Khalid Alharbi

I’m back to school from a short vacation and trying to...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:15:53 -0500

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I’m back to school from a short vacation and trying to adjust to over 75 degrees Fahrenheit difference between home and here.

A few weeks ago, I found this in my mail from Bed Bath and Beyond And I was like who would buy...

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 18:41:06 -0500

A few weeks ago, I found this in my mail from Bed Bath and Beyond

And I was like who would buy ATARI in 2012!!

I just Graduated!

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 18:17:38 -0500

Hey all,

I do have some really good news! I graduated!! Yes, I graduated on December 21st, 2012.

I have been awarded a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Here is the proof from the DailyCamera that I really did it:

Khalid Alharbi acknowledges his fans after getting his Master’s Degree. The University of Colorado Boulder held its winter commencement ceremony on Friday, Dec. 21, in the Coors Events Center For more photos and a video of graduation, go to http://www.dailycamera.com.
Cliff Grassmick / December 21, 2012

I felt so grateful that I was surrounded by my wife, brother, sister, and friends at my graduation. It was such a great moment. I thank them so much for attending my graduation.

It is not over, it is just the beginning.

Peace!

Wow, where have the days gone. It has been five months since I had my knee surgery, but more...

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 01:00:55 -0500

Wow, where have the days gone. It has been five months since I had my knee surgery, but more importantly, I’m walking without crutches and cane. I’m feeling so good, but still have to work really hard on physical therapy exercises to build and strengthen the quads. I’m also not allowed to do any activity that causes the knee to twist or slide. I’m still using a knee brace to prevent my knee from twisting or hyperextension.

It has been a challenge to keep up with physical therapy and school. Thankfully, I managed to survive that!

Thank Allah for everything!

Begin weaning off crutches!!

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:00:16 -0400

I have not written anything lately because I was so busy with my physical therapy sessions and doctor’s appointments. So just a quick update on my physical therapy, I’ll begin weaning off crutches this week, which is great!!

I’m still on my physical therapy exercises, and I feel a little bit stronger. My physical therapists told me that the harder I work in recovery, the better I will be. So I’m doing some exercises at home in addition to the three-week visits at the physical therapy clinic.

I can’t wait to get off crutches!

I had my knee surgery done!!!

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:38:00 -0400

It has been nine years since I damaged my knee ligaments playing soccer. I had been delaying it because I was able to perform daily activities. But with the passage of time, I developed instability, locking, and popping sounds. I had severe pain on running, walking for long distances, going up/down stairs, and sitting on the floor. So I had to do the surgery.

I saw an experienced doctor, and he told me that I had torn my meniscus and FCL (Fibular Collateral Ligament). I had my knee surgery done last Thursday. It was an inpatient surgery, and I was put under general anesthesia. It was so painful and funny at the same time when I woke up from anesthesia. The nurses asked me if I could see them and told them “I see people with no heads and it looks like I’m surrounded by zombies” :) I got discharged from the hospital the day after the surgery.

Right now I’m experiencing what they call post-operative surgery pain. I’m using knee immobilizer to prevent further damage in the surgery area. I’m going to be on crutches for eight weeks. It sucks so much.

I had my first physical therapy session the morning after the surgery and I told my PT that the first session would be a torturing session :) But it was not that painful!

I’ll start my physical therapy program next week and see how it goes.

Wish me a speedy recovery!

Relaxing: I've completed my Maymester course!

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:24:55 -0400

Oops long time, no post! The past three weeks have been absolutely insane! last Friday, I completed my Maymester course, which I honestly will never take a Maymester course again. It was way too much crammed and so compact in three weeks, which resulted in too much stress. That’s the most intense three-week I have ever had. The nice part was taking three credits in an intensive three weeks! But that wasn’t my only reason for taking a class in Maymester.

I took the Mobile Interfaces class with Scott McCrickard, who is a visting professor at the university of Colorado, Boulder. The class will no longer be offered at CU, so that was the last chance to take it! It was a great opportunity for students to take advantage of offering popular classes by guest scholars.

