Academic Discrimination in Malaysia

A few days ago my Iraqi housemate told me about Student Discount Card at Malaysia. It seems that they launched this card for student to live easier during their studying. He had heard this news from his Malaysian classmates. The card gives 60% discount for some services and food. 25% discount for domestic flights and many other useful discounts. I become happy because we thought finally after long time Malaysia has decided to give some facilities to students like other countries. They called it KADS1M.

The day after this news all student got an email in Malay language about this card. It was strange for me why they sent an important email like this in Malay?! In the email it was mentioned that for receiving card please go to your faculty. I was at lab and I went to counter. Yes, Students were collecting their cards. I become happy again and I said yes It was a true news and they did finally noticed to students' life. I stood up at queue. When it becomes my turn she told me are you Malaysian citizen?! I replied No I am not. She told me "We are sorry. This card is only for Malaysian Citizens!". OMG, Why? We are not student here?! She did not have any response. 

It was one another sample of distinction in Malaysia and especially in academic places. Every country has some programs for supporting students because students do not have any job and are weaker than other cast in society. So, when you launch this program why you separate international student from it?! International students in Malaysia are paying double or even more tuition fee. Most of RA and TA positions belong to Malaysians. International students have been promoting Malaysian ranking universities in the world with publishing ISI papers even in some cases with force. But now they assign facilities only to Malaysian citizen.Is it fair? 

These behavior shows still Malaysia is developing countries and do not want to exit from third world. 

Difficulties to Be Iranian Citizen

It is not clear what's going on at Iran economy. During one month Iranian currency lost 25% its power again. It had lost 50% its worth last year. But it was shocking news for Iranian Students which are studying abroad and they have to pay their living cost in foreign currencies. Unfortunately, my money is only enough for this year. If the condition become worst which is not unlikely, because of corrupted Iranian government and  its  sucking regime, I should leave Malaysia forever and go back to Iran. It is very sad when you are living in a rich country from every points of views and because of a rotten ideology all the world should contempt you. ( It is very painful when your nationality make a lot of problem for you. Going back to Iran is also a disaster for many Iranian students. There is no job opportunities over there and inflation rate is horrible. I really I do not know what should I do?! I wish I were citizen of a developed and stable country. I wish there were more hopes to feature. As an Iranian you should live in fear everyday. Under the shade of War. We are afraid of tomorrow because we do not know if we have today's facility or not?! We do not know again Islamic Regime wants to act against who and attack to which embassy?! 

I want a free Domain

Ok, we assume that you have created a website with PHP, MySQL or even with Joomla or pure HTML. You need a domain for example www.sample.com. Usually for having a domain with popular postfix like .com, .net, .org and etc you should pay money for renting these domain for one year or more. If you are going to launch a business website, so you should pay and buy it. Nevertheless, for personal usage or academic usage domain name is not a big deal. When you use from a host service actually that host assign you a free domain name. But these names are not very short and remembering them is difficult for your audiences. For instance www.tobacco.webhostfree.com. So, what is the solution? Fortunately, there are some domain that are free and short. Today I want to introduce one of them to you.

If you are looking for a free and short domain and you want your domain address be just similar to commercial website, you can use Dot TK. With free service of this domain you will have something like this: www.yourwebsite.tk. It is nice, isn't it? The process of membership is very easy and straightforward. Just go to www.dot.tk and register and select a meaningful name for your domain address. You will have this domain at last for one year free. During this time you can be sure if you are successful person in cyber world or not. Do you want to continue your activity here or not? Does it worth to invest on a website or not? 

Do not forget to change the host name of your domain to your host. If you do not do that. Your domain address is not connected to your server and cannot load your website to the browser. Check your host and look for Host name or IP address. Then modify your domain address and change your host name address to something that you have. That is it. Congratulation for your new and nice Domain name. Be successful in cyber world.

If you need Dot TK just click on below banner. Thanks.

My Online Card Sorting Is Ready

It is around two weeks which I working to make my online survey. As you knew there is no free option for doing online survey especially with card sorting technique. So, I decided to design it with PHP and MySQL. It was very interesting and enjoyable activity to build it myself. I love DIY.  You can take a look at it and feel how it will be if you make your card sorting survey yourself.

