Shazoor Mirza

Engineering student, tech evangelist, optimist, dreamer, hopeful, trustworthy, friendly, calm, humorous. Rest a body with flesh and bones.

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Fix calendar sync on Android

It occurred when I disabled stock calendar app S Planner on my Samsung Galaxy S3 and installed Google Calendar for a while. And when I switched back to S planner, its calendar sync was broken and I could not sync my events with Google calendar. The Google account sync was also showing an error under settings.

To fix the problem just go to Application Manager from Settings and under All tab find “Calendar Storage” and “Google Calendar Sync”. Open both entries and select Clear data. Bypass any warnings that pop-up. This would clear the jammed data that caused the glitch in syncing.

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For those who want some inspiration, read this short biography of Michael Faraday.

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Vox For Mountain Lion (fixed)

The Vox for Mac is a beautiful little app that works out of the box to play some extra formats like ogg that Apple's OS doesn't support by default. But probably the most useful feature of Vox is its automatic folder based playlist creation ability. This is great when you have a collection of unorganised music that won't fit well in iTunes.

The stable version of Vox, however, doesn't seem to play files in the latest iteration of Mac OS X i.e. Mountain Lion. So I tried to provide an unofficial fix for the rest of people who want to use it on Mountain Lion.

Click here to download the Vox 0.2.7.1 (fixed)

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Convert Text To ePub On Mac OS X

I have a piled up a huge collection of text files since the early days of college. But reading a text file is always a pain for eyes, especially when you do not like installing another application for reading text files comfortably. I prefer reading in fullscreen with Georgia font or the similar classic styles. Being online, Pocket (formerly Read It Later) solves the problem but for offline text collection there is no better option than an eBook reader app. Personally I prefer Kitabu on Mac for being lightweight and having all necessary feature list. So I decided to convert all of my text files in a more readable ePub format.

Mac OS X provides the built-in support for this kind of conversion but it is not available in any direct form. So I took advantage of this feature via Automator and created an Automator Application. The application will prompt for the selection of text file via Finder and properties of ePub file to be created can be altered in next dialogue. Download the application via link below.

Click here to download Text2ePub

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I once had a thousand desires, but in my one desire to know You all else melted away.

Rumi

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Raspberry Pi

When it comes to teaching the basics of hardware and core coding to anyone interested, he would be amazed to see how different are the background codings and the techniques which are used to develop the front-end of the most electronics and gadgets. There were times back in 80s when owing a computer means you need to know about RAM, CLI and the sort of geek stuff. The picture is quite opposite today with the advent of smooth UIs, numerous platforms and apps. Using a computer is not limited to a group of students who are studying computers and learning programming languages.

Raspberry Pi is launched to give the feel of the good old times because its constructed in such a way that it gives the look and feel of a very raw and unstable and pretty customizable piece of hardware. Raspberry pi is basically a single board chipset and various modules are attached to it that collectively performs the complete operation of a basic modern computer or a laptop. The device is available in two models. The basic model is clocked at 700 MHz Speed with 256 MB RAM. The hard disk is omitted to suppress the costs and maintain its portability. Instead, the micro SD card is used as a memory device. A lightweight Linux distro can be installed and standard TiVo can be used as monitor. This gives a pretty assembled form of a micro computer.

The idea is great when you only want to do certain low level computing with your machines. The device is targeted at the amateur children who are interested in computers and students who are learning programming in their colleges. The feel of having such an ultra raw devices makes things more clear on the basic level and helps understanding the core concepts of computers in a better  manner.

This quick start guide will help you to build a basic setup with Raspberry Pi to have a functional computer just at ₹1500.

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Do or die.

Mahatma Gandhi

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Content Censorship on Internet: The Indian Perspective

Everyone who at least went to high school is aware of the Internet. Earlier it was in the top departments of Government services, and now its on newspapers, television, textbooks, watches, mobile phones and practically everywhere. We can watch movies, read books, listen music, read news, market products, share photos, share our social life, make new connections and a billion more activities. When someone starts using Internet, it hard to leave it because it becomes a necessity in a very short time. But these all are the some glittering advantages of it, and all that glitters is not gold. Lets face it, the present form of Internet is not organized and even not safe. Every sort of websites, from good to worst, are scattered just like that. We need an internet connection, a browser and the site name and nothing can stop us reaching the site. This is the free internet spirit.

