Thaana on Android 2.2

I have not tested this on a real Android phone, so I am not sure if this will 100% work. Anyway give it a try and let me know.

First you need to root your android. (I never done it but here is a link which might help)

Next download these two font files

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10228732/DroidSans.ttf

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10228732/DroidSerif-Regular.ttf

Next you need to have Android SDK installed on your box.

Connect your phone to the box .

Push the Thaana fonts to /system/fonts using adb

adb remount

adb push {full path to DroidSans.ttf} /system/fonts

adb push {full path to DroidSerif-Regular.ttf} /system/fonts

* (in my case it's like adb push /Users/sofwathullahmohamed/Desktop/DroidSerif-Regular.ttf /system/fonts)

finally do a

adb shell reboot

I guess that should do it. If all went ok; I guess you should be able to browse thaana websites (unicode; don't think www.haveeru.com.mv will work). I've tested this on the Android simulator and works fine on Android 2.2.

Update (19, Aug 2010): Started work on a Thaana keyboard for Android

When I started off this I realized it might not be a good idea to directly convert from the QWERTY keyboard layout (conventional keyboard) to Thaana soft keyboard for mobile devices. The user experience might /will not be very good. We need to do some research into the best keyboard layout method to be used on mobile devices. This is important as soon more people will be using mobile devices (like phones and other mobile computing devices) for daily work and entertainment. This is something that needs to be debated and agreed on before any layout is implemented. HELP is NEEDED here.

iDhivehiSites for iPhone (FREE)

The project is now made Open Source and can be downloaded from http://github.com/jinahadam/iDhivehiSites- and the facebook page is here

We won't get much time to improve on the features, so we hope developers who are interested will contribute. Jinah has implemented twitter share and made changes to the UI, so it looks simpler. We had a problem with the font rendering for www.haveeru.com.mv which also is fixed now (but we do hope haveeru will soon move to unicode).

The Busy Bee

Busy Bee is one of the iPhone app ideas that started off simple. While working on a few other project ideas this got to be a spinn off and became an app of it's own.

What we tried to achieve was simple yet was/is not available for the iPhones. The idea was like most other phones (Nokia, etc) when you get a missed call / reject call, automatically compose a message (text/sms) to the caller from a template of messages. This becomes very useful when you are busy at a meeting or while driving, etc. This is not new and widely used.

Now one might think it must be easy. Yes it sounds simple, but when you have to work with iPhones (not jailbroken) you obviously don't get much freedom outside the boundaries set by Apple. That is one of the challenges about iPhone development.

We saw some limitations and a "gray" area where we decided to take a chance. The biggest problem we had was even thought the Core Telephony framework was introduced, it never gave you a way to get the caller ID of the incoming calls. This created a major problem as we can't automatically put the number after composing a SMS (the new SDK did allow you to compose a SMS though you can't send them out automatically). So the solution we thought of was to take a risk with an private API "UIGetScreenImage()". What we did was while the app is running in the foreground if an incoming calls comes we capture the screen and process the image and do an OCR to capture the number (MSISDN) of the caller. This included looking into the Address book if the caller is already listed. This solved the problem of call id, next we implemented a white list and a black list option for the user along with options to customize templates. This did the trick. This was not the right way to get things done, but we had no other option to solve the problem.

The risk was in late 2009, Apple announced it would begin to allow iOS apps to use the private API however it did also say "A future release of iPhone OS may provide a public API equivalent of this functionality". This proved to be the case when we submitted the application, we got rejected. This was expected. We took our chances.

Since we had done some work on the App I did not feel like giving up. It was a small project but I always enjoyed this kind of tools and it was a fun project. So we decided to take off the features and put up a basic version with a new UI. The new app will still get you a composed text message when you are on busy mode, but you had to manually fill in /select the number. You also could use the app as a SMS templates application as the iPhone does not come with any SMS templates features. This becomes useful when you want to send out standard SMS messages and if you are busy/lazy. Example "Almost reaching, come down in 5 mins", etc.

