Friday, November 4, 2011

*** interview with the Admin of Science Forums ***

Science Forums (http://www.scienceforums.net) is a nice Forum for Science lovers in each field. It has about 60,000 members and I think it’s very useful for everyone, however it will improve and become better day by day…

This was a good chance for me to interview with the Admin of this forum which I think it’s useful for everyone to read this interview.

The Admin of the ScienceForums.net at this time is “Cap’n Refsmmat”. This is a different alias! And when I asked about its meaning, I get this answer:

Ah! "Cap'n Refsmmat" is taken out of a book I was reading when I first signed up on SFN. It was a joke from NASA in the early days of spaceflight. The term "refsmmat" means "reference to a stable member matrix," and refers to a mathematical tool used in navigation, where the spacecraft would use the positions of various stars to determine its orientation.

Apparently, one day in Mission Control, two NASA guys were talking when one noticed another controller leaving an I-owe-you note next to the coffee pot. He hadn't met this controller before, so he asked his buddy who it was. "Oh, that's Captain Refsmmat!", he replied, as a joke.

Once news of the joke spread around, another NASA guy made a large cartoon poster of Cap'n Refsmmat, the "ideal flight controller," complete with his radar helmet, slide rule, and glasses engraved with the correct de-orbit attitude for the spacecraft.

Here's a picture:

http://tranquillitybase.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/captain-refsmmat.png?w=282&h=372

Now Read the interview below:


1_Please introduce yourself.
Hi.

I'm Cap'n Refsmmat, and I've been an SFN administrator since the end of 2006. I'm a 19-year-old physics student at a Texas university with three semesters left to go.

2_ when you become interested in science? and what fields of sciences was more interesting for you?
I got into science when I was very young. In elementary school I told my parents I wanted to become a rich inventor, and I owned quite a few science books. Eventually I joined SFN when I was 12.
I've since focused on physics, and that's now what I'm aiming for a degree in. Physics fascinates me because of its strangeness. At times it makes completely counter-intuitive predictions -- but they're borne out by experiment. The universe is an interesting place.

3_ when you started Science forum and what's your aim(s) from it? what do you think about it proceeds?
SFN was first started by blike and fafalone back in 2002. I can't speak for them, but I believe their aim was to create a site for those interested in science (like themselves) to discuss it openly. That's worked fairly well. We've been running now for nine years, with a steady rate of activity for the past five. My biggest current challenge is devising means of encouraging more activity and growth, but we have a few ideas in the pipeline.

4_ can you explain about your future programs for Science Forum and its members?
Unfortunately I can't go into much detail here, since the biggest potential program is not yet finalized. We're working on a partnership with another organization, but still have to sort out the details.
In the coming months we'll also be upgrading our forum software to the latest version and working on ways to promote the Science Forums Blogs more effectively. Our blogs are a brilliant platform for the public discovery of science, but they're not marketed or flaunted on SFN very well. I'd like to give our bloggers a larger audience.

5_ what's problems about Science and education in your country and in the world? can you render solution?
Science education brings with it some tremendous challenges. Basic scientific literacy is more important than ever in our highly technological society, but our teaching methods have hardly changed in decades. If we're to advance education, we need bold new ideas -- and not just ideas for better textbooks, more funding, and more computers, but ideas for entirely new teaching strategies.
The Khan Academy (
http://www.khanacademy.org) is an example of one educational idea that I find brilliant. The goal isn't to replace teachers with a series of videos and electronic exercises; the goal is to free teachers from giving lectures, so they can spend more time doing what's important: working with students to understand their misunderstandings and solve interesting problems.
I'd like to see more of this. I'd like to see teachers able to work interactively with students to improve their understanding, rather than being forced to stand in front of the class and lecture for an hour. I'm sure there's plenty of other good ideas out there, and as popularizers of science, we need to embrace them.

6_ I write some words, please write your opinion about each word:

Science: The process by which we learn more about the universe. And who doesn't want to know how the world works?
Internet: Fascinating. I've grown up with the Internet, so I'm in no place to imagine what the world would be like without it. I'm continually amazed by my ability to think "I wonder how that works..." and find the answer in thirty seconds on Google.
Forum: A place for anyone to discuss and learn new ideas.
Future: I just can't wait to be 75, so I can grumpily tell my grandchildren how when I was their age, we didn't have any of this fantastic new technology...
Earth: A pale blue dot. (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M)
Globalization: Every day on SFN I see members from the United States, India, Germany, the UK, China, and the Philippines. Strange to believe that we can all converse in real time.
Civilization: Seventy years from now, I wonder what we'll look back at and say, "wow, they were so uncivilized back then."
Humanity: We're such a weird species.
Mathematics: I wish I had more time to spend understanding this subject, because it's fascinating -- and it's surprising how many broad uses it has (
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html).
Astronomy: I'd like to be paid to stare at things billions of light-years away...

