Mehrdad's space: Iran

Google bomb

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:32:14 GMT

I've started a Google bomb project against the University of Tehran, it's hosted at http://ut-haters.blogspot.com.

Happy New Year!

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:15:41 GMT

Today is the first day of the new Persian year. I wish a very nice new year!

Exam Cancellation

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:50:10 GMT

I'M SO ANGRY

WHAT THE HELL SHOULD I DO?

WHAT YOU'LL DO IF YOU STAY FROM 1:30 TO 8 IN A TESTING CENTER AND THEY TELL YOU "YOUR EXAM IS CANCELED"?

AND THE NEXT EXAM IS TWO WEEKS LATER, IT MEANS NO "CHARTER MCPD".

I CAN'T DO ANYTHING EXCEPT OVERUSING "THE F WORD"

Persian or Farsi?

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 21:13:58 GMT

I found a great post about using Persian or Farsi when referring to Persian language in an English context. I personally preferred Persian! Actually I'm not a pro to say if the article is absolutely true, but I think it is.

Deadline for Suspending Nuclear Program

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:15:21 GMT

I've forgotten an important thing due to release of Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express. Tomorrow is the deadline given to Iran by UNSC to suspend the nuclear program. I don't think anything is going to happen tomorrow, as nothing happened in the past, it's interesting though to see what's going to happen!

I hope God helps us!

Happy New Year!

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:57:52 GMT

Happy New Year!

I wish many good things happen in the new year.

For those who don't know I don't work 3 month slower than clock! No, this is the TRUE new year! The new year in Persian calendar is the first day of spring which is called Nowruz (20 or 21 Mar, depending on the year). This is the most natural new year because as the new year begins, the nature starts to refresh itself!

Actually I'm not also about a week slower than time! this is because of the time itself, which is a requirement to blog and I didn't have free time until now. I wanted to talk about Persian calendar more, since it's the most accurate solar calendar in the world (I think 1 day error in 1000000 years, comparing to Gregorian calendar which has 1 day in 2500 years, so much accuracy!).

This is one of a few things that I'm proud of being Persian!!!

I'll talk about Persian calendar later. Thanks to Microsoft, a new class is available in .NET Framework 2.0: "System.Globalization.PersianCalendar" (formerly "System.Globalization.JalaaliCalendar" [in beta 1]) which represents Persian calendar in code. Thanks Microsoft!

By the way, George W. Bush, President of the United States, has also published a message about new year (as usual): http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060320.html

Once more, happy new year and take care!

Best wishes,

Mehrdad

Visual Studio 2005 Award of Customer Excellence

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 15:28:20 GMT

Hi Everyone!

I haven't been posting messages for a while because I was busy programming a robocup soccer simulation team.

For those who don't know, I love Microsoft and I use most of Microsoft products since early betas. As a developer, I primarily use Microsoft Visual Studio as my development environment (by the way, my favorite language is C#). I have been with Visual Studio 2005 just after 4 days it's first beta became available (This is due to dial-up connections in Iran. High-speed connections are not popular in Iran, so I had to tell one of my friends to download it for me using the fast connection in his father's enterprise. That was the reason I didn't get it the first day!). Since then, I've reported some of it's bugs and gave some suggestions and workarounds about it to Microsoft MSDN Feedback Center.

I didn't check my MSN Hotmail address for a while. One day, I logged in to my account and I had several new mails. I started reading them. There was an email:

Subject : Award for Customer Excellence Nomination

Dear Mehrdad Afshari,
Thank you for being a great contributor to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.
You have been nominated to receive the Award for Customer Excellence. This award recognizes your extraordinary contribution to the Visual Studio 2005 product and will be shipped to you without charge. Please click the following link to arrange shipment of your award:
...
All the best,
S. Somasegar
Corporate Vice President,
Microsoft Developer Division

I was very surprised. I didn't expect it. After I started to fill the form. Due to US restrictions, American companies don't ship stuff to Iran and other restricted countries so in the countries list in the web sites, usually there is no "Iran" (The same thing is correct with Microsoft certifications, which I had problems to get it too but there is no Iran in it's list at all, so you know you shouldn't submit an address in Iran!). As I always have this kind of problems, I guessed that the same thing would be correct in this case, but since Iran was in their list, I thought that this time may be different and they may send it directly here. Well I was wrong! Here's the rest of the story:

Just note that the web site said that it will ship in 4 weeks. I waited 4 weeks and after that, I was worried about the award (Note that Iran's postal service is very unreliable!). So I sent an email and asked about shipping status. They said that there was internal problems and they'll ship it on Feb 2, and it will reach me in a week or two. I waited the 2 weeks and 2 weeks more for unreliablity of postal service. One more time I was worried and once again I asked for it's shipping status. I received a reply from Scott Currie (I remember he was a program manager in Visual C++ team). The content of the email was:

Hi Mehrdad,

I regret to inform you that we will be unable to send your Award for Customer Excellence for Visual Studio 2005. After receiving your shipment details, we discovered that your shipping address is in Iran. Due to shipping restrictions under US federal law, we cannot send the award to this address. Do you have an alternate shipping address outside of Iran?

