Author: lallouslab

My name is Elias aka lallous and I am a computer scientist and a seeker of ultimate truth and human potential
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Avalon Bellevue Towers: 4 years of time well spent

In this blog post I will be sharing my experience of living in the Avalon Bellevue Towers Community right in downtown Bellevue, Washington for 4 years.

Avalon Bellevue Towers’ slogan is: Time well spent. Let me explain what they mean with that!

The staff and the service

abt-602-During my 4 years living there, the community and its staff lived up to their word.

The concierge staff was always professional and friendly (hello Ken and Stephen). Apart from greeting them when I enter the building, they took care of the package reception and delivery and other mundane issues.

When it comes to maintenance requests, I can say it was top notch. Mr. Attila Madaras, the maintenance supervisor, was always there in person to fix all kinds of problems in the apartments: from replacing busted light bulbs to repairing a broken appliance. I would place a maintenance request online and within the same day (or max the next day) I would get the issue taken care of.

The leasing office staff was also very friendly (hello Cathy, Michael, Rebecca and Terri). I interacted with them often, not just once a year when I was renewing my lease.

As a positive “side-effect” of the staff’s friendliness, they became like a small family to me.

Note: I don’t want to sound all sensual in my experience, I have to say that I did encounter some misunderstandings with the staff during my stay, but when I communicated my concerns politely, I was met with nothing but good and prompt service. Continue reading “Avalon Bellevue Towers: 4 years of time well spent”

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Mouse Without Borders: Control up to 4 computers with one mouse and keyboard

mouse-without-borders-iconMouse without Borders is a prototype that makes you the captain of your computer fleet by allowing you to control up to four computers from a single mouse and keyboard. This means that with Mouse without Borders you can copy text or drag and drop files across computers. Mouse Without Borders is a Microsoft Garage project by Truong Do. Garage projects are side projects that Microsoft employees like Truong build for fun on their nights and weekends. Mouse Without Borders was designed for people who use many computers in the same room. For example, a laptop or tablet that you take to meetings might sit right alongside the desktop PC in your office.

I love this software. I use it whenever I have my laptop and desktop sitting next to each other. I can just use my desktop’s keyboard / mouse to control the laptop’s mouse and keyboard. The moment the mouse is moved away from one monitor, it crosses the borders to the other computer’s monitor. Not only that, any clipboard content will also transfer across borders. If I copy text or files on one machine, I can then paste them seamlessly on the second machine!

You can set up how your computer screens are laid out. For example, in the screenshot below, my desktop screen raised above the laptop who sits beneath it. Therefore, the moment I move my mouse from the computer’s screen all the way down, it then goes (across borders) to the laptop’s screen and activates the keyboard as well:

mouse-without-borders

It is very easy to set up and configure the “Mouse Without Borders” software. You can download it from Microsoft’s website here: http://aka.ms/mm.

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Control Color Explorer: Explore your colors

As part of Windows apps development cycle, especially WinForms applications in Visual Studio, you may want to pick the right colors for your ListViews, Buttons, Labels, etc…

The best way to pick the colors is to visualize them.

With Control Color Explorer, you can visualize all the colors in the System.Drawing.Color type. You have the option to render the colors using the BackColor attribute or the ForeColor attribute:

color-explorer-bkg

Once you chose the colors you like, you may simply click the “Copy Color names”  to copy them and use them in your application.

You may grab the source code of this tool from my GitHub repository to compile it by yourself, or just download the binaries from here.

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Windows Events Providers Explorer

Introduction

Windows Event Providers are part of the Windows Event Log services. An event provider is usually registered with the event logging and tracing service, so it can publish application specific events to the event log.

Each event provider contain metadata information required to interpret these events and to display that information in readable strings.

To list all providers in the system, you may use the logman utility like this:

logman query providers

C:>logman query providers

Provider                                 GUID
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
.NET Common Language Runtime           {E13C0D23-CCBC-4E12-931B-D9CC2EEE27E4}
ACPI Driver Trace Provider             {DAB01D4D-2D48-477D-B1C3-DAAD0CE6F06B}
Active Directory Domain Services: SAM  {8E598056-8993-11D2-819E-0000F875A064}
Active Directory: Kerberos Client      {BBA3ADD2-C229-4CDB-AE2B-57EB6966B0C4}
Active Directory: NetLogon             {F33959B4-DBEC-11D2-895B-00C04F79AB69}
ADODB.1                                {04C8A86F-3369-12F8-4769-24E484A9E725}
ADOMD.1                                {7EA56435-3F2F-3F63-A829-F0B35B5CAD41}
Application Popup                      {47BFA2B7-BD54-4FAC-B70B-29021084CA8F}

…

Each provider, in turn, has metadata containing fields such as: keywords, levels, tasks, opcodes and a message template. The article entitled “Getting Provider’s metadata” on MSDN describes how to use the Windows Events APIs to enumerate the provider’s metadata programmatically.

Enter WEPExplorer

Continue reading “Windows Events Providers Explorer”

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Honey, I want a 3 carat ring for our engagement…what a sham!

3-carat-ringWe live in a society where in order for a man to show his love to his to a woman, he has to spend money. He has to buy her gifts, diamonds, gold, jewelry and other shiny items.
The only ones who benefit are the advertisers and jewelry shop owners. The message they keep pounding into our feeble minds is: BUY, BUY, BUY!

Have you seen the slogan of Kay the jewelry shop? “Every kiss starts with a K”. They want you to prove your love by spending your hard earned money on metals or carbons, oops, excuse me I meant to say gold and diamond.

