NORATECH

A simple guide to matrix multiplication, hardware, and the roofline 1. It is all matrix multiplication A neural network does a lot of math. Most of that math is one thing: matrix multiplication. A layer in a network takes an input and multiplies it by a table of numbers called weights. That is a matrix multiplication. Most of the time a network runs, it is doing this. So if we want fast AI, we need fast matrix multiplication. الشبكة العصبية تقضي معظم وقتها في ضرب المصفوفات، ل

Andrej Karpathy's "Intro to Large Language Models" came out in 2023, and I still go back to it. The details have aged, but the story hasn't. It gives you the full picture of what an LLM is and how the ideas connect, from "a model is just two files" to pretraining, finetuning, and RLHF. Every time I rewatched it, the same questions came up: what actually happens inside the network? How does text become numbers? What is attention doing? So I turned the first part of the talk in

I always wanted one place with everything about CNNs: the details, the visualizations, and the chance to play with the numbers. So I built it: an interactive reference where every step, from pixels to prediction, is computed live and explained in plain words. I hope you enjoy it. You can also experiment with a larger width at: https://nora-alshareef.github.io/cnn-interactive-guide/

A quick safe template

At the early stages — pre-seed and seed — you may have incorporated the company, you probably have a co-founder, and you almost certainly have very little revenue. What you have is conviction. And that's mostly what you're selling. The people who show up to invest at this stage know that. Friends and family. Angel investors who back people more than products. Accelerators like Y Combinator. Sometimes your own savings. They're betting on you — because there isn't enough of a b

In the first two articles, we covered the big picture — how money moves into a company, what you're giving away when you take it, and the documents that govern that exchange. We talked briefly about SAFEs, term sheets, valuation, dilution, and option pools — we'll cover each in detail in the articles ahead. But we kept saying things like "at your first round" or "when a VC comes in" without stopping to explain: when does any of this actually happen? What does the sequence loo

In Nine Steps Every Founder Must Take Before Seeking an Investor, we listed the option pool as step nine — the final step before bringing in outside capital. By that stage, you have already: ✅ Agreed on the founder equity split and vesting ✅ Incorporated the company ✅ Issued founder shares with vesting ✅ Filed your 83(b) election (within 30 days of the grant date) ✅ Signed IP assignment agreements The foundation is set. Ownership is clean. The structure is legal. Then comes t

In the previous article, we built the cap table — the document that records who owns what in your company. We saw how founders agree on an equity split, authorize shares, and issue restricted stock. We mentioned vesting as something attached to those shares, but we moved past it quickly. Now we are going to slow down and look at it properly. Vesting is one of those concepts that sounds punishing the first time you hear it. You think you own 50% of the company. You do not — no

In the previous article, Nine Steps Every Founder Must Take Before Seeking an Investor, we walked through everything that needs to happen before you ever sit across from a VC. Once you’ve built the product and identified your customer, the work becomes structural: hire a lawyer, agree on the founder equity split and vesting, incorporate, issue founder shares with vesting, file the 83(b) (if you’re in the U.S.), sign IP assignment agreements, and create an option pool. Now we’

In the first two articles of this series : How Startups Get Funded and How the Game Actually Works , we covered the big picture — how money moves into a company, what you give away when you take it, and the documents that govern that exchange. We touched briefly on SAFEs, term sheets, valuation, dilution, and option pools, all of which we will cover in detail in upcoming articles. In the third article, we built a glossary you can return to whenever a term feels unfamiliar. No

If you've been reading this series — or talking to investors, lawyers, or other founders — you've probably hit a wall of terminology that no one stops to explain. Everyone just assumes you know what a liquidation preference is. They assume "pro-rata" makes sense to you. They drop "SAFE" into a sentence and move on. This article is the one we'll link back to every time we use a term you might not be familiar with. Bookmark it. Come back to it. It'll make more sense every time

Most founders think venture capital is about money. It's not. It's about understanding what you're trading — ownership, control, and sometimes the CEO seat — before you walk into that room. This is the map.