7_ what's your recommendation to the users of science forum? what's your recommendation to other forums like Science forum in other countries?
The public understanding of science is still lacking, and our goal should be to help improve it. If you're running a science forum of your own, think about what you can do to help teach science, correct misconceptions, or encourage greater interest in science. We're still a long way from success.

8_ if you think that you should say something to the readers of this interview, please feel free...
Learn about effective communication and teaching! We scientists -- and ordinary science hobbyists -- need to be better about communicating with the public.

I hope this interview would be useful for you. Please feel free to leave a comment.

my Profile on Science Forums: http://www.scienceforums.net/user/57094-moein-gh/

Thursday, September 15, 2011

*** Leitner Box system, a terrific manner to learn foreign Languages ***

Learning a foreign language in beginning seems difficult for everyone. In past decades and centuries it was very difficult but now, there are many different and useful methods to learning a foreign language. I as an English learner think that we need a good method to learn each language skill (including listening, structure, reading & writing and speaking). Each language skill need a good method and I think each method is suitable for some persons and there is no method that can be satisfactory for all people to learning a foreign language. For example that’s natural if a way to learning English for children from 8-10 years is different from methods for people from 25-30 years. And also the manners for part time learners is different from full time learners….

But on the basis of my experiences in learning English, I think one of the best ways to learn and memorize English words is the method of Leitner Box that I tried it and I am very satisfied. This method help us to memorize English words in shorter time economize in our time, so it make learning language more enjoyable and easier.

In this system, we use FlashCards. You can see more information about the Leitner system in WikiPedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system

and you can see more information about FlashCard, too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashcard

But the main point that I didn’t see it in WikiPedia, is that to learn better and more efficient, we should learn Words with their pronunciation and with their different forms. This is what I tried and I’ve got a very nice result. For example, I learnt the word “teach” in such manner:

First I wrote the Word “Teach” and also its pronunciation and kind of the word (that is Verb about this word) on one side. Then I wrote its meaning in Persian on another side. After that, I wrote other forms of this word including: “Teachable”, “Teacher” and “Teaching” each on separate Flash cards, and I write the pronunciation, kind of the word and meaning about each word, like what I did about the main word “Teach” exactly. As a result, I learnt all derivatives from the Word “Teach” and it could help me better to make new sentences. For example, after that, if I need to use an adjective from “teach” in my sentence, I know that “Teachable” is its adjective, and I remember it very soon. And also this manner helped me to memorize the word “teach” better because when we learn a word with its derivatives, in fact, we repeat it for more times, and this help us very much…

Also about the pronunciation, I wrote pronunciation of each word with phonetic alphabet on its flash card, so when I repeated the words, I repeated the pronunciations, too.

But a way that I think is another good manner and unfortunately I didn’t try it yet, is inverse learning! For example, if you are a Persian like me and you read word on flash cards and say their meaning in Persian, after you read all Flash Cards, try to read the Persian side of each Card and say its equivalent word in English with true pronunciation!! If you have extra time, this can be very good to increase your memorize skill. Of course about some words that they have several equivalents in English, you can remember and say other equivalents, too. There is no limitation in it!

Even after that you became skillful in memorize and remembering words, you can use Flash cards on the basis of English to English dictionaries. This can be good for English learners that they study English literature and TOEFL or IELTS is not enough for them!

I think this manner can be useful for learning each language. What do you think? Please write in comments…

Friday, September 9, 2011

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 10*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing Practice NO 10:

Subject: at the end of your life, how would you most like to be remembered? Support your response with reasons and examples.

I think life is a very expanded scene that our creator gave us to make changes in the Earth, and also God gave us freedom to choose our manner and enjoy our lives while we reach to some aims that God wants from us. Freedom is the main reason of differentiating between people and their lifestyles. I want to live in a manner that not to damage society and others at all, while I enjoy my life and reach my aims.

Like others, I have freedom and choosing power to choose my manner of life, and I have some big aims that I really want to gain all of them and I think everybody like to reach all of his/her aims in life, but there are some unchangeable things in life that have negative effects on our lives, but if I reach most of my aims during my life, this is very valuable for me…

But about my relations with society and others, I think that Isaac Newton’s third law is also true about life so what we do, we collect its results. So that’s better if I do nice acts and be kind with others, so I will attract nice things and kind friends. I want to help others specially nice and talent persons as possible as I can, and even I don’t have many expectations from helping others, but I think others will help me, too. This is on the basis of my experiences and I enjoy it.

