Moustafa Mahmoud .... when legacy is the man

Moustafa Mahmoud , Who don't know that man , who didn't read one of his books , and who didn't watch his TV program AlElm Wa Aleman "العلم و الايمان . That great man just passed away yesterday . He left silently same way as he used to end his program.

In the Islamic history we knew many great scientists like Altabary , Ibn Sina and many of them , They used to have deep knowledge in medicine , in astronomy , as well as literature. They used to write many books that became the references for the modern science. Doesn’t Mosutafa Mahmoud name rings the bell in your mind same as those great Muslim scientist!

The relativity theory by Einstein , he was the 1st Arab author who wrote a book describing it in a very simple way, and that was my 1st interesting book I read during the high school. That is how I knew about Einstein , the book named Einstein and the relativity " اينشتاين و النسبية "
How many people have been convinced about Islam by his daring books like " conversation with my unbeliever friend " حوار مع صديقي الملحد " . I think he was one of a very few writers who provided many scientific prove that been acknowledged by logic of Allah existence.

Did anyone of us who lives outside Elmohandesen managed to go there without taking Mosutafa Mahmoud Mosque as a land mark in his way there. I keep ask myself how many people where attending lessons in that Mosque that he built , how many poor people cured in his hospital next to it.
I remember one day when a poor people asked me where is Mahmoud Masque and they continued , we came from upper Egypt" الصعيد " to meet Dr.Moustafa Mahmoud we heard that they treat poor people in his hospital. I wonder how his reputation reached that far.
Do anyone of us recalls Newspapers photos of El-Eid prayers "صلاة العيد" from Mahmoud Masque where thousands of people do the prayers in his mosque.
His name was around us all the time without we even notice. I asked my friends who are doctors now , how many of them became doctors because of Mousatafa Mahmoud was their role model specially when following every single episode of his program on TV, They were many actually.
I think he was one of the few who started the charity work, he is one of the few who worked for the poor people without getting in focus or stay in touch with government.
Sorry that I missed his funeral , a friend of mine attended it and he commented that thousands of people were there.
May Allah bless his soul and keep him in our memory. He was not only an Islamic thinker , a writer , a Doctor , A scientist , he was much more than all of these , He was a living legacy.

Human resource managment .. we miss that !

I was shocked same as all of us regarding the 2 trains accident in Alayat , it is not the first one , and i am sure it will not be the last. I believe lots of things must be changed, lots of issues have to be resolved.
The fast solutions way (take away method) will never resolve those permanently issues. Claiming that it is single human fault and pointing fingers on train driver will never ever resolve the damage , it will never bring back the lives that been taken.

The focus should be on the system that run this huge authority of Egypt Railways. something is wrong there , and admitting with this is the honest start towards the problem. I believe in Japan the Minister of transportation will resign but in Egypt it is different , no one feels responsible for the loss of lives, no one have the courage to say " I am partially responsible on this as i was the highest head in the decision making for this section and didn't take the proper procedures to save citizens lives".

The Commercial campaign that were in TV during Ramadan named " Say No to the wrong - ool lel ghalat laa قل للغلط لأ" Was targeting the Egyptian citizens who is using Egypt trains to cooperate and stop anything wrong they do or even prevent others from getting in trains without paying the tickets. This campaign for sure was not costless , and having it in Ramadan in the highest watching time - prim time- means it coasts millions of pounds.
This raise the following questions:
Did it prevents this accident from happening ?
Did it make people say wrong to the drivers who was careless?
Did it make people stop taking that train ?
Did it make people stop passing over the crossing that it didn't have any kind of alerting lights or fences ?
Did it make people confirm that the train driver is using the safety speed limiter of the train before they just get in the train?

I think the answer is "NO it didn't" for all the above questions , the reason of this is so simple , the campaign was targeting an issue that was a shallow collateral of the problem and not the core issue itself.