As of today it's still pending approval as Apple usually takes around a week or two to process. Below are some screenshots of the new app. This is one of those fun apps and I thought I'd share the experience with other developers.

Update:



The app is approved and in App Store.

We also were listed on "New & Noteworthy" Apps in App Store.

iDhivehiSites for iPhone

Update:

New update on app store with additional fonts.

Bug:

Haveeru.com.mv is having issues of font rendering. We have already fixed this with a UI change. Update will be submitted to app store approval today.

---------

App now supports Bookmarking users favorite sites.

Link to iPad version of iDhivehiSites (itunes)

App revamping done by @jinahadam

Update: App now in app store. App store link

Will be adding more fonts and making an update.

Waaaaatz up?

No posts for long, so thought I'd post something to keep the blog active.

First question. Waaaaatz up? Nothing much is the answer. Been busy with work and a bit of studies. It's been really busy few months trying to get another startup kicked off. This time it's all about mobile applications. Best part about the job is the team and the freedom to bring your ideas into a reality.

I feel there is an exciting future for mobile apps. It's an exciting field to play in and challenging too. You constantly have to work to keep up with ideas and technology. Best of all you get to be part of exciting stuff/time. Working with a team of talented developers/designers is really fun but at the same time a lot of pressure. You need to ensure the right products are delivered and you manage to get them out by the set time lines. I am struggling on that now. We started off with a few big ideas that needed research and time to develop. Things have started to come to life now and I am excited as I see them come alive.

Simple ideas that involve getting data from users and storing them on to a DB with a fancy web page does not excite me anymore. There is a lot of fun apps and exciting productivity / utility apps/tools that you can work on. Thats what we are working on now.

Developing apps for iPhone/iPad is really a challenge. There is the limitations setup by Apple vs. the ideas you have. You need to ensure that your ideas get implemented within the boundaries and developer guidelines set by Apple. However I think the iOS is the way to go considering the apps market factor (for now). We are also exploring into the Androids, which is I guess more appealing for developers cos of the freedom they get. I think for any mobile apps company like us, we need to keep up with all the environments and cater to the demands. It's not good to limit to just iOS, Android or Windows Phones.

I've always enjoyed working on localized (thaana/dhivehi) apps. Published an iPad Dhivehi News reader a month or two back. Initially the work was done for my dad while he was visiting me and he got a new iPad. Later with some minor changes I published it. It's a very simple app the idea that is to help people view Thaana on websites. So far I had around 250 + downloads of the app. I have no idea who they are, but I think not all will be Maldivians as the app is FREE. I did work on an iPhone version too but did not publish it as it needed some polishing. Together with a colleague of mine from work we plan to publish the iPhone version. This will be more an experiment, I wanna have an idea of the iPhone app usage in the Maldives. A news reader might be something that might attract most of the users so it will be easy to estimate the figures. One problem with having an app for FREE is that anyone might download it (not just Maldivians). So this time will not make it FREE.

As for the Maldivian market, it's not worth developing mobile applications targeted to Maldives. The market is too small. Example if you position your app around $ 1.99 with 500 downloads you would only make $ 995 of which you'd only make $ 696.5. This only applies if you develop applications specific to the Maldivian market, but it's always good to know the numbers and have an idea on the market. If anyone is thinking of developing an app specific to the Maldivian market I guess they won't have much choice but to price it a bit higher or just do it for FREE for the fun of it. Anyway I hope we see more apps coming out of Maldivian developers. I feel it's time we explored outside the web apps also start thinking global. Think of ideas that will appeal to the mass market and get them rolled out. My guess is when Windows Phones come out we'd see a few developers publishing apps as we have a lot of good/talented Windows developers in the Maldives.

One of the other ideas that I have is to get an open source OCR tool published for the Dhivehi Langauge. We have been working on a similar project and once we are done with it, I think it would be easy for us to publish/port a Dhivehi/Thaana OCR framework. Already I've seen some demos of Thaana OCR Windows application on the Web. I guess these will be commercial tools though. This might take us a few more months to publish, once we do I guess it can be taken up by the community and improved on.