According to Wikipedia, "Internet censorship in India is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet in India. Internet censorship is selectively practiced by both federal and state governments. While there is no sustained government policy or strategy to block access to Internet content on a large scale, measures for removing content that is obscene or otherwise objectionable, or that endangers public order or national security have become more common in recent years." Content censorship controls this free spirit of internet when it goes out of control and becomes something evil. Indians are very diverse. The social media sites are the largest threat to this diversity because a number of users in India use internet without any basic training. So most of the people are not aware of the internet ethics, piracy and the other vices of internet. Everyone has a different opinion about different things here- from political parties to vegetables. With internet many people stick their opinions on others and many people take this for granted and an issue rise, it gets some heat and then many people who are "free" to say whatever they want just poll their opinions on what is good or bad without but according to their own opinion. This is not very fruitful in country like India because of the following points:

India is a land of a number sects, religions and practically the society is still divided. No two opinions from two sects are same. If they are given a face-t-face platform like Internet to talk, many people won't use it wisely and hatred may increases among these social groups.

Internet penetration is in it early stages in India. People are not aware of what is good or what is bad, what is true or what is false on internet. There is no ethical training prior using internet. Many people take things for granted on internet.

For some bad elements of society its can act as a medium to spread further rumors and hatred among the people.

Internet is the main source of piracy which cause a loss of billions to our home industries.

India had a very weak and practically non-working cyber crime cell. People who do fraud on internet can get away easily.

Censorship is just a precaution so as to use internet wisely, not freely.

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Instagram for Android Is Finally Here

Instragram team simply made me jump up from my couch when an email popped in my mailbox clearly guiding me to go in Google play store and download the much awaited app on Android. I did and statred downloading the app right away.I deleted my picplz account and photos I posted there.

The app is very large as compared to other apps on Android platform with a whooping 12 mb size. After using it for couple of days, I have received two initial updates to the app within two days. I set up a new Tumblr blog to feed all the Instagram uploads in one place because the Instagram does not provide the web version of its community. Instagram is totally a in-app experience. The app is fine and more appealing than picplz, has better filters and features.

Check my Instagram photostream on photography.shazoor.com. Follow me on instagram via @shazoor.

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Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Steve Jobs

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Hands On With Processing

When I think about the programming languages, only a single letter C strikes my mind, because it was the first computer language I learnt for programming purposes in my first year in college. Though I was never interested in C, because of my inclination towards the open source philosophy, I more often regarded Python as my programming language of choice. The days passed by in those years and I could never put my hands on Python. With the very basic knowledge of C, I am not in anything near to code writers or programmers who can code their thoughts with some effort. So programming languages never came to me as I wanted. Until quite recently, I learnt about the Arduino electronics prototyping platform which allows its users to program its hardware, which is a kind of microcontroller. I liked the idea where you can program a device rather than making changes in hardware itself to perform a desired task. The Arduino attracted my attention and I learned about its code and the language on which it is based. There I came to know about Processing. Processing is a great tool for hobbyist, artists, designers and engineers to visualize the data, or motion, or anything that can be fed to a system. Here we write code to produce a set of visuals which act according to the code written in the sketches. This is quite a different approach from the old, boring and conventional programming techniques where you input code as text, get output as text and interact with the output with text. Instead of compiling output as text, Processing compiles it in the form of a visual data which can be interacted with a pointing device like mouse or with touch on screens. This is quite interesting approach where you input the code as text and output is some visualization. The idea can be expanded to a number of application like mobiles devices and touch screen interfaces, beautiful effects can be generated, and some large amount of input data can be visualized which could reveal the hidden results which, otherwise, is not possible to detect in conventional analysis. So that is why I have started learning Processing. Being more of an artist than a programmer I think the language will properly suit my needs and will help me define my career as a web-designer.

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Tweet Current iTunes Song Via Hibari

The idea to tweet "now playing" songs came to me very long when I had not joined Last.fm. Last.fm and similar services are great when you want to keep the track of everything you listen musical. But sometimes when you feel like sharing the same song with your Twitter buddies, it becomes a necessity to have something that could tweet your now playing status to Twitter. After a lot of research I could not come up with better than Brandon Fuller's Now Playing plugin for iTunes. But the plugin is a paid chunk and the free edition is limited to only five tweets per session.

Recently, I purchased Hibari App for Twitter which is very beautiful and minimal in all respects. I am simply enjoying the Twitter experience with it. But today rarely used automator drew my attention and immediately an idea struck me that if I could use the an Automator Workflow to get my job done. The Automator Workflow below is a simple and no fuss script which will open Hibari on your Mac (if not running) and paste the now playing information from clipboard as new tweet. The new tweet is hashtagged with #NowPlaying so that it would be easy to find it on search results.

To use the workflow install it as a universal service or copy it in ~/Library/Services/ and access it from Application Menu > Services. The workflow is kinda rough add-on for Hibari and currently does not work with any other Twitter app installed. Download it via link below.

