The Learning Journey

Congratulations to Karam Gaber Ibrahim. He won an Olympic Gold Medal at Athens 2004. He's the first Egyptian to earn an Olympic gold medal in the living memory. He's also a fellow Alexandrian

Congratulations for his coach and team members for their achievement.

Karam won a Gold Medal for the Greco-Roman Wrestling 96 kg, a truly non popular sport here in Egypt. I saw his final match and he just marvelled. He seems also to enjoy an Egyptian sense of humor and a real present.

Congratulations also to all who have seen their dreems come true and sincere wishes for those who have worked hard but haven't realized their goals (yet).

It needs a genuine devotion to earn such medal. It also needs extra strength (especially from Egyptians) to conquor all obstacles and succeed (take my word for it - it's not easy).

One final thought: STOP THE CLUMSY SUPPORT FOR EGYPTIAN SOCCER TEAMS. It is just a drain for resources that are better spent on other non popular sports. One idea: BAN the lousy game from being played officially for, say, a 10 year period.

Again, Congratulations Karam.

My Second day with OFBiz. Exhausting experience. I managed to set up a sample Store, Website, Catalogue, Category and Product as per Ian Gilbert's walk thru. Being an ofbiz admin is not easy

I still have a long way to go with the design, database and architecture.

A first problem is how can I upload the set of data that I have (product info, description, images, etc…) or in other words import the data into ofbiz. My data resides in MySQL with a wildly different schema.

What structure should I follow in formatting my data? How can I disable (or take care) or refirential integrity (Ofbiz side)? Most important: Why isn't it as easy as I expected? Any Suggestions would be appreciated.

Today at work, someone was talking about the achievements of Muhammad Ali when he ruled Egypt (not Cassius Clay by the way). He was talking about how Muhammad Ali had reformed education and tried to transfer Egypt into a modern nation. I admit that I've lost the knowledge I previously gained about Egyptian and world history through the primary/seconday education (talking about education reform!). Or is it really true that one's mind cann't keep info for more than 10 years.

Anyways, I should try to read more about History - I feel I'm missing something.

I planned to start learning OFBiz seriously (after spending few intermittent weeks reading about its structure, architecture and capabilities).

I took the decision yesterday after a discussion with an IT operations manager in one of the companies that is actually using Ofbiz to make money.

I'm starting to believe that putting together these broad range of solutions with such capabilities would take longer than customizing Ofbiz components (I hope that the website is true - and that its shortcomings aren't all that bad).

It would also mean that a product built on Ofbiz can be ready for shipment (deployment) within a short period (do I hear a competitive edge here).

The first problem I encountered was getting Ofbiz itself. Downloading it over an inexpensive dial up seemed impossible (there's no expensive dial up connections as Internet connections are free here in Egypt). DSL still isn't widely used and hence, a bit expensive. Internet Cafes aren't an option either, I've been asking for a couple of days but none of them seem to have a CD (or other storage) writer. Don't you worry, I'll figure out a way, but this is just to convey my anger over our “still” limited resources.

Seems like JViews Gantt is a good candidate for one of the projects that we?re currently developing. We?re interested in having an output similar to that of Microsoft Project in a thin-client environment (JViews Gantt capabilities sounds good). It still too early to decide weather it?s the right solution (JSP tags, features, ease, scalability, etc…). Does anyone have an experience with it?

Few days ago I saw a street officer (shorty morour) getting pushed by a semi-fancy car. He was trying to prevent the driver from going in the wrong direction. Apparently, the driver had the upper hand. Yesterday, I saw a street police officer getting cursed because he tried to prevent a car from going past a traffic light.

For those of you who do not know what a street officer does, he just simply endures the heats of the summers, and the colds of the winters amidst suffocating and poisonous car exhausts with a ?formal? compensation that barely buys bread, all of this for the sake of directing traffic (yes, traffic lights aren?t automated because no one respects them).

Salute for those who are doing “sincere” work with no intentions of getting bribed, for the ones who?re just doing the right thing, and for those who were ?forced? to take harsh jobs.

(Photo By www.touregyptphotos.com)

Hello Everyone:

Welcome to my Blog.

I hope it would be a good experience for all of us

Tamer Salama
Alexandria, Egypt
August 2004