The Mobile Phone Market

Blogs have evolved. Today the new trend is micro blogging (example twitter). More people blog today than ever, but the platform have changed/evolved. Same thing has/is happening to mobile computing. We are at the dawn of a major evolution on mobile computing.

Smart phones today are no longer a luxury item (remember those days when people did anything to own an O2 XDA atom?. Though the only they did was playing solitaire ) but a necessity toady. No need to talk about the advantages of smart phones here. One can google for it and you'd find thousands of pages.

Recently the iPhones have been a huge success on the smart phone arena followed by Android based phones. Commercially speaking Apple and iPhone application developers have made millions out of this market in less than two years. Personally I like the Androids more, it's a more open and promising platform compared to the iPhones however if you are in the mobile application business I guess iPhones is the right choice (for now). The new Windows Phone 7 Series is looking very promising too. Maybe the success of WP7S will be a market place like Apples (though some may disagree with me). I am in no way talking about how good the platform is or which is superior , etc. My focus here is on the revenues which will be generated out of these platforms. Gartner, the research firm, predicts that spending on handset apps will hit $6.2 billion this year. With this kind of figures you can see a lot of developers venturing into this market.

The success of Windows OS on the desktop has always been the availability of the applications, I feel the same will apply to the mobile computing market too. It all depends on providing the best development tools / options and a good commercial model. I don't think the handset vendors will matter anymore in the near future. Just like the PC markets. If you have a DELL, HP, Acer or Lenovo it does not matter much to the functionality. We all have our own preferences though. Apple have always been “Thinking Different”. Owning an Apple MacBook and a Notebook is different, the “feel” is different. The same may apply to the mobiles. You can run Linux or Windows on your notebook/Desktop (commonly) or you can have a Apple running Mac OS X. Following the path, you might have your HTC, Samsung or Motorola or others running Android or WP7S or your Apple iPhone. This is how I see it now, I am not very sure where Nokia is heading but I would like to think if they are to keep the strong hold in this market they too soon will need to follow the trend (which already has started to happen).

In the Maldives, most people don't understand this market mainly because they have been so used to the pirated software that they fail to understand the value of software. Software is taken for granted, no one is willing to pay. This is fine by me and good. If you don't want to pay for software go with the Free software. That is more ethical, however that is just my view.

It is sad that the Maldivian investors and the government fail to see such advances and economical opportunities. For the developers I'd like to think this is a very good opportunity, I know it's hard to venture into software development without a good financial backup but this is worth a try. I don't think in Maldives the developers will find people who will support them and help them. You are on your own and it's best if you realise this now and work around it. The talks about improving ICT in the country are all are just “bull shit!”. It will never happen. The policy makers and the people with money are only interested in owning Resorts.

Last few years I've worked with really talented individuals in Maldives. I know there are many more. If someone managed them and guided them this will really benefit the country as a whole. I always feel it's high time we broke away from prostituting our beaches (as in only depending on it alone) and found an alternative source of income. It's nice to see recently individuals coming up with creative web based application, etc. Most or if not all of which are targeted to the local market. This is good for a start but I think it's high time we started to think globally and utilized the talent in Maldivians.

Tears in Heaven ?

It's always confusing for me; the idea of existence of different schools in Islam. The Sunni, Shia, Shafi, Wahaabi and Hanafi, etc. All of them simply can't be right. Maybe ONE is right or ALL are wrong. That is the logic, and many will NOT want to accept this.

I also can't accept that some people do good is ONLY to end up in Heaven. They again may NOT admit to this, but this is again very real. They pray, give zakath, etc only for this reason (not cos they care about the dying and needy). What if there was NO heaven would they still do good?. I don't know.