The Essential Steps Startups Followed to Secure Funding

Why did a highly educated leader from MIT and Dartmouth fail as a General Manager? Eric Peterson’s story reveals that leadership failure is not about intelligence or hard work alone. Unclear authority, weak organizational structure, lack of executive support, and poor team alignment can undermine even the most qualified leaders. Real leadership begins with defined power, direction, and influence.

how to set a standalone DNS server

Hello readers of the NoraTech blog! I wanted to share a recent experience I had that made me realize the importance of having a DNS server. Let me explain why it became necessary and how it can benefit all of us. You see, when we access websites or online services, we usually use easy-to-remember domain names like " google.com " instead of typing in complicated IP addresses. It's much simpler to remember and type a name like " google.com " rather than a string of numbers. I'm

In our previous article titled " How HTTPS Works ?" we delved into the concepts of HTTPS, TCP, TLS, and SNI. Now, as a developer, you might be contemplating the most effective approach to ensure that your apps utilize HTTPS seamlessly. This raises the question: what strategy should you adopt? While some developers opt for implementing HTTPS individually for each app, I personally advocate for concluding the handshake at the reverse proxy. The underlying rationale behind this

In our previous article on " How HTTPS Works ?", we discussed the concepts of HTTPS, TCP, TLS, and SNI. We learned that servers have their own keypair and certificate to facilitate the TLS handshake. In this article, we will explore how to create a server certificate, which is essential for proving the identity of a server in real-world scenarios. In the real world, every component of a network or service is assigned a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) or hostname and is equ

In many of our articles, we often find ourselves needing to create services to showcase various IT concepts such as TLS, DNS, and Understanding HTTP. This article is all about creating simple dotnet 8 apps that you can use to test out these IT concepts in a practical way. So, let's dive in and create some awesome apps together! Create App1 and App2 and app3 1. Install the .NET Core SDK Open a terminal window on your Linux machine and follow the official Microsoft docume

Perhaps, you've noticed a little lock icon next to your browser's URL bar when visiting certain websites. That's HTTPS in action. But what exactly is HTTPS? Well, HTTPS, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure , is an extension of the HTTP. It is used for secure communication over a computer network, such as the internet, and is broadly used on the World Wide Web. HTTPS is a communication protocol that is built on top of the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) protocol. The HTT

Explore the journey of procuring, installing, and setting up the SafeNet Luna Network HSM appliance. Gain insights into the procurement proc

Learn how to build a powerful .NET application for HSM communication in this comprehensive guide. Dive into code examples and expert tips!

Before you dive into acquiring an HSM appliance, I strongly urge you to try softHSM. It's a valuable tool for understanding initialization,

Discover the significance of Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) in data security. Learn about security tokens, key setup procedures, and more

Gain clarity on PKI concepts, system requirements, and structure with this essential article. A must-read for project and technical managers

In our previous article titled " Demystifying Digital Certificates for Enhanced Trust and Security ," we explored the fundamental concepts of digital certificates and the role of Certificate Authorities (CAs) in establishing trust in the digital world. Building upon that knowledge, this article aims to take a deeper dive into the critical process of verifying certificates. We will unravel the significance of OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol), CRL (Certificate Revocati

Think back to our previous article , we explored encryption and digital signatures, delving into their importance. Now, let's continue our digital journey and discover the world of digital certificates. Imagine our friend Eman, who has many keys from different people, including Ahmed. But how can she trust these keys without any labels? Enter the digital certificates, our heroes! They provide a way to connect the keys to their rightful owners, building trust. Eman's contacts

Embarking on a journey through the realms of encryption, digital signatures, and digital certificates? Great! This guide is here to navigate you smoothly, ensuring you not only grasp the fundamental concepts of cryptography but also gain the necessary skills to shield your digital treasures effectively. Let's dive in! Encryption Imagine you have a top-secret message that you need to transmit safely. This is where encryption comes into play! Encryption transforms your message

My team and I usually develop web-apps through a commonly-used partitioned strategy with an isolated REST API backend application-server that handles HTTP requests from a front-end web-server, usually served through Nginx. My web-app uses browser-cookie based user-authentication, handled by the application-server. The cookie value is mapped to an object that holds all information about the user. This information is calculated the first time the user logs in, and subsequent re

we'll explore practical implementation of consistent hashing for achieving equitable distribution.

In recent years, distributed systems have become popular due to concepts like cloud computing and big data. Distributed caches, which power many high-traffic websites, use a type of distributed hashing that takes advantage of an algorithm called consistent hashing. Before defining consistent hashing, let's quickly review the concept of hashing. Simple hashing Simple hashing is a basic method of generating a hash value from a given input using a hash function. The hash functio

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