If not, you can still be a member of the ACE program, participate in online engagement opportunities with Microsoft product teams, and advertise that you are an ACE award recipient.

Thank you and I apologize for the inconvenience,
Scott Currie
DDCPX Program Manager
Microsoft

Once more, I was surprised! I didn't expect to receive an email from Scott! Actually I should be happy because sometimes if you give an address in Iran, they won't send it anymore. No more choice! In fact I should have apologized for living in Iran! and I should thank Scott for great Visual C++!

Now once more, I should search for my friends who have address outside Iran and can bring it for me! The same thing I done for my MCP certifications.

This is the nature of a technical life in Iran. No opportunities to participate in many contests, matches, free stuff. The only solution is to go somewhere else but I don't have the chance to do it right now (maybe a 16 years old boy is still young).

Best wishes,

Mehrdad

ATMs and why I can't stand this country

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:12:26 GMT

I just came back home very angry, I'll tell you the reason.

As I live in a country (Iran) in which technology advancement are implemented at least 20 years after they are originally created, ATMs are considered a reletively new thing (At most 7 years to be implemented, and 3 years to become popular). For about a year, ATMs for different banks accept others' cards (Note that before that, such thing wasn't possible!). Let's get on the main story:

TRUE, TRUE, TRUE STORY, BELIEVE ME!

Today my father gave me his ATM card to go and get some money from one of ATMs. I got out and went to the closest bank. This bank wasn't the originator of the card (Although it should have accepted it). I inserted the card, after entering the PIN, the ATM told me something like "We regret we can not provide service to you"!
I went to one of branches of the originator of the card. I inserted the card, entered the PIN, selected the language, selected the "cash withdrawal" option and the amount. ATM responded that it has technical problems!
Next, I went to another bank (fortunately it's distance was just 10 meters to the second one). I inserted the card, entered the PIN and chose the language (I usually choose English because of bad translation of some words, although some ATMs just ignore it! and display both languages or just Persian! Unfortunately this time I chose Persian). I initiated the transaction. I heared the sound of counting notes. The ATM ejected the card (Note that no message has been shown to tell you to take your card); meanwhile, I saw this message on the screen (Note that no more information, just this message): "آیا به وقت بیشتری احتیاج دارید؟" ("Do you need more time?") with Yes/No options. I couldn't understand what it meant, as a user and a technology specialist, I thought it could mean:

1. Do you need to use ATM for more time for other transactions?
2. Since the networks are busy or such kind of problems, to see if you are in hurry, put your transaction in priority and if you can wait, process it normally.
Anyway, I didn't exactly understood what it meant, I just pressed "No" key. The ATM automatically pulled the card again, giving out a reciept:

...
YOUR TRANSACTION HAS BEEN CANCELED
DUE TO THE FOLLOWING
CARD NOT TAKEN
...

At this time I realized what happened and what that "VERY INFORMATIVE!" message is. The ATM had eaten the card. The message meant "Do you need more time to take your card?". The worst problem is the bank was closed and I couldn't get the card out

Here is a summary of what happened:
1. The first bank didn't accept the card from other bank!
2. The ATM for the originating bank was down!
3. The last ATM didn't show a message indicating it has ejected the card (assume that it was midnight and you couldn't see that the card came out)!
4. The message was "VERY INFORMATIVE!"
5. As a security mechanism, it's a good thing that ATM takes the card after some time if it's still in there, but do you think it needs any question?! As a solution developer, I'll explain more: If I'm still in front of ATM, it shouldn't take my card, and I never would tell the ATM, "I don't want my card anymore, eat it!"; otherwise, if I went out, it shoud eat the card anyway, no need to ask the user again. For example if I went and forgotten to take my card, the next person (for example a thief) could have stolen my card just by answering "Yes" to the question. So if I where the solution developer, I would design it in a way that after a specific time, it would take the card (eithout any question); but before that (for example for 20 seconds) it showed a warning message to take your card.

I can provide a solution for the problem, but the bigger problem is how can I live here? If anyone can provide a solution, please tell me! (I don't think there's one except escaping to another country)

I'm getting mad... (Note that this is just one example of why I can't live here)

I'll write more in this topic,
Mehrdad