But about my personal life, I think if I don’t harm others, I can live in each way that I want, and I think this is not very important for others, too.

So I want to be remembered as a nice, kind and useful person who make some useful changes.

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 9*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing Practice NO 9:

Subject: Some people prefer to marry when they are young, while others prefer to wait until they are older to marry. Discuss the advantages of each position. Then indicate which you think is better and why.

Marriage is one of the most complicated subjects in life. One of the great men says: “marriage is harder than going to global war! ” I think this sentence is true because there are many things like society situation, religion and your personal thoughts that affect on your marriage.

To marry in youth has some advantages like have more energy and more excitement to sex! But there are other and many things that you should define what you want with them, like financial problems, social problems, your family and your other aims in life that You shouldn’t and you can’t ignore them, because even if you think they are not important, they are important and they will influence your life in future. So, if marriage isn’t a prevention for other things in your life, perhaps that’s good for you to marriage, however, your life partner should accept your situation and your thoughts and also there should be a mutual love between both you, if not, some big problems will appear in future. But if you can’t marry in youth, there is no reason for hopelessness because everything isn’t sex! And have a partner in life. You can endeavor to make your life better, and after you reached your other aims, you can marry or engage easily, and you can marry with anyone that accept you and she/he is really your half-lost, who may be your friend from youth or you find him/her recently. Although marriage for girls is different from boys, but I think this is a good way for all and for this statement I have some reasons. My reason is that choose a way to have a perfect life as possible as we can. Most of successful men and women married and they have had very nice, beautiful and happy life and this shows that it’s possible to have your dreamy life only if you think to all things in your life and endeavor to reach best things. I think that another important thing in life is health and remain healthy during life. To remain healthy, you should have less stresses in your life and work, have regular exercises, have nice feeding and have anything that is goos for your health. If you have so, you can enjoy life and sexual enjoyment in each age. I wrote these paragraphs on the basis of what I have seen during my life, and I think as we think the lewdness is dirty and shameful, dirty lives and an ugly life is shameful, too, because it has some bad effects on society, and I think the governments should endeavor to improve people’s personal lives, if not, they shouldn’t expect to have a perfect nation…

But another subject is some relations that they have problem with religions, like having a sharing life without marriage. However it is not lewdness and it’s for love not for money, but some religions count it a big vice, but some persons accept it in a situation that marriage is not possible and the two persons in relation are agreeing and satisfying. As I have seen, such relations sometimes can be good and can resume and finish in a successful marriage, but sometimes are bad. I think it depends on each person that abuse it or not. I think this is a new subject that became important nowadays, and we need to a deep check and a deep conversation with psychologists and sociologists. It’s not an easy decree and perhaps for solving this subject, we should ignore some religion rules and make new rules that be suitable with modern societies. This depends on social situations…

But some people don’t want to marriage at all. I think that the society should respect their believes and also they should respect to society values and they shouldn’t extend lewdness. I myself believe that the best ages for marriage is between 30-40, when some parts of your needs and your problems become solved and also you mind was grown and you are nearer to perfection and have a good chance to marriage…

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 8*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing Practice NO 8:

Subject: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

“A knowledge of history is absolutely essential”

Use specific reasons and examples to support your response.

I seriously agree with this statement because no one is perfect and no one knows everything. So that’s necessary to read other people’s fates and read about their lifestyles to take lesson from them and don’t repeat the previous mistakes in our lives. For example we can take lesson from their mistakes in social subjects and their wars, so we can solve such problems and prevent from other wars in future. If we don’t pay attention to history, perhaps we repeat the old mistakes so these problems add to other problems and new problems and our situation for life becomes worse and worse. this is awful and make many persons disappointed.

Why we repeat the previous mistakes? This is not logical. So history is the great teacher of all people…

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 7*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing Practice NO 7:

Subject: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

“Time should never be wasted.”

Use specific reasons and examples to support your response.

I exactly agree with this sentence, because I think each time and each period has its own potential that you can achieve many things for yourself, even if you don’t have the ideal situation at a time, but you can still use the time to improve your life and make better aims to achieve your aims. You can be happy and enjoy your life if you don’t waste time. For example, I don’t have my ideal situation at this time and I have many problems in my life. But now I endeavor to make my life better and make new ways to gain my aims. But that’s not all of it, if I reach my aims in future, I will have other and perhaps different needs that I should endeavor for them. But I think the happiness possible only if I don’t waste time in youth…

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 6*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing Practice NO 6:

Subject: Some people work better during the day, while other people work better at night. Which kind of person are you, and why? Use reasons and examples to support your response.