That was my first class in the area of Human Computer Interaction, and I think I learned a lot from that class. We covered a range of topics related to Mobile interfaces. We explored several mobile platforms, although the focus was more on Android platforms. We studied very interesting topics such as UI design principles, designing for people with disabilities, evaluating mobile UIs, Intellectual property, and the market place. We created small mobile apps projects. I created very cool Android apps for this class, and I’ll be releasing some of them soon.

On the whole, the class was more than I expected! It was fun! I liked it and loved how quite and laid-back the campus was!

Yay for Summer! :)

Cheers!

Can retailers really ask for my phone number?

Mon, 07 May 2012 18:02:11 -0400

It has become common for retailers to ask for your personal information. When checking out of a store, I get asked this: “Can I have your phone number, please?”

I hate when I check out at stores and get asked for personal information such as phone number, birth date, and address. It has become the norm everywhere!

I don’t mind giving my Zip code because that can help them find out where to open a new store, but they ask for more than that. The problem is that retailers want to collect more personal information about you such as your phone number, address, birth date, etc. I don’t like being asked about that especially when there are people standing behind me. I find it really annoying, especially if I’m in a rush and all I want to do is checking out! I usually say “Sorry, I’d rather not”.

Sometimes I think about it as a way of sending coupons to customers and keeping them informed about sales. Yet, this is my personal information, and I personally have no idea how or where it is going to be used. They can trace me down with my phone number, birthday, or address.

Plus, it bothers me when they keep asking if you open up a credit card with them, you’ll save 25% on your entire purchase! I don’t see any problem offering that option to your customers, but I hate when they are pushy about that! They are like high pressure commission salespeople!

Some people don’t mind giving up their rights in exchange for low prices, but I’m not!

So my advice is that protect your privacy by NOT revealing your personal information.

Spring Semester Ends Quietly!

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:34:38 -0400

Yesterday, was my last day of Spring semester! I had no finals, so I finished a little bit earlier! I had two final projects: one for my Animation class, and the other one was for my Software Engineering class. I’m quite happy that both went very well and had a lot of fun working on them!

Unfortunately, my Summer vacation is only for the next week because I’m going to take a Maymester class!

It’s a three-week long semester, and I hope it’s not going to be as stressful as I imagine!

I’ll be super busy for the next three weeks but such is life!

Good luck to all of you who have finals!

Peace!

Software disasters!

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:19:26 -0400

I’ve heard of so many Software disasters but no hardware disasters! Why?!

Consider the famous story of the Ariane 5 Rocket which was launched by the European Space Agency. It exploded just forty seconds after its lift-off! It took about a decade of development and cost $7 billion. The reason for the explosion was a simple software error, a floating point conversion! They stored things in 64-bit number and they had to do floating point calculations and after that they stored things back in 16-bit number!

And this what happened!

But why there is no so much hardware disasters. The reason is because of the nature of Software. Software outlives hardware and can last forever. If we get a faulty hardware component, we send it back to the manufacture and they will replace it for us. So there is no upgrade here! The culture around hardware is that when you ship it, it has to work. On the other hand, if software doesn’t work, we expect some sort of enhancement over time, update or upgrade to fix the bugs.

Software must conform to any kind of change, whether new hardware, new regulations and policies, etc. Legacy software systems must work no matter what changes can happen, whereas old hardware gets thrown away and replaced by completely new ones.

The bottom line is that building software is hard and this is why there are so many software disasters.

Never again, Comcast! Never!

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:12:10 -0400

My Comcast Internet connection had been so slow. I should have been getting between 17-20 Mbps, but this what I normally got.

Comcast provides cable Internet service, which uses coaxial cable as a shared medium. That’s it, all connections of your neighborhood are routed through a single node. If that node is being over utilized, especially during peak times, your connection can suffer and slow down drastically. I guess my neighbors download so much movies from Netflix!

So I decided to switch to CenturyLink, which is a DSL company. And this is the average speed I often get.

It’s worth switching and so far so good. Let’s hope it remains awesome!

Thanks!