In the old days we used to know that Railways is the largest firm in Egypt from number of direct & indirect employees. There used to be some small jobs that i consider it vital , like Crossing Guards or watchman - Ghafeer mazlakan غفير مزلقان( who insures that no one crosses till train passes , and who insures that crossing alerts , lights and fences are working properly) , Rail redirector- switch watchman - morakeb ta7wela مراقب تحويلة ( who is responsible in reporting any mechanical issues with the rail mechanical switches). Now i wounder Where are those jobs , do they still exist , do they paid well in order to continue in doing those jobs with high attention. In old days those small jobs where the main reason for preventing accidents. Now what we did seems to blow all this away , we replaced humans with automatic systems to match the modern world, although this was true , but we didn't hire enough people to maintain those automatic systems. So as a result , those systems didn't work , train drivers didn't use it so it was abandoned , and as there is no watchmen , some of its critical components where stolen.

I believe that the conclusion of this was we tried to enhance by eliminating the human from the vital joints of that system with a justifications of become modern , save cost of man hiring. So what we got in return , we Got a Total failure. Gentlemen , admit it please , evidence is so clear of that failure.

I spend 4 years going to Alex every month upon schedule as i were the system support engineer for Bibliotheca Alexandrina IT main UNIX servers. And that made me a regular train passenger. I used to take the 8:00 Am train that reaches Alex 10:00 AM. That train they considered the most important one as many government officers take that train. there used to be red carpets with 2 steps in front of train doors ,and many things that makes anyone in the railway station at Ramses points to that train - It was the turbine one - Eltorbini. I Have to tell you that it was only one time that it reached Alex station sharp in time , Only once ! ,and for the rest of time it used to delay from 10 minutes up to 2 hours !! , Yes gentlemen 2 hours.
The 2 hours delay have a story . The train Engine catch fire after 10 minutes of leaving Ramses Station , Smoke was all over the 3 front cars by the air condition pipes. Thank god they managed to control the fire , and another train tractor replaced the burned one and we continue the trip. So if this what happens to the most important train , can you imagine how it is with the rest!.

So i think the issue is not with Egypt Railways itself , it is with our human resource management , if we can utilizes all this human resources we have , we will put an end to many of our problems.You can watch every morning the Ramses square and how many thousands or even millions goes to their work in that early hours at 7:00 am ( i used to watch that during my Alex trip ) and you will say we do have potential by those people that keen to go to their work , we only miss the way to manage this power.

China did a great job in this , I have a friend of mine traveled to China , and he came with a funny comment , he said that:
During his stay in the hotel , he used to open the window early morning and he find street is full of people going to their work , he said " its not one million , it is 3 millions minimum walking in that big street" , he continues : at night i open the window and find another 3 millions walking in same street at night , and they are for sure different than the 1st ones of morning" . actually it was funny and we laughed loudly on that , but that reflects a real human resource management, if those people have to share same street , same work , then 24 hours shifts was the solution. and i think this is simply leads to that China became the massive giant in production of anything from small toys , till Cars.

If the 78 Millions citizen makes us an over populated country , then it also makes us a very rich of human resource country and we have no other way but to utilizes this fortune that we have.

Sadat , October .... It's still our pride

I am still recalling October victory , the month didn't over yet. The Movie " Ayam ElSadat - ايام السادات " was in TV few days ago, Its name means " Sadat Days" I used to translate its name differently "Sadat Era". Yes it was an era , not just days , months or Years it was an Era.

It is fare enough that Time Magazine shares this with me , as Sadat was on Time cover 10 times during his 10 years as Egypt's president, which reflecting the importance of him and his time.

Those years of Sadat as president made a huge difference to our lives now , it deserve to be a complete era. No one can deny that we still living the results of that era effect. I recognized this through my early days , in the matter of fact i thought that it is something within our country only. But the surprising thing that This era affected in the whole world. I didn't get this result from only my readings but also from people from different countries i met , specially outside our Arab world.

In 1994 , The ICPD " International Conference for Population & Development" held in Cairo. During my work in that event, I shared many interesting experiences with different cultures from all over the world, specially in social science and politics.I believe it was my 1st encounter in such interesting ideas of politics and how politics should always be for the benefit of people.
I realized that Sadat Era really made a broad effect to the world, that forced many big countries to look to the middle east and Egypt specific with respect and admiration for its potential , which was underestimated during that time.