Working during the day or at night depends on different features. For example night workers in mines and some factories are habited to work at night and sleep in the day. While this is unusual but their biologic period time are habited to their work situation. another feature that effect on work better in the day or night is the person’s health. For example if have healthy eyes, that’s easier for you to habit to work at night, however somebody who has weak eyes, can’t work at night very good because darkness and lamps light are bad and sometimes harmful for weak eyes. So I think people who have weak eyes or other sickness or problems (for example problem with sleeping or perhaps it’s a psychological sickness) can work better during the day, while healthy people can adapt easier with work at night or day…

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 5*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing Practice NO 5:

Subject: What advice would you give to someone who is just beginning the study of English language? Give reasons and examples to support your response.

I recommend to endeavor hard and being in hopeful mood to learn English. I recommend someone who is beginning the study of English language that focus on grammar and after grammar, focus on listening and writing. Grammar is very very important and is the hardest part of learning English (and also each language), however I think that’s not very hard as much as nobody can learn it.

These days there are many different and useful tools and methods to learn English that I recommend to use each thing that is useful and suitable, and also accessible for you, such as different English story books, different English websites and English online tests and exams that they are often free. Also these days social networks and blogging are very common, so connect with other English learners in the world and share your knowledge with them…

For learning English word, I recommend to use Flash cards and Picture Dictionaries to memorize words better and faster. Flash card is very terrific and useful tool that I have seen to memorize English words with their meanings as quickly as possible. Also you can make these flash cards with surplus papers in your notebooks and in your home. I myself, brought surplus papers and divide them to smaller parts, then I wrote the English word with its pronunciation and also type of word (Verb, Noun, Adverb or adjective or …) in one side and write its meaning in Persian in another side.

Although bilingual dictionaries are very useful, but you should habit to use English to English dictionaries because sometimes you need to know explanation of a word in English and perhaps that word doesn’t have an exact equivalent in your language.

And also I warn not to try unreal and scam tools like “learn English in sleep” because that’s really junk and only empty your pocket! Learning English is hard and need practice but it’s not impossible. And please note that learning English these days is much easier than the past. So use new tools and methods and don’t become hopeless. Just try and practice, practice and practice!

If you do so, you will be successful. There is not any doubt in it.

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 4*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing Practice NO 4:

Subject: some people like to visit new and different places, while others prefer to remain in places they know. Which type of person are you? Support your response with reasons and examples.

I’m a person who love to visit new places and see new cultures, because I think that everybody needs to know more about people and cultures, because we live in a world with different people and different cultures. In addition, people from countries and cities will become more connected everyday. So, some traditions in each area become changing because of globalize influence on societies. So we should see different places and different people to have more successful communication with others and as well as we recognize other people, we can introduce our country and our culture to other people and thus every culture can get some positive effects from other cultures and this is a good way to amend human cultures. Also sometimes we need to travel to other areas for other aims like study abroad or for a research, for business, for use more facilities that we need but we don’t have them in our area, and so on. So I love traveling and I think travel and seeing new places is very enjoyable for everyone.

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 3*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing Practice NO 3:

Subject: What type of company would you most like to see built in your hometown or city? Give reasons to support your response.

I like to see that a great software company built in my city, because my field of study and my job is Software Engineering.

This is my dream! But I have reasonable idea about companies that are built in my city that is a green city with amazing environmetn. I think those companies that infect the environment like cement and petrochemical industries, should not be built in verdurous and woodsy areas because we need green and healthy places to live and also we can have a great income if we pay attention to attract all tourists to such areas. Pollutant industries can be built in deserts areas and although this can be more expensive, in lieu of it we save our environment and our health. But non-pollutant industries are very useful in each city because help people to have suitable jobs and decrease jobless people in each city...

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 2*

In continuation of the previous post, I write another of my writing practices:

Writing practice NO 2:

Subject (in the Book): Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

“Patience is the most important characteristic in a boss”

Use specific reasons and examples to support your response.

I agree with this statement, because a boss organize the work, define the way of project process and he/she knows that some aims need more time to be reached and they depend on different situations and other things. So, a boss should be skilled (skillful), smart and perfect, and also a boss should be patient. A good example is Google; when the Google Inc. established, it was a small company with big aims, but it was not possible to process some ideas in those years. But after seven years, Google became a great company and it was the suitable time for Google to take part in other fields such as Email services or social networks. The managers of Google were patient to reach their aims, and Google became successful in the best possible way and now, it is the biggest company in the field of online services. This is a result of a nice and reasonable management, and Google is not only successful in its works, but also it is successful in other things like make a nice and satisfactory office for its employees, and also make a good possibility for its employees to execute their innovative ideas…

*my writing practices for TOEFL _ NO 1*

I’m reading for the TOEFL but not arranged, because I have some other things to do. I started reading for TOEFL from 22 Months ago from Beginner level, and now my English become very better and I hope to get my TOEFL 4 Months later, although if I was read for TOEFL harder and more arranged, I could get it 9 Month ago. I think learning English is not very difficult but it need a high concentration that unfortunately I hadn’t!

