANAGEMENT ENOUGH FUNDS TO UPGRADE AND BUILD A NEW CANCER RESEARCH FACILITY. THIS WILL PROVIDE BETTER HEALTH CARE FOR OTHER CANCER PATIENTS.

I DON'T KNOW YOU, BUT MY HEART DIRECTS ME THAT I MUST CHOOSE A TOTAL STRANGER TO CARRYOUT THESE TASK. DUE TO MY CONDITION AND THE WISH OF ALMIGHTY ALLAH I AM CONTACTING YOU WITH THE HOPE THAT YOU WILL CARRYOUT MY INSTRUCTION FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY.I HAVE US$16M IN GOLD. I WANT YOU TO TAKE CUSTODY OF THE GOLD, SELL IT AND USE THE MONEY TO BUILD AN ORPHANAGE IN YOUR COUNTRY. YOU WILL NAME IT ABU ABDULLAH JAFAR WALID ORPHANAGE HOME.

THESE IS MY HEART DESIRE.YOU MUST FOLLOW MY WISH FOR IT WILL GLADDEN THEHEART OF ALMIGHTY ALLAH.

IF YOU ARE READY TO DO THIS AND CARRYOUT MY WISH, THEN SEND ME.

[1] FULL NAMES

[2] PHONE/FAX NUMBER

[3] RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

[4] OCCUPATION



WITH THE HELP OF MY PRIVATE lawyer I WILL BE IN CONTACT WITH YOU.

MY PRIVATE EMAIL IS: walid_jafarabu@hotmail.com

I AWAIT YOUR REPLY.
MAY ALMIGHTY ALLAH {SALL ALLAHU ALAYHI WASALLAM} EXTEND HIS MERCY OVER
YOUR HOUSEHOLD?



YOURS FAITHFULLY,

ABU ABDULLAH JAFAR WALID

ASSALAMU ALYKUM WARAHAMATULLAHI WABARAKATUH


He almost succeeded in sounding like a Muslim but unfortunately he doesn't know that Muslims don't use the words "SALL ALLAHU ALAYHI WASALLAM" to praise Allah. Wow, that's almost blasphemous. You use that after the name of the prophet Muhammad (SAW).

Sorry Mr Walid, any average Muslim can see through you. 

In-browser Desktop Apps

I have talked about the blurring of the line between desktop, mobile and web apps here and here. I think the developers GTK+ have taken a big step towards that. With the GTK+ 3.2 you can run any (desktop) application in a browser.


Watch the video here

The Black PC Inventor

As a software developer, I've always wondered why there are almost no famous black people in computer and ICT field. Was it that black people were never interested in that field or were they denied opportunities during the early days of the computers.
Actually none of the above was the case. Actually some black people have made their mark in the IT field but are just never celebrated.

One very good example is Mark Dean, a vice president at IBM. Mark Dean literally invented the personal computer as we know it. He is the architect of the personal computer and holds three of the the original nine patents that all PCs are based upon.

Without Dean's work, people like Bill Gates and Michael Dell will never be where they are today. But yet, the 20th anniversary of the personal computer was celebrated without anybody mentioning his name.

Dr Mark Dean later made history again by leading the team that created the first 1-gigahertz processor chip.

Dr Dean made my past assumption that black people never participated in the computer revolution wrong. In fact it is not wrong to say that he brought about the revolution itself.

MTN FastLink On Linux

 MTN Nigeria now has linux support for their FastLink data service. Though distros like Ubuntu has support for mobile broadband out of the box, one cannot do things like sending SMS or USSD without third party applications. One can now install the FastLink software found in the Linux folder on the modem. The one I tried came with a Huawei E1550 usb stick modem.

Running on Ubuntu 10.04

Wether this is from MTN or Huawei, it's good for us Linux users.

Minutes To 2011 (Quotes)

It's Friday December 31st 2010 11:28 PM just 32 minutes to 2011. I feel like posting a few unrelated Quotes I came across.

Nobody can give you justice, nobody can give you freedom or equality or anything. If you are a man, you take it.

                                        -Malcolm X

Don't give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art...Like the lover you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance

    -Muhammad Bin Muhammad Al-Fulani Al-Kashinawi

You know you are a geek when your car cost $500 and your computer $5000. 

   -Unknown

Everyday is new year day, depending on when you start counting

   -Me

Ubuntu Nigeria

When I started using Linux around the year 2002, I felt like I belong to an elite group of computer users. Back then I believe there were less than 10 of us in Maiduguri. But apart from feeling important, I also felt a little bit odd, because it's always difficult to tell an average Windows user why I run Linux. Not everybody understands the excitement of exploring something new, different and flexible as Linux. I think it was RedHat 8.0. But 8 years later, now the situation is different, it's not uncommon to see, everyday computer users including elderly people now running Linux. And this is all thanks to Ubuntu. As it's slogan goes "Linux For Human Beings", Ubuntu has brought Linux to the non-techies without taking the flexibility away. Though without concrete data, I believe Ubuntu has seen a great increase in users not only in Maiduguri but across Nigeria. A testimony to that is the Ubuntu Nigeria blog

Vala

Programmers know that choosing a programming language involve trade-offs. You may wish to use language A because it provides feature X but can't live without feature Y which is only found in language B. For example you may wish to use C because it produces native code that runs fast but cannot live without garbage collection which is found in Java or C#.

Based on that I normally categorize programming languages into three broad groups

1- Interpreted languages like Python and Ruby
2- Run-time dependent compiled languages like Java and C#
3-Native compiled languages like C.

Languages like C are bare-bone languages with very little convenience features like strings or garbage collection but they produce binaries that run very fast.

Interpreted languages sacrifice speed for convenience, they are usually very easy to use but run very slowly compared to compiled languages.

Languages like C# and Java tries to give you best of both worlds in that they provide convenient language features and compile to target a virtual machine at the expense of a little speed.

Vala is a new language developed by the GNOME community. It aims to give the best of all worlds. It comes with convenience of languages like Java and C# and compiles to native binary just like C.

Vala is still in development but is pretty mature to be used for many tasks and is available for Linux and Windows.

The language is introduced on the Vala site as follows;

Vala is a new programming language that aims to bring modern programming language features to GNOME developers without imposing any additional runtime requirements and without using a different ABI compared to applications and libraries written in C

Find it at http://live.gnome.org/Vala