During my dinner with some members of the USA delegation in the conference, where they enjoyed one of our Egyptian traditional meals, I was describing the ingredients of the meal, it was "Koshary" by the way, then suddenly one of them asked me " Why i sense that you (people & government) are neglecting any sign of Sadat era ?".
I replied: From Where you got that impression?
She Said: I see no statues of Sadat in any of Cairo Squares or any sign that tells " once upon a time there was a great leader".
I responded: But we do have a city named by him , We have The Memorial of the Unknown Soldier that located in Nasr City,which have Sadat grave.
She responded smartly: A City in the desert between Alex and Cairo ! , A Memorial of thousands of Soldiers !.
She continues: I 've been chosen among this delegation due to my studies and researches , it is worth to mention that my graduation project was about focusing on the middle east conflicts between 1967 to 1973 that results in changing totally the USA strategy towards Arab and Egypt specific. And i can recall one of strategy professors words " We are obligated to have Egypt on our side as we can't afford to have it on the opposite side" .
And she started to tell me things that i were speechless while listening to her.

She continues: Do you know that American satellites where covering every single 500 Meters of the battle field since 1970. all those data were shared with Israeli Decision makers. So all military exercises near the border were recorded observed and shared with Israel.

She concluded: Sadat was the 1st leader in the modern world that managed to deceive the new Satellites ,To be more specific he managed to fool the brains behind those satellites (Americans). The deception concept that Sadat made considered to be the most advanced long term deception strategic technique that ever been used in any military conflict. It is now part of any military deception techniques modern textbooks.

She continues: And not only this but he ( Sadat) was the only Leader that made USA the lifetime Supporter of Israeli To be the guardian of peace making between Egypt & Israeli. So do you think USA would ever change its known policy that been written long time ago because of just a leader who fought war with Israel ! , of course not , it was because of that exceptional thinking ahead leader that came in the unexpected place to make the unexpected moves that later on proven to be the right one.

I was unable to comment on what she said, but inside myself i were saying if she is that believer in us , what about us ! Why we hide our pride , who is gaining the benefit of this. now i recall a friend of mine who told me that long time ago he chat through internet with an Israeli citizen that guy said to him" Man , thank you for helping us to forget Yom Kippur - They name 1973 War with that name- ". Is that Israeli is right ?! , well if we are intending to do this then sure he is right!

Well , It is still our pride to keep every achievement that made by any of our former leaders ,regardless of any other issues. This is part of our history now , and for Sadat his achievement is part of our present and future.

October victory and spirit

In every year i used to acknowledge my age by 6th October Victory , same year of birth but different month . It always have special meaning to me.

Recently i began to wonder why we are different than before , why there can not be October spirit among all of us, something we used to have inside each one of us have been stolen from us. Something made us so special , so persistent , so self confident and self believers. The whole world stated clearly in the 1970 that we can not, But in 1973 we proved that we can , we proved that nothing will stop us. Bar Lev Line didn't stop us , our limited resources didn't stop us , the spirit of defeat didn't stop us.

Every time this event recalled it makes me feel sad for our time today. Now we have the resources , we have the peace and we have the power but we have no spirit to achieve. We stop believing in ourselves , we stop believing that we can , we stop to act as one, we are now many , in fact we are now millions , we are millions of ones , not millions of many , not even one of millions. My words might be confusing , but i am referring for the "all for one" and " one for all". there is no goal that unites us. We are missing that so much. We are now individuals with different agendas ,with conflicting targets.

The best thing in military or army is that they unify the targets , they merge the goals to be one goal. And during 1970's the non-military people "civilians " all have unified their goals. all became one hand. No hidden agendas , all clear. This is what we need.

There is a habit i try to keep every year , it is so simple. In every October i pick a book about October War , and read it. This year I choose "Albahth an Elzat "البحث عن الذات By Anwar ElSadat السادات . Lets say it is a way to keep this spirit alive in me ,to keep believing in our potential , in simple metaphor keep believing in "Yes , We CAN".

Many stories , many Issues in that book, Regardless of How former president Mr.Elsadat wrote it in his personal style it is considered a true reference for many issues that was hidden to the public. I believe that the book is a reflection for his true story. I am in no position to judge on that great leader or what he wrote , i am simply stating what i personally felt through the pages of this book. So I think it is interesting to refresh our memories of how great we were and how great we can be again.