Plus a nice English teacher that I have, I read the Book “Longman Complete Course for the TOEFL Test”. This is very useful book and it contains 4 sections in order: Listening, Structure, Reading and Writing. I finished the first 3 sections 5 Months ago then I started writing, but after 4 sessions, I disconnected going to class for about 3 Months! But now I continue my classes and I should reread the book from the first page as soon as possible because I forgot something and I need to remember them.

I think reading and writing in each way can help English learner to improve, and some nice ways are reading English websites and blogs and leave a comment, or make foreign friends online. But today I want to write some of my writing practices here as a memento and also if you want, you can write your opinion or a text that you think it’s better, in the comments. I encourage you to leave a comment!

I write each of my writings with their subjects. If you see any grammatically problem in my writings, please notify me in the comments...

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Now writing practice NO 1:

Subject (in the Book): some students prefer to study alone, while other students prefer to study with others. Discuss the advantages of each type of studying. Then indicate which you prefer and why.

Study needs good concentration, however this depends on what you want to study. For example, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry need deep concentration because you have to proof many subjects in this type. While others like literature need casual concentration, but it become hard if you don’t have a good concentration and attention.

For a good study, your mind should be free from daily stresses, and there are some ways and techniques to prepare your mind for concentration on study and also increase your concentration for other works. Techniques and manners like relaxation, meditation, Yoga and so on.

But the advantage of study in a group with others is that we can concentrate all minds on the specific subject so you pay less attention to other subjects and stresses when you study in a group. (although perhaps sometimes this can’t help you because you may have a great problem that it make your mind whole busy, but study in group often is better…). This is very useful specially for hard lessons that they need deep concentration and high energy.

I for myself prefer to study with others because what I wrote in previous paragraphs, but if it’s not possible always, I study at least hard lessons with others.

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What you think about this subject? Please write your opinion in comments…

Sunday, August 28, 2011

*** interview with creator of “AdBlock” extension for Chrome and Safari***


Hi Friends

“AdBlock” is very nice and powerful extension for block unwanted ads. It’s really perfect, and it’s available for both Google Chrome and Safari Browsers.

AdBlock For Google chrome: http://chromeadblock.com/

AdBlock For Safari: http://safariadblock.com

Recently, I interviewed with AdBlock Creator Mr Michael Gundlach, that he was one of Google’s employees in the past. See the interview below:

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011:

HiThank you again for accept my interview request.

Michael Gundlach: You're very welcome! :)

Questions:


1. Please introduce yourself.

I'm Michael Gundlach, I'm 30 years old, I'm married to a wonderful woman named Katie. I've been programming since I was 8 years old, and I went to the University of Georgia for my undergraduate and graduate degree in Computer Science.


2. What’s your purpose from manufacturing AdBlock extension? When you started this project? And With which language you created it?

I was inspired by the Adblock Plus project on Firefox. They had no plans to build a Chrome version, and I loved Chrome, so I built AdBlock for Chrome in 2009, and Apple asked me to port it to Safari in 2010. It's all JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

I built and support AdBlock because I pretty passionately dislike the values underlying advertising. America has developed a consumerist culture where people buy things they don't need with money they don't have, to the point where they can't get themselves out of debt. Many advertisements use sex to sell their products, which degrades women and manipulates men. People overcoming pornography addictions are subjected to temptation just by viewing the advertising that our culture produces.

So, by helping people block ads, I'm helping a tiny bit to free them from consumerism, to treat women as equals with men, and to help men not be controlled by sex. I'm happy with that! Also, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, and these goals line up perfectly with Christian values.

And of course on top of the ideological reasons, the ads themselves are visually distracting and annoying, and they take up bandwidth. One user told me he gets fewer vomiting migraine headaches thanks to AdBlock blocking the flashing ads that trigger them. A pastor told me he recommends AdBlock to his church members when they need help recovering from porn addiction. A user in the military told me it makes browsing so much easier because the internet connections are often bandwidth-constrained. A blind user told me AdBlock makes him able to read pages more clearly because his screen reader can skip over speaking all the ads. Stories like these help me keep going :)

3. What’s about statics? How many persons downloaded it (for Chrome/for Safari)?

I don't know about downloads, but there are over two and a half million 7-day active users on Chrome, and somewhere around 1 to 2 million Safari users. Safari doesn't automatically ship AdBlock updates to users, so I don't have statistics on all the users who installed before I recently added code to count users.