Absolutely, It worth to do it. However, at least you should have some background in HTML, programming and database designing. Another requirements are PHP, Javascript, Jquery, CSS. If you have these capabilities and you want to build your online card sorting website, you can do it quickly and easily.

Now I am looking for free host and domain. If you know a good one which support PHP, Apachi and MySql version 5 and above please let me to know. Thanks a lot.

Crisis for Iranian Currency (Rials)

It is about one year that I am in Malaysia as a student. When I headed to Malaysia at Iran 1 USD worthed 16500 Iranian Rial (IRR). That time you could buy USD anywhere in this price. It was not good but was reasonable at least. With deteriorating Iranian Nuclear Case in UN and starting UN and US sanctions against Iran, everyday Iranian currency lose its worth more and more. With increasing US dollar worth, government to show all the things are usual and sanctions does not work against Iran and also in order to preventing increasing basic goods' price kept reference US dollar rate identical. However, buying USD with this price was impossible for ordinary people and especially students. They have to buy USD from black market with higher fee and this fee was increasing everyday and it fluctuated a lot in some period. 

Fluctuating Iranian Currency between 2011-2102 in front of USD

In other hand, for a long time passengers who wanted to travel abroad had a allowance to buy USD with governmental price. It was the only hope of many Iranian students who studied abroad to prepare their needs. That amount was not outstanding but they did not have any another choice. 2000$ for every passenger. However, after a while jabbers came and abused from this law. They booked for trip to some countries like Georgia, Armenia, UAE and Turkey to earn Dollar and sell it in black Market. Everyday the gap between IRR and USD was increasing and jabbers become more greedy. Government did not have any plan and instead to negotiate with world powers and solve the problem start to change the laws. At first they announced every passenger can get this allowance once in a year. Two month later national TV reported that these allowance will be different for different countries. Asian countries only 400$. And finally they removed this law and Parliament claimed that with removing this law we saved a lot of money which was escaping. None of them did not even think to Iranian students who study abroad and they need foreign currency.

After one year Iranian currency has lost half of its price and now 1 USD equals 2160 IRR. Price of most of goods in Iran has increased. Based on national news papers we had 40% inflation. What a awful economy and foreign policy. Now no one can dare to buy Iranian Oil and people around the world think we are very rich. Because they heard Iran has oil. Nevertheless, they do not know what a bad position we have now. Most of Iran's worth use for supporting US enemy by government and fighting with west. It is not ridiculous?! Every country should notice to its national benefits not others. Now Iranian neighbors are very happy because of our foolish policy and take advantage of it. Turkey sell a lot of gold to Iran. Pakistan wants free Oil and Gas from Iran. India pay its dept with its worthless Rupee and rubbish products. It really worth to be enemy of US and west without any reasonable reason and pay these expenditures? Iranian people does not have any problem with west and US. Even many of them love US people. 

Price of IRR in front of USD in recent weeks

As a student I should fasten my belt and make it firmer everyday. Having student life is difficult enough but we should tolerate this also. :(

Use MySQL with taste of SQL Server

Hello everyone. In these days I am busy to learn PHP and MySQL to design my questionnaire. I have not worked with MySQL around three years and I could not believe in which extend MySQL developed in these years. When I opened PHPmyAdmin I noticed that MySQL developers added some vital features to it that in my opinion have made MySQL the best database option for small and average projects. For instance several years ago which I came to use MySQL I fed up when I discover MySQL does not support triggers, Transactions and even store procedures! That time SQL Server had all of these features and we preferred to use SQL Server. Now, MySQL have all of these options and it was a very good news for me.

Only drawback which I saw in MySQL was its User Interface. PHPMyAdmin is a nice application and does support many basic needs of developers. However, when you make a store procedure in MySQL, you cannot find it! Why? I do not know. It exists and it works but you cannot see it unless you extract it from systems' table with some codes! It is not very handful especially for people who have worked with SQL Server.