Automator Workflow: Tweet Current iTunes Song Via Hibari

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Stay hungry, stay foolish!

Steve Jobs

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Its no wonder that today using computer is child's play. However this is not true if we dive back a decade ago and during the early 90s. In those times the computers were used only by a handful of people who loved to call themselves "geeks". However with the restart of the era of Apple when Steve Jobs returned to company again, he brought with himself a new innovation and an isolated set of ideas that focused on the simplicity which was still to be implemented in computer interfaces. All these were successfully ported an a set of perfect hardware using the most beautiful visual enhancements.

Then there was no turning back for the company. After lifting up the dying company, he launched iPod which was an instant hit. Next was iPhone which changed our perception about handheld devices forever. Not only it started a new generation of touch devices but also introduced the concept of apps and application platform which later became one of the most influential form of accessing Internet.

With iPads again, he diluted the gap between laptos and desktops. The tablets were given a new standard with iPad and the competition produced many other tablets later but none could match the iPad. It now seems like that the tabs will be the most preferred devices in place of desktops and laptops.

Steve not only produced the excellent hardware but the interface was also so well designed that even a novice can perform great tasks on the Apples. He made computing beautiful and entertaining. I still remember the day I used an iPhone for the first time. After using it I said, "Everything is so properly arranged that it looks like a toy made for child to play". Indeed, it is not a toy but powerful beast in the palm that can perform any task that a normal user would do on his desktop. The Apple has unified their products and their platforms so tightly that it has become a ultimate technological hub for a user.

The vision which Jobs seen about two decades ago was just becoming reality when he left this tech world. He fought with his pancreatic cancer for seven years before he tired. But the enthusiasm that he produced in the hearts of thousands of young technology entrepreneurs will last as long as the technology itself. His death is the biggest loss the tech industry has ever seen. Its a sad world today and its hard to believe that he is not among us. Let us pray for his soul to rest in peace.

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Book Review: The Alchemist

This is a story, rather I'd say a fable, of a Spanish shepherd who dreamt of finding a treasure near the Pyramids in Egypt. He decides to go for his destiny he dreamt of, leaving all the belongings before him.

He happens to meet an old king who traded his sheep for the omens to be looked for on his travel. He set forth the journey to Egypt to realize his destiny.

On the way he met an Englishman seeking a true Alchemist to fulfill his own destiny; a merchant, a camel driver, a girl whom he loved and an Alchemist himself. The shepherd learns various aspects of life, love, nature and fulfilling one's destiny. The boy slowly realized along his mystical journey about the Language of the World and how everything relates to one another not only on this Earth but in the whole universe. When you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you achieve the target. But one should never back off nor one should forget about his existence and his dependance on others and vice-versa. The thoughts are deep and goes deep beyond the context of the book itself. In following your destinies, you must learn to listen to the heart, for heart always points in the direction where your true destiny awaits you. The book is an inspirational fable which describes very beautifully that everyone has a purpose of life on face of earth, be it a grain of sand or the gigantic sun. Every thing that happens is written (maktub) and happens for a reason. But whatever happens, one should always try to do his best with all his heart to fulfill his destiny.

The books has a plethora of ideas and the musings that kept the boy moving on towards his journey, but author however couldn't maintain the symmetry in order to make a better reading experience. The book is surely a very extraordinary story of a wanderer shepherd who when tried to realize his destiny encountered many things in life he he or any other shepherd would never have imagined. He travelled by the farthest point where no shepherd had ever done before and on this fantasy he learned the art of Alchemy, the flow of life, the voice of heart and the constant faith which keeps one driving. The tale is an extraordinary story that will keep us motivating for the realization of our dreams and our passions which are lost in this world. The book arouses the feeling to reinvent oneself and makes us to ponder once again about our real dreams.

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Poem: The Morning Grace

Not sure of my take on poetry, but feeling inspired is not something bad after all. All you need to do then is to pick a pen and a paper, let all the imaginations rumble through the head and start jotting down. Never being into poetry much and especially into English poetry, I, however, could manage a poem. The mother is always a special being to everyone, so as my mother to myself. Dedicating a poem to her for once minght not be a fraction of what she has given to me. But there is a little I would love to do. The poem "The Morning Grace" goes like this: On a exuberant morn of April spring, She returns from the bourn swing. Moist and refreshing is summer breeze, Pious as mother, touches me to tease. Scented from the ganden of flower, Rushes inside, for thy need cozy shower. Noticing me sleeping such late, Pours the aroma, feelings so great. Patting soft and cold fingers on my face, Running through my hair, I feel her grace.