4. Are you received a complaint from Advertise agencies and big companies because of blocking their ads? Is this legal in USA?

The only complaint I got was informal: after I presented AdBlock for Safari at Apple's 2010 developer conference, a guy walked up and said he worked for a large news/ads company and that they hated my work -- but that he himself loved it. I think most advertisers realize that the people who install AdBlock tend to be the ones who are less likely to click on the ads in any case.

It is indeed legal for users to view web pages however they want to view them. I'm not aware of any country where customizing a web browser's display is illegal.

5. What’s your plan for Adblock in future?

In the short term, there's an exciting new feature coming. Due to imperfect support in the browser, AdBlock hasn't been able to block ads within Flash games or within non-Youtube videos. The Chrome team is now adding better support for AdBlock, so I should be able to add this feature as soon as the Chrome team finish their work -- and my users will automatically get the update. (No such luck for Safari users, but you can switch to Chrome on Mac if you want this feature.)

In the long term, I'd like to see so many people using ad blockers that advertisers have to start paying more attention to the users' interests. In a perfect world, every ad would be so unobtrusive and pleasant that no one wanted to block them. I doubt that's going to happen, but it would be great if users could opt in with a single click to just the types of ads they wanted -- "only text ads", or "any ad that isn't sexual", or "only ads that have been targeted by my browsing habits."

This would require broad support from advertisers, so at the moment the only opt-in AdBlock offers is to text ads on Google search results, which are easy enough to detect that this feature didn't require support from Google.

6. When you start programming? What’s your first favors in technology world?

My brother is 13 years older than I, and when he was at university and I was 8 he helped me get started programming in BASIC on my father's 286 PC. I started with really simple games, such as an "Olympic javelin throwing program" that in Python would be written

for i in range(80):

print ' ' * i + '*'


but I'm sure was messier in BASIC. I got a book full of BASIC programs from the library and read through it; I modified the QBASIC games Nibbles and Gorilla on my mother's work computer; I wrote a diary program with an ASCII art animation of a diary opening. I loved programming and couldn't get enough of it (and still can't).

My father helped me build my own 386 (by the time Pentiums were popular), which was hugely exciting. I taught myself Pascal and wrote simple choose-your-own-adventure stories and more complex text adventures for my relatives (well, "complex" although all you could do was move from room to room, pick up things, and eat them.) By 16 I was writing in C++, so when I went to university I had 8 or 9 years of experience.

7. What’s your other projects and applications before AdBlock? Can you
tell about them?

My graduate university project changed the way wireless routers sent traffic to handheld computers, to save battery power.

In my professional life, in order, I've contributed to hospital management software, worked for Google's Ads Site Reliability team (ironically), built a couple of e-commerce websites, written embedded C in medical equipment, designed a network simulator using the Google Maps API, improved the search engine at CareerBuilder.com using genetic algorithms, and built part of the OpenStack cloud computing system.

In my personal time, I've written predator/prey simulations, a speech-to-text Python module, genetic algorithms that draw pretty pictures, a chat server for my fiancee and me to chat halfway across the world before instant messaging existed, several educational programs for my wife's students, a CPU simulation, and a robot that you can call on the phone to play Twenty Questions with. Oh, and at university I wrote a trojan horse that replaced the UNIX login screen with my own program and then said "gotcha!" when you typed in your password. I lost the chance to be a computer lab supervisor over that one :)

And on top of all that, there are the dozens if not hundreds of programs that I've written, lost, and forgotten about. To any of your readers who are just getting started in programming and find that they love it: PLEASE put all your code in a code repository somewhere, so that 20 years later you can look back at it all fondly! It'll hurt to lose it. I'm still holding on to the .exe of the giant choose-your-own-adventure I wrote when I was 15, since I lost the source code but could maybe reverse engineer the assembly one day.

8. With which programming languages you work?

In addition to JavaScript for AdBlock, I use Python and bash for automating some development tasks. Python has been my favorite language for years, though JavaScript is catching up on it. I thought C# was great before I discovered Python :)

9. What do you think about Web 2.0 and advertising on Web 2.0? Can you present a solution to have more ethical advertising on web 2.0 without annoying users while it can be profitable for companies and people?

I think I answered this one above. If users can limit the ads they see to those they are happy to see, users will be happier, users will pay more attention per ad, users will click more ads, and advertisers and publishers will make more money. At least, that's what I hope!

10. I write some words. Please write your opinion about each word:

Computer: A tool that can be used for good or for evil.

Internet: The best hope for democracy for the oppressed.

Programming: The profession that comes closest to making ideas come to life.

Advertise: See above ;)

Adblock! : This makes me think of staying up much too late to write code back when AdBlock wasn't my full-time work; and of the users who email me to say thank you; and that I'm using my skills to make the world a slightly better place.