Good news is that some third parties have developed some Graphic User Interfaces (GUI) for MySQL to make it more fashionable and easier to use. Nevertheless we have to pay some bucks to use this advantages. But do not disappointed. Still good guys are on the earth. Yes, one of this GUI is completely free and open source and you can enjoy it with empty pocket! However, it is not bad idea if you liked it donate something to these philanthropist people who are behind the scene. This GUI calls HeidiSQL. You can download it on your computer and use it with MySQL. Do not forget this is only GUI so you should install MySQL first and it does not come with MySQL.

I really have fallen in love with HeidiSQL. It is nice, easy to use and very useful. It shows store procedures, functions, triggers distinctly. It makes up everything PHPMyAdmin does not give you. Now you do not miss SQL Sever anymore when you are using MySQL.I was thinking to this sentence that "All the best things in the world are FREE". I hope you can enjoy this nice GUI. For download please refer to its official website here.

Awful day with WampServer

Today I stayed at home because two days ago Malaysia held Feter Eid or in Malay Hary Raya. This is the celebration of ending Ramadan (fasting month for Muslims). Based on Malaysian calendar they should have two official holidays for Hary Raya. However, unofficially they have around one week holidays. Nice but I really I do not know how they improve?! They have a lot of official and unofficial holiday and each province have some extra holidays also. I am wondering how Malaysia progress?! They are always in holly day :).

Anyway, because of Hary Raya, university is off and finding some food over there is very difficult. Especially when you do not have vehicle. I stayed at home to complete my work here. As I told you I should design a card sorting questionnaire for some IT experts. I am implementing it with PHP and MySQL. Because you need Apache webserver, MySQL and PHP, it is much easier to install Wamp server to have all of them. Actually wamp server compact these three tools for people who need them and you can install them together. You can find WampServer here.

Installation is very easy and fast. I install it at my PC in University lab. Today I stayed at home and I wanted to install it on my laptop too. I installed and its icon become green and it showed that everything is fine. I was happy and ready to write some code. Suddenly, when I wanted to open Phpmyadmin page, nothing happened! Even it could not load localhost! It was only a blank page without any error! WoW, why? I knew that some times it happens because of port conflict with other software like Skype or IIS (Microsoft web server). However, I did not have anyone of my computer. It was strange for me.

I did some search on the Google and I read some suggestion but they did not work at all. For several times I install and uninstall different versions of Wamp server but nothing changed. I checked if my browser use proxy or not! Even I used command prompt: netstat -oaa to see which applications using port 80. The only one was Apache! Maybe around six hours I wasted my time to solve it. Another guy also had my problem and requested help at Wampserver forum but finally no one could help him.

Eventually, I format one of my partition and installed new Windows and it solved. Yeap. the best way of  solving problem is removing the question! It was a joke. Unfortunately I wasted a lot of time and the worst fact was that not only I could not help this problem, but also I did not understand why and when it happens! Some times a small thing can postpone a big project very ridiculously.

If anybody know the solution, please put a comment and teach me. Thanks.

Connecting Wamp Server and Aptana IDE (PHP programming)

Finally I discussed with my supervisor about making a survey or using online survey. He advise me to implement your survey by PHP and MySQL. He mentioned maybe it is a little more consuming but it worth. I should confess that spending time for such issues witch is not related directly to my PhD, does not make me happy. However university does not have any budget for us. So, I should look at these problems as an opportunity. I always wanted to learn PHP. Now I can spend my time on it and learn it.

Today afternoon I was looking for user friendly and open-source IDE for PHP programming. Among different IDEs. Eventually, I selected Aptana. It was very nice IDE and similar to Eclipse. It has very useful features which can make programming easier and faster. Moreover, you can use this IDE more than PHP for Ruby, JavaScript and etc. You can study all features of this handy IDE hear.

This afternoon only one thing suffered me a lot. I had installed Wamp Server on my computer. Nevertheless, Aptana could not detect my wamp server. I did some search on the internet and I understood I should define a local server for Aptana and say the location of my server (Read this page to understand how to do it). I did but still it did not work and it brought its default web server which was not connected to anywhere. After awhile I read somewhere else that in Run>Run Configuration I should say to my browsers to use that local server which I have created. I did, but guess it did not work again! Whyyyyyyyyy? I was getting crazy. I did all the things right why it does not work?