If i can recall some Of AlSadat -المغفور له - words, then i will choose the words he said in 16th October 1973 speech , in the 1st section:war , " The Day will come not to only be proud of what we did , but also to learn and teach our sons ,our grand children ..... The time will come for this ". Yes , The Time has come , and the time is now.

If i have the spirit , i will have the well , and then i can act accordingly. So i think living the past event by reading about it is a good start. Is it possible to spread the Idea ? , i think it is possible , specially that every year the news papers recalls these days. So regardless of repeating same words in the news papers every year lets look to it from different prospective it is repeating " Yes we did it before, and Yes we Can Now". Let those words be in your mind when you start saying to yourself " same words , old stories, nothing new" NO , instead say to yourself" Yes we are still here and Yes we Can" .

"Yes we Can" in any field of life , in work to achieve quality , in Home to have better quality of living , in dealing with each other to have better caring and respect for each other.

In the past we managed to be united and to prove that we can, and as a start now we can as individuals to prove that we still can.

SUN Microsystems never say goodbye ! (Part 3)

I am still following up the news of the acquisition , and i think there is alot of things going behind the scene, some are promising and some are not , anyway for the promising part we can talk.

Few weeks ago Oracle announced the Exadata2 machine from Oracle & Sun , well , I enjoyed listening to the event .
I have to say it: It is packaging Sun innovations in a very appealing package by a very professional Software company Oracle. This is a good step for you Oracle , I have been telling for many years that the only piece that is missing in oracle is the H/W part , we used to debate with my DBA colleges that some products like ASM is missing the touch of a firmware from a storage specialized companies , a touch of a Volume manager mechanism , and now they got that. Well Done Oracle , now you are in the right track.

The commercial campaign that been launched by Oracle is really promising , if they really mean it , I hope So , But i have to admit confronting IBM that clearly can not be something for just getting attention . anyway lets wait and see.

Few days ago I got this link from Infoworld for the history of Sun , they just named the rise and fall of Sun Microsystems. But is it really fall ! i don't know , well this is the not promising thing that i avoided to talk about.

Anyway i think the report of Bruce Guptill from Saugatuck Technology was one of the few reports that analyzed in-depth all issues related to that Oracle-Sun acquisition , he named it The Impact of Oracle-Sun I think it worth reading it.

I think The MySql open source database within the Oracle-Sun will not be a big issue , they will get it done to finalize the acquisition in a way that will make the EU will agree , the only impact might be the delay that it will cause to finalize the acquisition specially that Ellision announced that it is causing a money lose in that delay in the Ed Zander Interview , he also announced many promising things in that interview , regarding keeping H/W , investing more in Sun ,and also adding some spice when stating clearly that Solaris is a way better than AIX.

The next few weeks - specially after the Oracle Open world will take place- will give us a clue for how things will go on.

To be continued ...

SUN Microsystems never say goodbye ! (Part 2)

UNIX have been there for a very long time , And Sun innovations also have been there , Do you remember that optical mouse that runs on that metal pad in 1998? can it be considered the 1st Laser mouse , maybe.

I recently enjoyed reading the Tribute to Sun Microsystems web site , I think it is reflecting the Sun passion that runs within its internal staff. Specially the McNealy tagged posts.

Well , Do you think Oracle will keep on fueling Sun innovation engine , I hope so , At least they now got the OS that they can relay on as well as programming language that already runs in any device we have ,JAVA without doubt.

I recall old days of JAVA , when many customers used to ask me what is the link between Java and the coffee , I used to reply that it can be the best coffee you can drink, I believe Gosling the father of JAVA named it upon the JAVA island in Indonesia and it is where the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta is. Only beans that are Java can make up Java Coffee. It worth trying as its very special flavor. It is a strong, black, very sweet tasting coffee, and some people believe that it is the best coffee you can get. Well , if that is true then for sure Java got its place in every cup , i mean in every electronic device we have now.