Internet users: I'm impressed that I get much more positive feedback from users on the Internet than negative feedback. I expected to hear only negativity. Maybe AdBlock users just tend to be nicer people :)

Privacy policy: "Privacy" on the net almost always makes me think of Google -- that they work so hard to keep your data safe from those who want to see it, that they were the first to make a privacy policy in simple language, that they fight to protect the identities of anonymous bloggers on their systems, and that they've continued to fight for privacy as companies like Facebook treat it so lightly. I'm hoping Google+ helps people see that there's an alternative to making all their information public.

Humanities: I think that humanity is inherently flawed, and that we can trust Jesus to save us from this inability to have a relationship with God.

Freedom: Perhaps the most important requirement for living a happy life.

Civilization: Sorry, all this really makes me think of is the video game, which I've never played.

USA: Despite its problems, I think it's the best government on Earth. The individual leaders may not be great, but I'm so blessed to have so much freedom, and the security that comes with a peaceful electoral process, and that freedom of speech is built into our government, and that I can freely criticize my leaders...

11. What’s your suggestion to people that interested in programming?

If you're new to programming and you like math, play with Project Euler to develop your skills while having fun. If you like games, try building a Tetris clone in JavaScript and HTML5. If you like music, write a Python script that reads a text file full of notes and plays a song. If you like food, write a website that lets you store recipes. Yesterday I wrote a Python script for my church that automates cleaning up and compressing the sermon audio and publishing it to our website (http://faithpcachurch.org/sermons.php ). Just write programs related to things you're passionate about.

When you need more experience, find an open source project you care about and find out how to contribute to it. Some large examples are jQuery, Django, Python, Ubuntu. Or find one on GitHub that looks interesting and dive in. AdBlock is also open source, though it's tiny by comparison.

*** thanks a lot from Mr Michael Gundlach because of participate in this interview ***

If you made an interview with a programmer or technology master, please notify me by leave a comment…

Best Luck!

(Source: http://theFastPerfectionist.Blogspot.com )

*** my interview with one of CloudSafe team members ***


Sometimes in my free time, I make interviews with technology masters. This is very fun for me and I learn some useful things from these interviews…

Last year (2010), I interviewed with one of Cloud Safe team members, and I published this interview on my Persian blog. But now, I want to share it in my English blog…

About Cloud Safe:


CloudSafe offers a secure platform for your most sensitive data sharing needs

· Create different safes for different data. Whether it be a single PIN or thousands of legal documents, you can assign to every safe different levels of access for other parties or keep access solely with you.

· Account registration on CloudSafe is always free. That means anyone you share data with can gain access to the files at no charge. You only pay to use extended features.

For more information, go to its Website: https://secure.cloudsafe.com

For more acquaintance with this platform, I made an Interview with Founder of Clod Safe that you see it below:


1. Please introduce Your Company.

CloudSafe was incorporated November 2009. We started developing our platform in January 2010 and went live end of August 2010. A total of 12 people were involved in the development of CloudSafe.com

2. What’s Your Purpose of establish CloudSafe.com ? and With Which software(s) & Language(s) You create it ? and What’s Your Future Schedule for CloudSafe ?

I am working as an IT professional for many years. We were looking for a platform to exchange highly critical data (server keys, certificates and password) for our projects and we did not find any provider that satisfied our need for highly encrypted online storage. We had a look at PGP but considered the solutions quite expensive in licensing and maintenance. So we decided to develop our own solution. The project grew substantially from there. Now it´s a platform to store everything, from a single password up to thousands of files.

Most of the platform is developed in Java. Except some critical encryption functionalities.

We will offer an API in near future: So you can develop your own services or clients and use CloudSafe as a secure online storage provider. Think of backup software, password managers, secure messaging products. All could store and exchange data by using our API.


3. You have written in your Website: “Cloud Safe is not able to access your data itself. This is our guarantee.” How? Please more explain about it.

Data that arrives at our servers will be directly encrypted, chunk by chunk.* Content of any customers "safe" will be stored encrypted. For all users we use a public/private key infrastructure (as in PGP or GnuPG). Keys to the data are encrypted with the public key of the user. The private key of the user will never be stored unencrypted. It is only used the moment the user accesses his data. We will soon be offering end-to-end encryption via the API as well.

If someone would get hold of our database and of our storage he would not be able to read any of the safe content.

(* only the safe name and public description will not be encrypted since we use it in emails if you consider to share the safe content with other users on the platform)



4. What’s your supplies for Hacking and attacks ?

Well, we have a dedicated team making sure that we can identify and counter attacks on our site. We cannot go into further details for security reasons but we take this issue very seriously.