I was getting disappointed from Aptana and I was deciding to switch to another IDE till I found a comment from another user who had similar problem. It seems that this problem has appeared in Apanda version 3.9 later. What was the solution? Incredible! Instead of creating Simple Web Server (local) we should create External Web Server. Two new setting should be done. It needs to commands for running and stopping wamp server. In following figure I have shown required setting which is essential for connecting wamp server and Aptana. These two commands were: NET START wampapache and NET STOP wampapache. I should appreciate to that user who solve my problem and my afternoon headache.







Do you need Classification in your online Survey?

Hello everybody. Many times as a researcher you have several items or factors and you need to ask from some other people who are expert in that area or are usual customers to classify your findings. For example you have found 50 different item which are critical in cloud computing and it seems that some of them have similarities. You need to put similar items in one category. But you need some experts do it for you.

If you are in to paper-based survey you do not have much problem. However, it can be a little difficult for your participant to do it. Nowadays, there are a lot of online survey websites which you can separate your questionnaire online between broader statistical society. Unfortunately, in this section you cannot find an online survey website which advance classification service to you.

So, what should we do? No one did not think for creating such tool for research? The question is yes. This technique is called Card Sorting. Fortunately there are some good websites that advance this service. Nevertheless, finding unlimited free services is difficult. Below I introduce a few of these websites which advance Card Sorting service.

• OptimalSort: This website is very user friendly UI and you can launch your card sorting very quickly. It has a free version of card sorting for its user but it has been limited to 10 participants and only 30 questions. Practically, such free service is only a demo not free service. How about the price? For one year it cost 990$ and for a month 109$. 

• SortWeb:  This is another choice which we have and it also seems user friendly. At first glance it seems that SortWeb is more costly than OptionalSort. It costs 149$. It does not have expiration date and limited participants to 100 people in Single Study version. The good news about Sortweb is that they have discount for non-profit studies. If you send an email from your academic e-mail, they will give you 50% discount. It means for single study around 75$. 

Both of these online card sorting websites have analysis sections. So, you can see the results and analysis of your research every time you will. If you have doubt about it works you can refer to each of above websites and use from demo version and get familiar how they work. 

Pros and Cons about Malaysian Universities

It is about one year that I have started my PhD at Malaysia. I am pretty sure that many other students in developing countries are thinking to Malaysia as a option for higher education. So, lets speak about it.

Pros:

• Studying at Malaysia is cheaper than others foreign countries. like Australia, US and Canada.
• You can continue your education in English language.
• Malaysia is a multicultural country. So, you never have problem about racial discrimination.
• Ranking of Malaysian Universities are getting better everyday. The best ranking belong to University of Malaya among them (I am studying here). Based on Webometrics.com classification its rank for 2012 has been 435 in the world. you can check others here.
• They are investing well on research.
• Technical facilities of universities like having equipments, access to academic database and so on is acceptable in public universities like (UM, UTM, UPM and etc).
• You can see meet every person in university hierarchy from vice canceller to dean in public universities easily.  

Cons:

• In some feilds finding a good supervisor is very difficult.
• Most of the universities in Malaysia only concentrate on publishing papers to promote their world ranking. Not on producing new practical and applicable projects.
• Student facilities inside campus are awful especially in public universities like UM. Its dormitory is dirty, without any facilities, crowded and expensive in proportion to somewhere outside university.
• Scholarships and grants are very limited. You cannot count on it at all. And if they give you only with producing ISI paper. They make a contract with you for this!
• Universities do not have any exact plan and schedule. Complaining will not work. They do not listen.
• They change their rules repeatedly and suddenly.
• You cannot compare Malaysian universities with high level universities in developed countries. 
• You even have very very limited work permission. Students only can work on holidays and summer time and only in hotels, gas station and restaurants. It is suck. Isn't it?
• Student insurance does not support your family at all and this insurance is very limited.