The question about my faith have been brought up many times. I still will keep it to myself. However I would like to believe that all those NORMAL people you quote can't be right. Not all of them. There is a lot lost in history and a lot of made ups. I refuse to believe all that. Too much politics (examples like The battle of Jamal) and works of unknown forces have been involved. Killings in the name of god and illogical reasonings all of which I can't accept. So call me what ever you wish. I won't mind.

To the people who talk about god and god's ways, they sometimes forget that if god exists there must exist the devil too. If there is a devil, all the while he would not be sitting in a beach in Maldives and enjoying the sun, sea and sand. There is always the possibility that the school you follow is his creation? Maybe he took over and you are just killing for him? . I did not introduce the idea of god and devil so don't look at me. Just think about the possibilities and what you believe in. Don't point a finger at others, three more might be pointing back at you too.

... and may god bless you. :)

Happy New Year

2009 is almost gone. Hardly blogged in 09 compared to the last few years. Reasons are plenty, been busy for the most part of the year. Year started off with an exciting project with a great team, by October project was completed. It was a good experience and was a pleasure working with the team I had. November I left Maldives and have moved to Malaysia with a new company.

The future looks exciting. I am happy to get back to developing software and back to studies. Leaving Male'/Maldives was not hard except for one or two factors, which I soon hope to resolve. I am not from Male', and it practically makes no difference for me living here; infect cost of living is much cheaper here. There are better opportunities and less headache/frustrations. I am not a politician or own a resort, so no future for me in Maldives. :P

This year also came with loss of close people. I will miss them always.

Anyway wish everyone a happy new year 2010.

15th November

Today use to be a very special day for many years. Today still is, only difference is some things and people have moved on. So would we; someday.

I dedicate today to all the great people I've known and are no more with us. May god bless them and keep them happy where ever they are. I'd smile when ever I'd think of them.

Bye.

3G/Internet ?

Mobile broadband is something that is interesting and has a good future. I wonder if the ISP/MNO's will introduce affordable internet packages ?. I don't see why they should not, there is a good business case to this, and great benefits to the public.

Speeds between 384kbps to 7.2/14.4Mbps can be given over the GSM Network. Today Wataniya and Dhiraagu should be capable of providing such speeds anywhere Male'.

Maldives has a total population of 300,000 people I don't see a reason why good service cannot be provided. We do have a good demand for such services too. What we lack is a good regulator and political will to improve services.

The present internet service providers are going a great job in providing bad services to the individuals and getting the services is costly and hard. I think it's high time we changed this. I see 3G as the best opportunity to do so. My argument is MNO's can make money too; they just need to first give up on the old ways of thinking and try to be more service oriented. Government and the regulators has a key role to play here too; so far they have also successfully failed to do so. I hope this will change too.

It is critical that we get rid of the digital divide in this nation and change our views towards internet as a luxury. Internet should be made a basic human right. Everyone should have the means and the rights to access information and share information.

"Change" ?

On the menu today is Climate "Change". Saving the World, passing an important message to the rest of the world. "We are sinking". Waves? Yes! Tsunami ? Maybe.. or Honda Waves. I am not so sure.

We Maldivians don't pollute. No sir, we don't (we never do). So our great president decides to have a little event to pass a very bold message to the rest of the world. "We are sinking". "Save us"; aham! or maybe "come visit us before we sink; stay in one of the five star resorts.. spend some money" ? .. Now I fully support this idea and the cause. (yet; some of my friends tell me our tourism minister sucks and he is not creative. I don't agree)

Besides the tourism ministry, the ministry of Islamic affairs has a plan too. That is if we are sinking we need to be prepared. This one calls to build an Arc much like the one like Noah's Ark. Now we know who will be on the priority list. I am sure Mr. Gasim Ibrahim will be among the top 10, for he has 4 wives (btw that is not my reasoning, it's by the Adaalath) .


.. and so the president decides to hold an underwater cabinet meeting. " In that event he and the country's ministers will sign a resolution calling for CO2 level to be reduced to below 350 ppm. And the President himself will deliver the resolution to governments at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December."

