Amr Awadallah Blog

Or is that tweeting? not sure.

I will not use it for random status updates (e.g. “I am in bathroom shaving my beard”), rather I will post to it when I want to blog, but I am too lazy to sit down and do a thought-out spell-checked blog entry , so follow at your own risk.

My twitter id is awadallah, and you can reach it at:

http://twitter.com/awadallah

The RSS is at:

http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/11263102.rss

I also added a twitter badge to the left column of this page.

Cheers,

– amr

It is official, last Sunday (June 17th, 2007) was the graduation ceremony at Stanford, my PhD degree is now conferred and I received the diploma.

You can see photos from the graduation ceremony on flickr at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/awadallah/sets/72157600384912352/

You can read my thesis abstract or download the full dissertation at:

http://vmatrix.awadallah.com

Here are some simple stats:

• 11.5 years from start to finish
• 3 research topics (i.e. changed topic 2 times)
• 6 years on research topic that lead to final thesis (while working at Yahoo)
• 3 great research advisers (Fouad Tobagi, Nick McKeown, and Mendel Rosenblum)
• 5 published papers (3 for final research topic, 2 on previous topics)
• 100 page dissertation
• 4.0 GPA for the course work
• 2 years leave of absence in middle (which is Stanford limit)
• 4 kids, all born during this period
• 1 startup (VivaSmart/Aptivia, acquired by Yahoo in 2000)
• 5 classes for which I was Teaching Assistant (some were pretty large)
• 50 pounds gained

When I came from Egypt to Stanford in Sept 1995, my goal was to get the PhD and return to my country to teach (I love teaching). That goal changed quickly though, as you can get spoiled very quickly in the Bay Area, it is truly a land of opportunity, cutting edge technology, natural beauty, and very hospitable for immigrants (folks here are from all corners of Earth). After joining Yahoo my career was flourishing, but I still had to get the PhD, it is like an Olympic medal, an achievement that I have to do for the sake of achieving it, more than anything else.

To all those that helped me achieve this goal, my deepest thanks from the bottom of my heart.

Cheers,

– amr

For the benefit of readers of my blog whom do not know, I maintain a link blog on Yahoo MyWeb to which I post interesting links that I come across with a short snippet of commentary (sometimes the commentary is just a key paragraph from within the article, other times it is me commenting).

I add links spanning multiple topics, but specifically tech, search, games, and virtual machines.

You can access my Yahoo! MyWeb Link Blog at:

http://myweb.yahoo.com/myweb?ei=UTF-8&dg=0&friendid=_yTCw2tm3OPXYc0-

and the RSS feed is at:

http://myweb.yahoo.com/mywebrss/user/_yTCw2tm3OPXYc0-/urls.xml

Cheers,

– amr

I have been using Netflix for a long time, probably since they started, but last year I switched to Blockbuster, this is why:

First, nothing against Netflix, they invented this space, so kudos to them for sure.

However, Blockbuster won me over due to the following reasons:

1. I, and my wife, prefer to watch blockbuster movies, as opposed to obscure movies. Netflix typically had very long wait times for such movies, and tended to push my queue towards the obscure movies. But blockbuster seems to be very well provisioned in that space.
2. Every month Blockbuster gives me 2 coupons to get in the store and rent any 2 DVDs or games for free. It is the games part which I like, I am a hardcore gamer
3. Sometimes I forget to drop the movie in mail, and it is weekend already, now Blockbuster lets me take the return envelope into the store and get a free rental on spot. The new movie, replacing the movie I returned, will still be mailed to me (they call it Total Access).

So I guess the jest of it is that Blockbuster is more convenient for me given my viewing/gaming habits.

As for online (downloadable) movie rentals, the Xbox360/XboxLive is what I use for that since it is in the living room and they support HD movies (hopefully they will come out with a larger hard disk this year, I run out of space very quickly).

Cheers,

– amr

Earlier this year (January) I got a super high definition TV set so that I can enjoy my Xbox 360. The TV set I went for was the Samsung HL-R5688W, which is a 56″ DLP TV that can go as high as 1920×1080p (that is true resolution, not interlaced). The picture quality is amazing on this TV, I highly recommend it.

Then around March I upgraded my Dish Network receiver to ViP622 which is an HD DVR (its very well done, dual receivers, very easy to use, and stores many hours of HD, well worth the $300).

Since then I have been in hunt of good shows to watch in HD, this is my current list:

• Lost (ABC): I am starting to feel lost watching it, its like the authors have no idea where to go from here and they are just making things up on the fly!
• Grey’s Anatomy (ABC): One of two shows I have to watch since my wife watches them.
• Desperate Housewives (ABC): This is the other one.
• Dexter (Show Time): Love the concept, its like an evil hero.
• Heroes (NBC): Did not make my final verdict yet, appealing due to comic nature.
• SNL (NBC): Looks surprisingly great in HD !!

These are the non-HD shows that I follow and hope to get in HD soon:

• Battlestar Galactica (SCIFI): Very well done, love it.
• Stargate SG1 (SCIFI): A classic, can’t wait for new season to start (Hallowed are the Ori, or is that Googli? )
• Dr Who (SCIFI/BBC): Still evaluating, looks ok so far.
• South Park (Comedy Central): I need my South Park in HD …

– amr