Final word, if you want to come to Malaysia for studying think to these features very well and make real your expectation from Malaysia. Here is developing country at last and you should not search for a miracle here. But if you are hard working person. Your place is not big issue for progressing. Good Luck.

Calling Free to Home

I am pretty sure that all international students and expatriate workers desire to speak with their families and relatives repeatedly. However, cost of International call is not cheap. Hopefully technology has brought many advantages for us and removing distance is the key feature of IT world. With advent of Internet our communications are cheaper and faster. We are not alone anymore anywhere. Today I want to introduce two technologies which I know for free call.

1. Viber: Viber is the name of app for Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry or Iphone mobiles. You can install this free software and speak with you friends without charge. However, we should notice that you should have access to internet by your mobile (3G or Wifi). Actually, your voice transfer from Internet and that's why you do not pay anything. The drawback of Viber is that both people who wants to speak should yous Viber and both of them should be online. So, it can mean that you cannot speak with grandmother who does not have mobile or she does not use smart phone.

1. Voip: Voip is abbreviation of Voice Over Internet Protocol. I have a good news for you can speak with people who does not have smart phone or any access to the Internet. Actually, for most of Voip service you should pay something (It is cheaper than Skype or OOVOO). However, some of Voip provider for some countries advance their services free of charge. If your families and friends be resident of one of those countries you can speak with them without any charge and even call to their landlines. Advantage of Voip is that it does not restrict your audience to use Internet. Only you need Internet for making a phone call. That's it. Grand-mom now you are accessible. If you want to check with Voip provider advance free service for different countries it is good idea to check this page.The good news is that Symbian, Android and Iphone user can install this app also on their smart phone or even people who does not have these luxury mobiles can install Voip on their PCs or Laptops. 

Now world is in your hands. Enjoy from technology.

Political Sport Sacrifices Iranian Athletes

Yesterday without any doubt was outstanding day for Iranian. Iran with gaining two gold and two silver jumped from step 29 to 14 in Olympic ranking. Now Iran with 8 medals are above of Denmark, Brazil and Spain. Congratulation to these diligent athletes. I am so proud of them because despite developed countries Iranian government does not support these athletes that much. Some of them even did not have any coach like Ehsan Hadadi. He have practiced alone during these years and he succeed to win Silver in Men's Discus throw. He lost gold medal only with 10 cm difference in front of his German opponent. In Gerco-Roman wrestling again Rezaei shined and achieved to a worthy gold medal. In men's weightlifting in 105Kg Iran won both of Gold and Silver. For sure it was very good night for all Iranian over the world. I hope Iran gain several medals in free-style wrestling and promote its place in Olympic table. 

The sad truth about these Iranian athletes is that after Olympics no one remember them at all. Even their fans who sit and praise them after a while forget them. Many of them have difficulties in their normal livings. Government only abuse from them for their own whims. It always has been one the horrible and dark side of Iranian athletes lives. A few of them in order to solve their livelihood problems, find a job or have a loan and etc accept to pollute themselves in politics. For example support a especial candidate or offering their medal to someone in regime to show that person is as popular as that athlete. And hey people who love this champion even your warrior love this person so if you like him, you are fan of this person too .

Moreover, Iranian athletes are under monitoring during all contests. After Islamic Revolution in Iran (abound 30 years ago) authorities do not permit them to contest with Israeli athletes. Many of them loosing chance of getting gold because of this foolish policy. They think if the compete with Israel others say Iran has accepted Israel. As a Iranian I do not understand why Iran and Israel are enemy with each other?! We do not have even common border. We did not fight with each other and even Iran has had historical friendship with Jews which come back to 2500 years ago. Iranian hosted Jews for many years and they have lived together without any problem. But suddenly without any logical reason we became our enemies. As a human and Muslim I deplore for Palestinian and I denounce Israel for usurping their lands and using force against Palestinian. I do believe Israel has right to live beside Palestinian but in peace and calmness without violence and with respect and far from racist actions. Unfortunately most of Israeli governments till now have not respect UN statements and are continuing to destroying Palestinian lands. However, Polluting sport to politics is not acceptable in any way. The goal of Olympics are peace and calmness in the world. I hope one day this trend stop in the world and world and especially Middle East reach to stable peace.