5. What's difficulties Of internet Security in Your Country And in the World ? what’s your view about it?

Germany has very strong privacy laws. We store all data on dedicated servers here in Germany. We feel confident about our laws to protect the privacy of the data stored at CloudSafe. We know that is not the case in all other countries. But our company is in Germany and we work by german law.


6. What's your Recommendations to Companies and users for guard their Data?

Take precautions for your sensitive data! There are far too many ways your data could be compromised. Set high standard in storing and exchanging data. Do not use regular cloud storage providers with unencrypted, sensitive data. And no, exchanging critical informations via email is not secure! Leaked data could be much more expensive than taking precautions now.


7. I Write Some Words , Please Write Your view And credo About Which Word :

Computer :
Useful helpers in everyday work.

Internet : Connectivity to the world. Access to amazingly lots of resources to learn.

Security: Becoming the key issue for the internet in the next 2 years.

Innovation: Much easier to innovate on the Internet. Feedback is instant.

Success : Will follow innovation.


*** With Thanks from Mr. Roberto Valerio for participate in this Interview ***

If you interviewed with a programmer or technology master, please let’s know by leaving a comment…

Source: http://theFastPerfectionist.Blogspot.com

***interview with Mike Champion, one of “OneForty” Team members***

Twitter apps are deploying day by day and number of these applications is too much, as many people don’t know that many of these applications are in existence!

OneForty is a place to solve this problem…

One of OneForty team members is Mike Champion that you can find more information about him on his blog: www.graysky.org


I interviewed with him last year and published it in my Persian Blog. Now I republish it here:


Interview:


1.Please introduce Yourself?
Hi, I'm Mike Champion. I'm a software developer near Boston, Massachusetts.

2. When You began Programming? How did you Learn Programming?
I really didn't start programming until college, which is relatively late compared to many. I had always been interested in computers, computer games and playing around, but didn't write code until college. When I started taking Computer Science classes I was excited about this whole new world, and spent a lot of time learning C, Unix, HTML, JavaScript, Perl in short order. I was hooked!

3. What’s Your Purpose of make “One forty” website ? and With Which Language You Create it? and What’s Your Future Schedule for “One forty”?

The goal of oneforty is to make it simpler for people to find Twitter tools that make their lives easier and get the most out of Twitter. And to help developers promote & sell their products. The website is built using Ruby on Rails.

4. and How About other of your Twitter Projects? for example about
Who Should I Follow”?
"Who Should I Follow" was a project a friend and I built that gives recommendations on who to follow on Twitter. Twitter can be confusing when you first start using it, and it is a way to find interesting people to follow. It's built in Ruby on Rails and Java, for performance reasons.

5. How revenue Of Programming in Your Country ? ( In IRAN is Not Well now Because Iran Haven’t Copy Right Law Now , And Other Problems...)
Many programmers in the United States make a good living. In fact, the U.S. needs more good programmers than it currently has.

6. What’s Your View About Twitter Developing ? and What’s Your Recommendation for Twitter and Face Book Developers ?
The development of social software like Twitter & Facebook is exciting because it is relatively easy to build something that can be used by a great number of people. Twitter is fun for programmers because it is a simple API, that allows access to millions of people and lots of
interesting data. Getting started is pretty simple, but building a service that is heavily used can be tricky!

7. What's difficulties Of Programming in Your Country And in the World? Can You render a solution ?
The good news about the last 10 years is that quality information about programming is much easier to find online, and there are many platforms that are easy to get started building on. Today, any student can create a website (or a Twitter app!) that can be seen by people all around the world.

8. With Which programming language you are Working ?
These days I primarily work in Ruby plus Javascript.

9. What’s Your View About Future of Web2 and Web3 that Will be Coming in future ?
The most interesting question to me about the (near) future of web development is around mobile. Currently there is a boom in creating native mobile apps for platforms like iPhone & Android, but at the same time there is progress in mobile browsers, HTML5 and mobile
network speed. There is a cost to targeting multiple platforms, and at the same time mobile Webkit is becoming the de facto standard (with RIM embracing it for their latest OS). I'm interested to see which apps continue as mobile apps, and which remain webapps targeted for
mobile devices.

10. What's Your Recommendations To Programmers And Companies ?
That's a broad question, but I think if there is a theme it would be that you can do a lot these days for little money. For programmers, there is a lot of information online. It doesn't take much money to build interesting projects if you have the motivation and time. For companies, you can run experiments for small amounts of money to test ideas about your business.

**** thanks from Mr Mike Champion for take Part in my interview****

If you made an interview with a programmer or technology master, please notify me by leave a comment…

Best Luck!

(Source: http://theFastPerfectionist.Blogspot.com )