When will society mature and realize that this is all an advertising sham, meant to transform what is true, pure and immaterial (such as love) into a commercial endeavor and a shopping spree?

I met many guys who are confused and not sure “Where and which is the PERFECT engagement ring for his fiancé”. Dear Jesus, what bullshit is this?

Or perhaps if you live in the USA, you must have heard girlfriends chatting with each other about this absurd custom (that originated from a clever 1940 advertisement) that the man has to buy an engagement ring that costs THREE TIMES his salary.

Oh man….and don’t even get me started about the marriage industry and all the ridiculous and unnecessary expenses that “modern” society subtly (not to say strong words) enforce on the wed to be couples.

Enough food for though, see you next time.

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Fawaregh – Stuffed sheep sausages

The stuffed sheep sausages, also known as Fawaregh, is an exquisite dish and one of the most traditional in Lebanese cuisine. Actually it is one of my favorites, but unfortunately I don’t get to eat this dish as often anymore, not after my grandma passed away. No one else took her place to regurlaly cook this delicious but tedious to prepare dish. To be perfectly honest, my aunt took it upon her to prepare this dish for me once a year, as a special treat, when I come back to visit her in Lebanon.
In fact, all the pictures below, except for the first one, are taken at her house last year!

So in short, the Fawaregh is simply stuffed sheep intestines and the usual stuffing are: minced meat, rice, chickpeas and spices.

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The Fawaregh dish reminds me of the Menudo soup from the Mexican Cuisine. Does it also remind you of another dish from your cuisine? Let me know in the comments below.

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Metta Prayer and other quotes of wisdom – In the memory of Mr. S.N. Goenka

I learned about Mr. S. N. Goenka when I wanted to learn the Vipassana Meditation technique. His teaching method and the meditation technique was the best I learned in my life.

About S. N. Goenka

Some background about Mr. S. N. Goenka, from the Dhamma website:

s.n goenkaAlthough Indian by descent, Mr. Goenka was born and raised in Myanmar (Burma). While living there, he had the good fortune to come into contact with Sayagyi U Ba Khin and to learn the technique of Vipassana from him. After receiving training from his teacher for 14 years, Mr. Goenka settled in India and began teaching Vipassana in 1969. In a country still sharply divided by differences of caste and religion, the courses offered by Mr. Goenka soon attracted thousands of people from every part of society. In addition, many people from countries around the world came to join courses in Vipassana meditation.

Over a period of almost 45 years, Mr. Goenka and the teachers appointed by him taught hundreds of thousands of people in courses in India and other countries, East and West. Today, meditation centers established under his guidance are operating in Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa and Australasia.

The technique taught by S.N. Goenka goes back two and a half millennia to the Buddha. The Buddha never taught a sectarian religion; he taught Dhamma – the way to liberation – which is universal. In the same tradition, Mr. Goenka’s approach is totally non-sectarian. For this reason, his teaching has had a profound appeal to people of all backgrounds, of every religion and no religion, and from every part of the world.

Mr Goenka, died on 29 September 2013 (aged 89) in Mumbai, India. Continue reading “Metta Prayer and other quotes of wisdom – In the memory of Mr. S.N. Goenka”

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Video: Tummy Tuck Surgery

Out of curiosity, I wanted to learn about plastic surgery and I ran into this video.
I am appalled at how the doctor takes her belly skin apart, removes some fat, tighten the muscles and then stiches everything back together!
Very intrusive surgery! I can only imagine how much trauma the body takes during/after this surgery.

The following video is very graphic, so if you cannot handle seeing blood then click here for something more fun. Continue reading “Video: Tummy Tuck Surgery”

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This too shall pass

This is a nice story about the impermanent nature of things in life. I first heard it during my first Vipassana Meditation retreat.

Here’s is the story by Nikhil Gangoli as found on the 1stholistic website:

oldman-with-ringA rich old man died leaving two sons. They decided to separate dividing all the properties between themselves – fifty fifty. After all the matters related to property were settled the two brothers came across a small packet carefully hidden by the father. The packet contained two rings – one was an expensive diamond ring and the other was an ordinary silver ring costing only a few rupees.

Seeing the diamond ring the elder brother developed greed and desired the ring for himself. He explained to the younger brother – This packet is obviously a family heirloom and not part of the joint family property. Our father evidently desired the diamond ring to be passed on from generation to generation and stay within the family. Being the elder brother I will take the diamond ring. You had better take the silver one.

The younger brother smiled and agreed.

The younger brother was curious as to why the father had preserved the silver ring, which had very little value. He took out the ring and examined it. One the ring was written the words – “This too will pass”. The younger brother said – “Oh this was the motto of my father – This too will pass. He replaced the ring on his finger.

Time passed. Both brothers went through the ups and downs of life. The elder brother used to get highly delighted when spring came and he was prosperous. He lost his balance and developed greed and attachment. When the good phase went away and winter approached he became highly anxious. He needed to medication and sleeping pills to be able to sleep. When that did not help he completely lost his balance. He needed visits to the psychiatrist and electric shock treatments. This was the brother with the diamond ring.

The younger brother when spring came, enjoyed it but remembered his father’s motto – This too will change. He did not get attached to his circumstances but enjoyed them while they lasted. When spring passed he said to himself – It was inevitably going to pass and now it has done so. So what? Similarly when winter approached and circumstances became bad he did not become agitated but remembered – This too will pass. Thus he was able to preserve his sense of balance through all the ups and downs of life and lived his life happily.

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