Two other medals and rising Iran level in Olympics 2012

It seems that Persians have broken 40 years spell in Greco-Roman wrestling very well. After Hamid Sourian in 55 Kg, this time Omid Noroozi gained Gold medal in this field in 60 Kg. He defeated opponents from China, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Japan and eventually Georgia at Final Game. In another court at weightlifting Navab Nasirshelal in 105 Kg won Silver medal of Olympics 2012 and stood behind  Ukrainian champion. Till now Iran stand behind South Africa with four medal in 29 step. I am quite sure the Iran ranking will promote again. ;) Today Iran has two another wrestlers in Greco-Roman Style in 66Kg and 96 Kg.

Malaysia has participated in Olympics 2012 with 30 athletes. Till now Malaysia only has achieved one silver medal by Lee Chong Wee in badminton. You can see different races in Malaysian athletes witch shows that colorful nature of Malaysia. However, it seems that Indian should try more because I have not seen an Indian athlete among Malaysian Olympic team this year. At the moment Malaysia located in 55 step among 71 counties in the world. 

First Iranian Gold Medal in Greco-Roman Wrestling after 40 Years in Olympics 2012

Approximately everybody knows that Iranians are very good wrestling around the world. History of wrestling came back to 2500 years ago in ancient Iran or Persia. There are many ancient epic poetry which point to this truth (Shahnameh). In fact wrestling was one of Persian war skills. When they loose they spear and sword. They fought in this way. There are many different type of wrestling in different parts of Iran. Actually Iran is one of origins of wrestling in the world . For many years Iranians have been number one in freestyle wrestling in the world. Freestyle is one of their traditional style and they are sophisticated in it. However, in Greg-Roman style they are not very well-known.

 First time around forty years ago Babajan Zadeh won golden medal in Olympic Games. After that Iran did not have outstanding champion in this style of wrestling till around five years ago that Hamid Sourian shined in this style for Iranians. He is wrestling in 55Kg. Despite his capabilities in Beijing Olympic Games he lost Gold medal. Maybe he was very young (21 years old) and did not have enough experts to manage his wrestling well. During these years he did not stop and tried hardly. In wrestling world cups he gained championship five times sequentially. WoW he should have ironic will and working hard to keep these titles. Yesterday, eventually he reached the honor who was seeking for. He defeated different opponents from Kyrgyzstan, Hungry, and Denmark to reach the final game. The final game holed between him and Roshan Bayramov from Azerbaijan.In the first round he take Bayromove on the clinch and gained two worthy points. In the second round one point was added to his points and finally the narrator proclaimed Sourian is the greatest. Sourian celebrated his gold medal with a nice balance on the wrestling circle like a professional gymnast. As a Iranian I really proud of him. 

Now Iran in Olympic contest table has one Gold medal by Sourian and one Bronze from weightlifting by Kianush Rostami. At the moment Iran is in 39 step in Olympics 2012. I am quite sure that Iran ranking will promote very soon. Most chances of Iranians in winning Gold in Olympics 2012 are in freestyle wrestling, Taekwondo, heavy weightlifting.

How Find a Room For Living at Malaysia?

Have a good place to live is very important everywhere you are. When you want to live as a student somewhere because of your limited budget you have to manage your expenditures. The most expensive part of living at Malaysia, especially Kuala Lumpur, is home expenditures. So, it is not bad idea to share a house with some housemates like you. Isn't it? But how can I find a place for this issue? Fortunately, technology have brought a souvenir for us.

If you want to find somewhere to live-especially when you are looking for a room-,I will suggest you to visit Ibilik.com. Not only you can find rooms at Malaysia here, but also at Singapore and Indonesia. There is no agent here and most of the people who put ads are people who are looking for housemates. You can select an area that you want and search among different options and select somewhere based on your budgets and facilities that you expect. Finally, you contact with those people for visiting the place.

Congratulation very soon you will be at you room. In text post I will tell you the process of making contact to rent a room at Malaysia and points which you should notice before and after renting somewhere.