So what is my feeling toward this? I am happy and proud. Yes I am. If our politicians can go deep down to get the numbers down this is a good sign. I only hope this won't be the last time they would go to this level to get the "numbers" down. I am happy at least CO2 levels coming down to "ayfoara fashah".. It had to start somewhere be it CO2.

Busy/Interesting days ahead

Can't be at two places at the same time, don't have that upgrade installed in me yet. So always the first priority is the paying job. I've got a project to be completed and rolled out in two months. Involves around 5 different vendors working together and seamless integration between all these vendors is a must. More of my responsibilities are on the project management side, so it's not so bad. However I think I am in for a lot of long and sleepless nights for the next 2 months.

In parallel the MOSS teams are busy with FLOSS projects (advocating) which is very much focused on to the Government of Maldives at this time. Main aim is to run a pilot project which will migrate an existing government office to OSS. This would help the government to decide if they would consider deploying OSS solutions government wide. Role of MOSS is to facilitate this and provide help where needed. The actual deployment would/should be done by NCIT or a commercial company(s) appointed by NCIT; who would provide the neede support. I think yet this is to be finalized. Hopefully for some interested local IT companies this might be a good opportunity. I would still say or my personnel view is in the long run NCIT or local Ministry staff should be trained on OSS and they should take over. Having commercial support is good to where needed. This needs to be discussed at a policy level and the best method will/should be adopted. I think the people who are involved right now are in the right direction and I wish them all the best. It's too bad I can't provide much support or be involved as I have other commitments.

Hopefully MOSS registration will be formal within the next few days and they will officially be operational as a formal NGO. We started off with MLUG and officially now going under the name MOSS with fresh blood and new faces. I think I am happy with the team who will be running the show and I have my confidence in them. Though I am not officially part of it, I would always be more than happy to help where I could; if and when needed. Best part is I know they are doing good and they have a good vision of what they need to do and achieve. It's their show now and hopefully they would work for the best interest of the community as always.

A great day for freedom

Yesterday registrations forms were submitted to register a NGO in the name of Maldivian Open Source Society (MOSS). This is a great step forward in the direction of promoting and advocating FLOSS in Maldives (officially).

Today we had a presentation on FLOSS and Cloud Computing at NCIT. The Minister of Civil Aviation and Communication was also present at this presentation. I think this was the first official such presentation of this nature. I am very happy with the support we got and the feedback.

I think this is a great start and a positive one. At the same time I realise this is just the start, there is a lot more to do and achieve.

Open Source

It's been almost 10 years since I have been advocating Open Source Software (Mostly Linux). During this time, I've met many people who loved the idea and also people who never understood the concept or totally hated it. It took time but eventually I knew OSS is here to stay and will soon dominate the computing world.

The first time I openly expressed the idea of open source governance is back in 2007 on mvlinux.blogspot.com as one of the contributors to the blog. Since then the idea have been brought up many time and a lot recently. Today I don't think it's a "crazy" concept anymore. Even NCIT have proposed in it's proposed policy paper that they will look into OSS. This is a good step forward. However I feel not many in the government are ready for such a change/adaptation. Concepts like migrating the OS from Windows to Linux is a scary idea for some sysadmins who don't have much experience or only have exposure to Windows only. Even most of the technology vendors and IT firms don't have the knowledge for such adaptations. This does not mean we should step away from better alternatives just cos we don't have the confidence.

Advantages are many! First of all the cost factor. Even if we can use pirated copies of Windows today, this will come to an end sooner or later. IP laws are something that is expected to come soon. Paying close to USD 200 per computer with OS, Office Applications and Anti-Virus will become a BIG financial burden when this is multiplied in 1000's. This factor is expected to be the biggest driving factor for most to consider OSS in Maldives. Maybe not soon, but in the few years to come.