"One of my favorite interview question is, “How would you characterize your approach to..."

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:31:06 -0500

“One of my favorite interview question is, “How would you characterize your approach to software development?” … My favorite answer came from a job candidate who said,
“During software design, I’m an architect. When I’m designing the user interface, I’m an artist. During construction, I’m a craftsman. And during unit testing, I’m one mean son of a bitch!”.”

- Steve McConnell, Development Consultant, from IEEE Software, January/Februray 1998.

I Can't Live without Internet!

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 07:39:00 -0500

Although I dream to go one day without Internet, I can’t imagine what life would be like without constant connect with the Internet! It’s a significant part of my life!

I carry my laptop with me almost all day! I’m on Twitter, blogs, newspapers, and various websites.

I often use my Android phone to access my email and calendar, read my twitter time line, and use Google maps.

I read my kindle books on the cloud, even though I like reading them on my Amazon Kindle without distraction.

In my car, I have an FM transmitter which is connected to my Android phone. I use it to listen to books from audible.com and Twit.tv on my commute to and from school.

I also have an iPad which I often use to do Skype with my family, and surf the web.

When I’m at the airport waiting for my flight, I always try to connect to a free WiFi; Otherwise, I do WiFi tethering on my Android.

I really can’t live without Internet!

I survived finals week!

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:43:18 -0500

I was so busy during finals week. I had one final and two individual projects.

I’m glad it went well, and Fall semester is over!

It feels great when I’m all done! I can feel a tremendous sense of relief! I really like that feeling!

Yet, I still feel some sort of exhaustion and burnout, and I could sleep for ten hours but still feel sleep deprivation.

Too much work was done during this long semester! It was the longest and worst one! Taking three graduate level classes was a huge mistake. Certainly, I will never do that again! Too much work that keeps you busy all semester!

But this will happen again, next semester, and the semester after that. And this cycle might never end!

Suck it up!

Restorative sleep is what I yearn for.

Peace!

"A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing."

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:01:48 -0500

“A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.”

- Alan Perlis

A massive amount of work!

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:29:22 -0500

Hey all,

This week is going to be crazy! I have a test on Tuesday, two projects due on Wednesday, and a final on next Monday! I might not study at the library because it’s going to be crowded and full of those who turn the library into a house!

So my plan is to stay home, drink more coffee, eat fast food, and sleep less!

Wish me and anyone else having finals luck.

Peace!

This is a demo of my final project for the Computer Graphics...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:41:13 -0500

This is a demo of my final project for the Computer Graphics class. I didn’t spend enough time working on it, but I’m somewhat satisfied with what I have done so far!

I hope this meets the professor’s expectation!

Coffee Addiction!!

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:44:30 -0500

I hate the fact that everything is close on Thanksgiving! I just had a headache because I went too long without having my Starbucks evening coffee! I drove all around but everything was close! So I picked my phone up and searched for a Starbucks store that is open on Thanksgiving day! I found the one at Glendale, CO, which is about 30 miles from my home! I called them to make sure they are open, and they told me they are open till 2:00 AM!! Wow, I was like “OK I’m coming over there right now!” So I went up there to get my white mocha! By the way, I usually pay my Starbucks using my phone, so a man and his son asked me “What did you do??” “Did you scan your phone??” “Man, that’s pretty coooool!!” :)

Peace!

"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you are going to get selfish, ignorant leaders!"

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 14:11:45 -0500

“If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you are going to get selfish, ignorant leaders!”

-

George Carlin

Audible.com

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 14:05:14 -0500

I love how audio books help me catch up on my reading! With audio books I have no excuse to stop reading. Audible.com is a great website to download audio books and listen to them on as many devices as you want. I can listen to audio books on my android phone, CD, mp3 player, and my kindle as well! I have been a member of Audible.com for a few months, and I really enjoy using their service and listening to my favorite books in my car.

Although most audio books are kinda expensive, it is the best way to catch up on your reading especially if you don’t have time in your busy life! It has a great selection of books that make it definitely worth a try.

It’s always great to be able to read books while driving to school without getting car sickness.