Well , Solaris as well is part of the long way innovations of Sun , some of my friends used to think that Windows is older which is wrong , if we considered that MS-Dos is the 1st OS that is the foundation that windows by Microsoft started upon then MS-DOS 1.24 was released in June 1982. While Solaris 1st release was SunOS 1.0 in February 1982. its interesting to know that UNIX is much older than Dos 1st UNIX release was the Time-Sharing System First Edition (V1) November 1971, in fact Dos considered to be the mini customized version for PC from the UNIX.

The Funny thing that some of my customers were refusing to upgrade their Solaris version to the latest specially that it runs so smooth with no issues for a very long time , the only way to convince them was by showing them the release dates of the release they run on the systems , one of them was happy with his release till he discovers that it is there since he was in collage (10 years back ! ) that was the SunOS 4.1.1.

To be continued ...

SUN Microsystems never say goodbye ! (Part 1)

Lots of friends keep asking me: what do you think about Oracle acquisition to SUN?

The answer is not that easy ,but should i answer in the professional way as always or in a personal way !

Well , in here i think the personal way is better.


For more than 15 years I have been a fan of Sun. I can't forget the early days of the internet. When I used to connect to internet through a SHELL account to the only ISP server in Egypt ( 1994 ) at IDSC. And instead of going to Gopher or use PINE ,I just keep digging with my limited privilege shell account to find what this OS got to give ( SunOS).

A 2400 Budrate speed was efficient to create my 1st own shell scripts and executes it, The SunOS UNIX platform was a solid one at that time ( and still - now called Solaris ).
I still recalls how System Admin of the server used to monitor my shell whenever I log in so he is ready to kick me out whenever there is a slight resource utilization increases by my early dummy scripts. After a years we became a friends when I was the Sun support engineer who migrated all old servers to the new models.
It was amazing that i were logging to the Sparc5 workstation. ( mid-sized pizza box )! Yes it is true this machine where named as pizza box because it was same size of it. We upgraded those machines later on to the V880 servers ( an office refrigerator sized).

In many customer sites I was doing support to servers of SPARC 5 , and some of those servers were running non-stop from 1994 till 2003!
Its funny that in one day I had to do a clean up to one of those servers.That was the day i had to shutdown the server. Can you imagine what I found inside it! when i opened the cover for the 1st time i thought that a gray backing is inside the box and then i discovered that it was the dust have created a foam shaped backing covering all space inside the server. and a circular hole for the internal fan!
The customer took a photo for this server before clean up and after. I think those servers can be in Guinness Records for the uptime ( over 10 years ).
Anyway it was all reflecting a solid like a rock H/W and O/S with innovation in the design to be the smallest foot print for any UNIX server you can find in those days - do you remember how big the VAX machines was !

Anyway , I always admired Sun Technology , Specially for the TCP/IP part when Sun Servers used to be the routers of the early internet at that time. No wonder that Solaris starts up as a real router by default.

With lots of friends inside Sun Microsystems I sensed the unique culture that makes that company innovative. If you look on the History of Sun ( Stanford University Network) you will know that Scott McNealy ( Sun Co-founder and former CEO ) who have the enthusiasm with his colleges to make the 1st UNIX workstation. So innovation was the heart of SUN.

Well apart of this , Sun managed to stay for a long time ( 27 years ) as one of UNIX gate keepers. And that is a thing that have be respected when the rest of H/W vendors mixed UNIX and Windows to complete their portfolio.

IBM had AIX , HP had HP-UX , and Sun had Solaris. those are the dominant UNIX operating systems in IT industry now.

To be continued ....

A Start

Everyday pass in our life belongs to us , it becomes part of our history . It is our own choice to remember or forget but at the end it has something to give to us. So if i can't remember what I did yesterday then perhaps I can try to learn from Today.

I used to believe in the phrase " Today is the first day of the rest of my life ". And as I believe that rest of my life won't be longer so I will try to catch what is remaining of it.

I used to have time to express whatever I have in mind and then after time I read what I wrote and get impressed about who was writing that! Was it me at that time or someone else, That is happening to all of us. So it means that in certain times we can be someone else , or perhaps we just pick the talents that is hidden inside us in those times.

So I think that now i am trying to clean the dust over an old talent that I dropped long time ago. Well, no matter how i try but at least I have something to hold and use.

Whatever the outcome is , it will always be a Start.