A Layman's Reaction on HP Killing WebOS

The news is pretty much old that HP is going to kill WebOS based devices. They acquired WebOS from Palm sometime ago and put a considerable effort behind the OS. There were a few devices like TouchPad out there and users were going to consider these devices. But now they are going to cut off any development in this regard, infact they want to focus on software business. If HP is going to leave hardware business, it means that perhaps in future we will not be able to get good laptops from HP, printers and other devices made by HP etc. I am a bit concerned about it. I like HP and its products and considered them reliable. Recently I've bought an HP Probook 4530s. I prefer to use printers made by HP. This is a bit shocking for me that the company is leaving the market. Its true that it would take a long time to gather the scattered business, and the wrap up the things. But it seems that I am not gonna like it. It seems to me that my laptop is alone in the universe, only one of its kind. Or perhaps it won't have any "children" as there would be no new models of laptop PCs. Well, these were thoughts of a crazy mind thinking wildly in the closing hours of fasting :-D. It might be the case that they are going to continue their laptop business and only wrapping up WebOS kind of stuff. This post is just a reaction written after watching so many news headings crying about HP Kills WebOS etc.

Private Schools

I am a teacher by profession but this is unfortunate that I've to teach in a private school of my city. I as fascinated by the name of this school exactly 1 year back from now. I, as a fresh graduate, needed a job and was almost dancing with joy when I was offered "internship" at this school. We, a group of 5 students, joined them as internees at a handsome amount (Rs 9000 was considered by us as a handsome amount being a trainee at that time). But the charm vanished just after a few months. We were time and again refused for any increase in pay. The environment was helpful in training but the disgrace and a kind of humiliation, undue pressure exerted on the employees was unbearable. Now after one year, we are only two there. And I am also planning to leave this school to concentrate on M Phil Applied Linguistics plus work as a freelance translator.

I admit that I've learnt a lot from there. I was trained from a raw teacher to a professional, I learnt how to deal with parents, how to contain my anger while teaching, how to teach effectively, but still I do not feel comfortable there. There is an air of mistrust. The junior staff is burdened with extra work while seniors sit and relax. The organization is always suspicious that this person is going to run away. They do not want to pay, so there is no incentive for hard working. The old crows, the teachers who are working there for several years are the only things which can survive in that environment, new staff usually runs away after one year, as I am now planning to go away.

Perhaps same is the situation with every private organization. But I've learnt one thing that these private schools are money making factories. The teachers working there are labourers in colourful clothes. And the product the produce is half Pakistani half English O/A level graduates who feel it very hard to integrate with traditional educational system of Pakistan when they have to pass entry tests for MBBS or UET (engineering). They are the children of factory owners, and their Faisalabad lies around Canal Road, D Ground, Madina Town, Peoples Colony and other posh areas of the city.

Well, the post is diverting from the topic. My aim was to write about the atrocities of these private employers who are sucking blood from the veins of nation on the name of education.

Google Acquires Motrola: Whats Next?

Well the news is pretty much old now that Google is acquiring Motorola. Big deal, yeah that's a big deal. But it was expected. 

Since the arrival of rivals like Facebook, the search giant is expanding its business horizon to other fields. It has been a long time when Google introduced Android, the once very celebrated 'open source' mobile operating system. I wondered at the time, how Google is going to monetize Android. Then we saw things like Android Market and other products based on Android which are money making machines for Google (not to mention mobile adds from Google on Android based gadgets).

But Android was not going well. Microsoft as always, jumped in the way and they started to ask the mobile phone manufacturers to pay on each sold device as they thought Android was infringing their copy rights and patents. This was not the case only. Apparently Apple, MS and other big dudes tried to undercut Google by buying patents from other companies. As Google accused them of being unfair. Well, this is a long story as MS clarified the statement and bla bla bla. The point here to mention is that Google was not having a solid ground regarding Android. The hardware manufacturers i.e. the smart phone makers were having trouble with legal status of Android, they had to pay MS etc on each device they sold and Google was unable to help them in this regard. Google was lacking mobile patents to support its claims in mobile market. And the biggest dispute was Oracle sued Google over Android. Folks can you imagine what a mess was created around Google and Android? And to add to the fire even Motorola was going to start war with other Android phone manufacturers over patent issues, see yourself.