Other factors like the open nature of software will also be a driving factor. Examples like the current localization of Ubuntu to Dhivehi is happening due to the open nature of Linux. Alternatives like Linux are more secure, stable and flexible compared to the existing OS (Windows) in use. Slowly more people are getting to understand this and explore into alternatives. Today more and more nations and companies are migrating to such alternatives in the world, so it's just a matter of time before Maldives also will have to follow this path. Maybe the policy makers will waste money investing software in millions and give 100's of reasons NOT to migrate, but they would be proven wrong in time. This is my view.

The change should come from the policy level. Not by public pressure or media. This is the responsibility of the people who are assigned to make such choices. They need to be more open minded and responsible towards the greater good than submitting to fear and uncertainty. We may end up saving millions of USD and routing that money to our education, health care and much needed service if a right choice is made today. However I am not very hopeful for such a positive change today. The mindset needs to be changed of the policy makers, which again I don't think will happen soon. Sad part is we will again be left behind when the rest of the world steps ahead of us. We need a new generation of individuals with vision and a feeling of responsibility towards the nation and greater good of everyone for such change to happen. I don't expect this in the post 1st generation of Maumoon era... but it's a dream .. that will come true someday..

Linux has started to slowly influence the IT industry of Maldives too. Presently this is mostly or totally at the back ends. Examples like Island Aviation, Allied Insurance, Wataniya and Dhiraagu are some examples where Linux is deployed at various levels. Next level is the desktop.. I feel distributions like Ubuntu and OSS applications like OpenOffice will soon be adopted by Maldivians just like Firefox replaced IE.

Maumoon and the lust for power!

1978 to 2008. 30 bloody long years we had. What is the result ? Living expenses sky high (No it did not happen after Nov 08). We slave all day and end of the month all the hard earned money is given to some people, if you won't call this slavery what else do you call this?. Who engineered this business model for the benefit of a few and survival of the elite? Any Tom Dick can tell you no one else is to be given credit for this except for Maumoon. Yes, this guy fucked us for almost 30 years and still does not want to give up.

If anyone is to blame and to be held responsible it's no one but Maumoon. A few may forget or many, I won't and will not forgive. There is no f*cking way I am accepting him back in. Only over my dead body.

They come and tell you what improved, what changed. Yeah! we today cry for the change and even fight to improve things why?. Did you guys ever wonder the reason for that?. That is today we have hope we want to fix things and have a better life. We did not shout out like this and ever had the expectations like this, when the dictator ruled over us. Today we do. Yes! we are not happy today. We are not happy cos this is not what we deserve to have, we could have a far better life and should not be suffering like this.

As humans we always have expectations, high hopes. After Mumoon this have reached to a very high level. We try to give opinions and have expectations. Which we did not from Maumoon. Which we would never have had from Maumoon. So friends when I complain and say I am not happy. I am right, but that does not mean I am telling I need Maumoon back. The day he comes in, that hope will die and I will never complain.

You show me Male' and tell me this is great. This is what Maumoon gave us. I tell you FUCK you. This is HELL!. So don't try to play your mind games on me you dick heads. Go plan how to rule over us and how to suck on the peoples blood like you have been for the past 30 years. That's all you can think of and are good at. Don't talk of democracy and a better future, does not sound good when it comes from you.

Musical Chair(s)

We finally are done with the elections. This is the second Majlis elections since I started this blog. Nop! I did not vote! I have my reasons and I need not explain. Yes it's my right to vote and NOT to vote too.

Before the last presidential elections we had the elections for which type of governance system we need. That was done, so was the presidential elections. With every elections we had hopes, we here I mean the people. I feel there is a difference between the normal poor citizens and the politicians. However today everyone seems to be a politician too. The results mean different things to these two category of humans.

We voted to over throw the dictator who ruled over us for 30 years. Today it seems the people who won the majority of seats (in this Majlis elections) want to get back the dictator in the palace/office/power. So it's an endless struggle for power in this rat race.

All the recent votes is all focused on ONE MAN! Mr. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom! It was either to throw him out / to get him back in or to keep in out! Where do we come in? When will a government/vote focus on us? When this guy dies? If so I sure hope this happens soon (Sorry but I have no choice, but to wish for that for the benefit of most of us)

I don't understand a lot about politics. I admit to that. Some times I am right and often I am proved wrong. Like now I don't get why the present government says Mr. Maumoon and his cronies have ripped off our nation and are the grass root behind all the bad (namely Drugs, killings, etc). If they can claim this, I feel they should go and arrest these guys and bring them to justice without any delay. That is the responsibility of the government and such people cannot be let loose. So why are they free?. Not enough evidence? If so that mean they did not do anything bad. So it's ok even if they get elected and come back to power? Logically YES! Since they did not do anything bad, why should we oppose them?.

This whole thing again is like the musical chair which we use to play. Only difference is Maumoon and his cronies are the chairs. We run around them. We take chair by chair, still one chair remains till the end game. This whole political thing won't be complete without Maumoon now. That's what I feel. The ruling party came to power not by the great 5 promises they made but by showing this man Maumoon to the people. For the last few years all what we heard was "Golhaaboa faibaa" Not the 5 promises and the flower of hope! We actually voted to get rid of this man! That's the reality that's the truth! But did we get rid of him? NO! Will we get rid of him? I don't know!

I don't care who rules over us, as long as we get a better life and we don't have to suffer like we do today. Yes! we suffer and anyone who tell me we are ok and doing fine! FUCK YOU! in caps! We are not. I can blame Maumoon for that, cos this did not fall on us over night. This came down to us in his regime and still we are struggling. I hope the existing government is trying it's best to fix this shit and give us a better tomorrow. However I don't yet see anything materializing and I see the biggest obstacle to be this political fights over power! Someone/some people need to end this and bring a solution to this curse. Please!

Power Hungry Politicians

I feel the biggest threat today to the nation is corrupted, selfish and power hungry politicians of this country. In the name of justice and the people; they just use us.

It's all a power struggle and trying to prove that "my party" or "my family and friends" are right and should rule over this country. It's again never about us the people. I repeatedly say this cos I feel this. I don't see a any future in this country and any chance of development. We'd just rot and die here the political leaches will suck on our blood till we are dry.

They don't simply care for you. They only need your "Votes". Trust me!. They don't. By they I mean everyone. From the father of fuck ups, Mr. Maumoon to Flat Kudey (Anni) and the army of Doctors (Dr. Hassan Saeed and the gang). I am sick of you guys fighting over power and giving a blind eye to the sufferings in this country. I am sorry but FUCK YOU ALL.

National Teleportation System

Dear Sirs,

I am an alien living in Male', Maldives. I am a legal one as I am a "Daftharu" man in Male'. The cost of living in Male' is so high compared to the incomes we get, I some times wonder if we are sane enough. As in why we still have not committed mass suicides.

I don't need to go into details of the costings, as everyone knows even the very basic one room apartment will cost close to USD 700. I have no choice but to live in Male'. Moving to the provinces is no option for me. I am sorry as I do not AGAIN agree with force migrations. I would have if you would provide me with the same job oppertunities and basic services.

I know you have been saying that this is your long term objectives and this is not brought to us by you and your government. However sirs, I would have no choice but to complain to you. I would complain to God, but I don't think he is too much interested in me and my country men.

Please once you finish developing your National Teleportation System and make the world a greener place. Please do hear our plea.

We can wait and hope that our children will be able to Teleport from point A to point B in split seconds. The other option is while we wait please make potassium cyanide available to us for FREE for those who need. This would be a great help and will be most appriciated.

The Platform as an Open Cloud

Idea is simple, cloud computing is really a culmination of many technologies such as grid computing, utility computing, SOA, Web 2.0, and other technologies. The definitions may vary but the concept remains the same.

One of the key ideas behind the model is on demand hosted services with the ability to scale and provision computing power dynamically in a cost efficient way.