So you can see the idea was good: create a mobile OS and promote it, earn money through selling Apps, Games, Adds, Services. But the mess which was created as a bi-product was creating serious hindrances for the search giant. And now the answer comes. Google is now acquiring Motorola. Possible outcomes? Well it is too early to say rather speculate about this but this is for sure that

• Android is going to be an official OS with a phone manufacturer behind it.
• Android is going to have patent support owned by Motorola.
• Apple and Microsoft are not going to like it.
• Google is going to have more focus on Tablets which will not be liked by Apple, HP and other Tab makers.
• Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is going to have tough time. Perhaps they will try to acquire already troubled old mobile maker Nokia, who is in deal with them to make Windows Phone 7 based smart phones.
• And last but not the least, the game is on. Other rivals will not sit calmly and watch Google grow. Its going to be hot out their folks, Wait and watch the battle of giants.

M Phil Applied Linguistics

I've the prospectus in my hands and the title says "2011 GCUF Prospectus". I am having this booklet in my hands and my soul is wandering around those moments which I've spent in this university millennia ago. Yes it seems I was there in another life. The days of MSc Applied Linguistics, the last and forever prevailing moments, I cannot forget them. At that time, 1 year back from now, I'd tried to write something. I'd tried to mourn on the loss, but I failed. I could not gather words, as if though my words had become meaningless. I was unable to say what I wanted to say. So considering myself a desert struck by drought with no single drop of water, I'd abandoned the effort to produce something. And now after 1 year, when I am supposed to be more wise, more practical, more mature and more professional, I am becoming saddened on the loss of my good old days. Sadness prevails in me, it adds to my feelings drop by drop and I feel myself a container filled with it. And when I move in my good old days, when I re-picture those moments, the parties, the joyness, the classes and even the hardest times of final examination I can feel this sadness within the deepest corners of my bones. I wonder why this is now, when I am supposed to be more stronger and ignorant of such things, why I feel it now. When nothing is left behind. The air itself has become a stranger to me, the place where I had sit for 2 years, my classroom, has made other friends, other ones like me who succeeded me on that same corner chair of last row. I wonder why I feel this now, when I am going to sit there again, perhaps on that same chair and bench and same classroom. Perhaps this is because now I wouldn't be able to laugh out loud, the parties wouldn't be that enjoyable, maturity would hinder with joy and innocence, torments of time and tension will dance in my head, the god of money will bend my attentions. Perhaps I wouldn't be that old shakir this time, I would be more selfish, more swollen in my ego and I. Perhaps I would be more like a prisoner behind the walls of my own self.

How to Transcribe a Spoken Text for ICE

It was our second semester as MSc Applied Linguistics, when we were assigned to collect video/audio recordings from Internet or record our own, and then transcribe them. This project was a hell lot of difficult and some of my class fellows were so angry due to the difficulty level. The details were simple: You were assigned a topic e.g. Lectures, Speeches, TV News, Radio News; Record your specific genre or take it from Youtube.com; Listen and Transcribe it; and Tag it with appropriate tags.

Well the process is not difficult. The time which it takes to complete all this annoys people. Transcription is one of the most time consuming jobs of the world. Normally 1 minute of spoken recording can take upto 6 to 7 minutes for writing it. So you can see for 1 hour of spoken recording one will have to spend upto 7 hours of listening and typing it. This is not that simple, it is not just that you play it and start typing. You will always have to stop the recording again and again, sometimes it would be because your typing speed will not match with that of speaking speed of the speakers, other times you may not get the clear idea what the speaker is saying so you'll have to replay the audio to concentrate on it and get what the speaker is trying to say, still other times you'll have to stop and think how to write down uhmms, errrs, overlaps etc. The situation gets worst when it comes to Talk Shows, Telephonic or Live Conversations, Lectures, Question Answer Sessions. Remember the more the speakers, the more the distractions and more time consumption on transcription. We considered those people lucky ones who got Speeches, TV News, Radio News etc. Because all these genres are spoken by one person, and secondly they are usually scripted i.e. the spoken material is written in front of the speaker so s/he has to speak it out only. But in spontaneous talks like Talk Shows this is not the case. There are more speakers, there are overlappings i.e. two people start speaking at same time, there are errrrs, hmmmmmms and other unnecessary sounds which the speaker utter. But we cannot ignore these sounds. We can understand two people speaking at same time in spoken audio, but when it comes to transcription we have to devise a method to show that these particular sentences or words were uttered by both of the speakers at same time i.e. overlapping. Here we have to use Tags to show this phenomenon. Now either we can devise our own tags or we can use tags which are devised by someone else. Since as students we work for the completion of International Corpus of English i.e. ICE Pakistan Component, we have to use their devised method of Tagging. The tagging scheme is available here.

Now what should be done here? It is simple you'll have to go through all of this document. Because you are going to listen and transcribe your spoken recordings not me. So if you do not understand it, it wouldn't work. I can only provide an example by transcribing a few lines of a video from Youtube.

<$A> is by the federal government
<$B> Ok uhmm <}><->I've<=>I've jsut lit literally about half a minute Mr. Babar. Let me just ask you this question that is come uhm from Asif who is watching from Canada....

 I've just covered first 12 seconds of the above video and it took me 5 minutes to cover all the things, to WRITE DOWN what these people were performing as a routine speaking activity. The video starts with an unclear word. I had to replay it several times when I couldn't get exactly I put "is by" by my own guess and put tags around it. You can see in first line the tags , they show that the words were not intelligible. Of course I've consulted the ICE Manual (link provided above) for this tag. Even before this tag you can see the <$A> tag, which shows the first speaker. And this tag I have also got after going through the manual which says that every speaker's utterance should be started on a new line marked with speaker identity i.e. first speaker would be A, second would be B and so on. And you can see there involve two speakers in first 12 seconds and I've shown both separately with their utterances on new line with <$A>, <$B> tags. And then you may be able to see that the hostess says 'uhmm' after saying 'Ok', we cannot ignore it while transcribing. Because these hesitations and uhmms can be helpful in Discourse Analysis of this transcribed text. So I had to write this nonsense and apparently meaningless utterance. And then there is 'I've I've' with these weird looking tags <}><->I've<=>I've. They show actually repetition, and of course again I had to search in ICE Manual for tags of Repetition and I got these. So I pasted them and added the repeated words according to the example given there in the manual. And this way it goes on. You listen, you type it. When you see overlapping, repetition, hesitation, uhms you mark it, when you do not understand a spoken word you replay it, and in the mean time you consult the manual as well for every new phenomenon you encounter so you can record it properly. Now you may understand why it is very difficult to transcribe a text, and why it is necessary to TAG it. But as you practice you will be more faster and accurate, you'll consume less time.

Hopefully this small effort will help. Ask me in the comments of this post if you are still unable to get what I wanted to say, or if you want details of some specific area.

Drinking Water in Faisalabad

Faisalabad is considered third biggest city of Pakistan according to population. In last 10 to 15 years its population has grown rapidly. People from surrounding cities, towns and villages have moved to the city and lots of surrounding villages and towns are also now a part of the city Faisalabad. Like Lahore, we have a canal passing through the heart of city called Rakh Branch. It enters from east and passing through the city leaves the city on western side. Like Clifton area of Karachi, the area around the Canal is considered to be the most elite area of the city. There are several old colonies and towns like Peoples Colony and Madina Town, and now there are lots of new colonies being constructed on the outer edges of the city along the Canal.
The city has an environment of industrialization. Labour from all over Punjab comes here to work in Textile Mills. Before the construction of mills and factories, the area and land was used for agriculture. Faisalabad is not an area which receive lots of rain, so the canal was and is used for irrigation. The underground water is not drinkable in most areas of city. Only the areas near canal, where canal water has seeped into earth, have drinkable water. So the areas near canal are kind of elite areas of Faisalabad. But with the passage of time as the water level is dropping, old undrinkable water is showing its face now. The old towns like Mansoorabad which once had sweet drinkable water from underground, now the water cannot be drunk from these areas. Water and Sewerage Authority is not providing drinkable water in most areas near canal for last 5 years or so. Due to this, the Can Mafia has taken over the city. People, especially Pathans, have come to city and they supply water in blue colour cans previously used as textile chemical containers. They load these cans on carts and Qingqee Loaders and supply water to virtually every place in the city, especially 3 to 4 kilometer far areas now totally depend on these water suppliers. To fulfill the needs of these suppliers, people have bored and installed heavy tubewell motors along the Canal right from Mansoorabad to Nisar Colony. These heavy motors suck drinkable water from underground a few meters away from canal. And I am thinking how much time we have when the water near the Canal will also become undrinkable? What would we do then? Would we start drinking Canal water directly?

New Laptop, New Profession and New Academic Year

After struggling for more than a year finally I've got a new laptop for my personal and professional use. The HP ProBook 4530s Core i5 is just what I wanted. The 500 GB Hard Disk, 1 GB Redeon graphics card and Windows 7 64bit makes it a sexy choice. Although I am a bit disappointed with quite low native resolution of the LED screen but it would for me. And screen shots will be uploaded some other day ;-).

I am leaving school finally and they'll be notified about my departure in next 3 months. Now I want to focus on online jobs. I am working as a Community Manger for Netlog's Urdu version. I am working as a translator as well, and now I'll concentrate on English blogging as well. The things are going to be online from now on.

This year has become another transition year for me. After 1 year of absence and working as a mule for money, I am going to resume my studies in M Phil. And I am hoping to perform same way as I was doing in MSc Applied Linguistics. And I am concentrating to get some research papers published. This last thing is a bit tricky because I had to complete this task last month but as I had no mode, I couldn't complete it.

So this was on my mind. :-)