This is the ideal platform for the Maldivian government today. We have invested on the infrastructure (network wise) and we (the ministries) are all connected. Why do we want to replicate the same services?, The government can easily save money in this deep economic downturn while moving to a superior technology infrastructure. This also is a way to follow what they preach. By moving towards using green technologies for the functioning of the Government helping to reduce the negative effects to environment, etc.

In plain English; this means we should not be spending on computer hardware/software, electricity, and human resources for each and every ministry in the government. This is a total waste of public money, when other better alternatives are available. This also justifies the money that the government have spend on building the network interconnecting all the ministries.

If the government can get power from Stelco and telecom services from Telecoms why not have a government controlled IT company?. This makes more sense. Even right now web sites are hosted in Dhiraagu, the very sensitive emails are hosted in Dhiraagu. Looking at that point of view we have up to some level adopted off site hosted services in governance. To move towards this model the present government needs to realize that the public expects from its government highly coordinated, timely responses to all challenges and promises made by the new government.

Government coordination depends upon consistent decision making across multiple business units, departments and projects. This cannot be done via letters, or even modern technologies like emails. To achieve this government needs to work as one unit, instead of many individual ministries. These are factors that lead to the “good governance”, this is what the people need. Service!. The main responsibility of the government is to provide better services to its people. Today they can’t hide behind political excuses and prolong this.

The solution is an enterprise-wide architecture which tries to create a framework for effective decision making across multiple business units. Otherwise, independent groups decide alone resulting in inconsistency, information islands, isolated business processes, and inefficient technologies. This mixture is a recipe for poor performance which we have been so used to.

Adaptation of an EA also enables computer systems, networks, software, and data/information systems that support government functions and services to more effectively and efficiently communicate, interoperate, and share resources. Therefore this should be decided at the policy level of the Maldivian government to implement and utilize such architecture. Such policies should focus and utilize common, secure, industry-wide, open-standards-based technologies and standards, identified by industry standards organizations, and based on documented methodologies, principles, and best practices.

One of the key focuses should be on effective utilization of technology to achieve business functions and services, increasing citizen access to those services, sharing information and resources at all levels of government, and maximizing investment in IT resources. This is the major motivating factors for the development and implementation of such a model.

The other advantage to such a model is, it leads to a proper transparent system of governance.

Today the biggest problem is we don’t have people with such visions in the decision making level in the government. We had the same problem for 30 years and still we seem to be stuck with the same problem. The other reason maybe they are too busy focusing on trying to keep their noses above the water and survive this political madness which we are going through. If the so called “Sadoom” was filled with gays, today Maldives is filled with “politicians”. This has become like a curse upon us. The religious Imams have turned out to be politicians and latest edition to the list is the medical doctors.

To conclude; I’d have to say “Hopeless”! Things will just remain as dreams.

The Friday preachers

Every Friday we hear the Adaalath talk about social issues in relation to Islam and what we have become. Namely things like we follow our own man made rules (Constitution), and don't follow gods ways (Quran/Sharia), etc. This week we got to know why fishing is so bad, and why it does not rain. We were given the solution too, however the case of the captured terrorists (Maldivian Jihaadees) in Paakisthaan was not addressed. It was not addressed while every other week they talked about killings and suicides.

I have not many comments on the thinking Adaalath is trying to spread and what it's vision of our country is. However I don't think they support the moderate Islamic views that we have been following all these years. May god bless the people of the country and not make this country another Peshawar. Seems like it is slowly starting gear in that direction, or some people are motivated to take us there.

From what I see from some people, I feel they are under the impression that Mohamed (PBH) was born and raised in Pakistan or India. We ask them why dress the way they do, and they will tell you "this" is how Mohamed (PBH) lived and dressed.

P.S. I know religion is a controversial subject and opinions may differ. I fully understand that, however what I publish here is my view, just like what Adaalath preaches on Fridays their views.

Just another style of dressing. I don't see any relation to religion here. It's more a cult thing.