Happy new year!

If I tell you that search is crucial for using the web and indeed the web’s growth and future, you’ll probably shrug and ask what’s new. Indeed, web search is almost becoming like our sixth sense and we rarely give it much thought. Looking for something? just search for it, or, Google it.

Fun fact: Google doesn’t want people to use their company name as a verb meaning search because they’re afraid that that verb will become detached from the company itself and that people will think of googling as the act of search irrespective of how that is done. That is, they are afraid that you’ll start googling on Yahoo or Bing . Case in point, they don’t want “google” to become like “xerox” or “kleenex”. More on genericized trademarks.

Last year, Microsoft introduced their new search engine, Bing, which is the first possible serious contender to Google… ever! This actually turned out to be good for us consumers; both search engines have started rolling out new features quickly. Competition is good. I think I can safely say that the state of web search is much better now in the beginning of 2010 than what it was in the beginning of 2009.

The marketing campaigns of both engines are perhaps a prime indicator of the heated competition. Google rarely advertise their products. Not only that, but Google Search was actually never advertised (afaik)! Imagine that, the most used web service on Earth was never advertised! Bing as the newcomer has been running commercials on the web and TV. Recently, Google started advertising their web search. I think this is quite shocking. I think everyone who has ever used the Internet knows about Google search, yet they are starting to advertise now. I first saw their ads on Hulu, and now I am encountering them in other places.

If you’re interested, here’s Google’s search campaign and here’s Bing’s search campaign.

أعلم أن الجميع مشغول باله بالعدوان الدموي على غزة والإجتياح، ولكن الموضوع التالي مفيد وجميل ونبيل وبإمكاننا جميعاً المساهمة به بدون التحرك من أمام التلفاز أو التوقف عن قرآءة الأخبار.

قام المشرفون على ويكيبيديا العربية بتخصيص برنامج “أسبوع الويكي” كوسيلة لتوحيد الجهود لإثراء المحتوى العربي على ويكيبيديا وتشجيع كافة الناس على المساهمة. الفكرة هي كالتالي، كل أسبوع سيكون هناك موضوع مُعين يتم العمل الجماعي عليه. فهناك مثلاً أسبوع الإنترنت لإثراء المقالات المتعلقة بالإنترنت، وبعدها يأتي أسبوع الأغاني للكتابة عن الأغاني المختلفة، وثم لاحقاً أسبوع التلفاز وأسبوع المُدن وأسبوع الرياضيات وأسبوع العلوم وغيرها.

طبعاً لم يَكُن للمُخَططين لهذا البرنامج أن يتنبأوا بأن هذا البرنامج سيتزامن مع عدوان جارف على غزة، ولكني على ثقة أننا جميعاً بإمكاننا التطوع بدقائق قليلة من وقتنا للمساهمة. فمثلاً، لقد تم توثيق العدوان الإسرائيلي الأخير على غزة بشكل ممتاز في هذه المقالة على ويكيبيديا العربية.

أعلم أن البعض سيتردد بالمساهمة ولكني أود تشجيعهم بالقول:

• لا تخف إذا كانت لغتك العربية غير قوية: ليس الهدف كتابة كُتب مدرسية من أول محاولة. هذه هي قوة الوكيبيديا، فإذا كان لمقالتك أخطاء لغوية (كما هو الحال معي) فسيأتي أشخاص كُثر من بعدك لتصحيح هذه الأخطاء. المهم هو وضع المحتوى العلمي.
• المواضيع مُتعددة ومُختلفة، فإختر ما تُحب: كُلٌ منا يستطيع المساهمة في موضوع معين، وليس بالضرورة أن تكتب في موضوع لا يهمك أو لا تدري عنه. فبإمكانك الكتابة عن المغنيين المفضلين لديك، أو الطعام الشعبي في بلدك ومنطقتك، أو برامج الإنترنت التي تستعملها، أو المدن التي زرتها، أو المواضيع المفضلة لك في تخصصك ودراستك وعملك …إلخ
• لا حد أدنى، فأكتب قدر ما تستطيع: لست مضطراً لكتابة كُتب كاملة أو حتى فصول. فأكتب ما تستطيع.
• أنت لست مُجبراً على الترجمة: فبإمكانك الكتابة من ما تعرف. ليس ضرورياً أن تُترجم المقالات الإنجليزية عن موقعك المفضل على الإنترنت مثلاً أو مدينتك أو الأغاني أو البرامج التلفزيونية أو مجال خبرتك. طبعاً الغاية هي كتابة مواضيع مفيدة وبقدر الإمكان دقيقة، فإذا كنت لست خبيراً بموضوع معين فلست مضطراً للكتابة عنه. مُجدداً إختار المواضيع التي تَجِد فيها الراحة.

كل أسبوع من أسابيع الويكي يبدأ يوم الأربعاء وينتهي يوم الثلاثاء بحيث تكون عطلة نهاية الإسبوع في منتصف كل حقبة.

أخيراً أود أن أقول بأن إثراء المحتوى العربي على ويكيبيديا سيعود بالنفع علينا جميعاً. فإن إتاحة العلم بسهولة للجميع هو خطوة ضرورية لِرُقي المنطقة وتطورها، وفي هذا مصلحة لنا جميعاً.

لقد صنعت بعض الأزرار للترويج لهذا المشروع وللتذكير بالموضوع لكل أسبوع (ستتغير الصور تلقائياً كل أسبوع).

<a href="http://www.za3tar.net/?p=560"><img src="http://files.za3tar.net/wiki-week/wiki-week.png" border="0" /></a>	<a href="http://www.za3tar.net/?p=560"><img src="http://files.za3tar.net/wiki-week/wiki-week-small.png" border="0" /></a>

I guess i have been silent for a while. It is not like I have nothing to say, but none of the bits and pieces in mind grew enough to constitute a legitimate post. Finally, i decided to lump them all together and dump them in one post.

I was chatting with one Jar of Juice the other day discussing the status and needs of our corner of the blogosphere. We concluded that there is too much chaos and anarchy and that the true voice of singlehood has been muffled by the recent wave of “lovey dovey” romanticism. Following the example of Barney Stinson‘s Bro Code, and to deliver the final verdict on the dealings of bloggers on the internets, we started drafting the rules of the Bloggers’ Bro Code.

• Rule #1: All Bro Bloggers are inherently cooler than “Bloggerettes”.
• Rule #2: Only a few cool Bloggerettes are considered cool and have been given honorary Bro status.
• Rule #120: The use of the lbs, inches, feet, and miles (or other English Units) is illegal and might strip you of your Bro title. Only Metric and SI units are acceptable.
• Rule #150: Wara2 Dawali is cool. Wara2 Malfoof is just as cool as well. (amendment motioned by Hani)
• Rule #151: Any Bro cooking wara2 dawali must notify at least three other Bros in his vicinity at least 24 hours in advance to give them a chance to come mooch off of him.
• Rule #152: If a Bro is invited for some wara2 dawali, he can bring with him another bro blogger; The approval of the host is irrelevant and not required.
• Rule #170: A few things in life are awesome. Wara2 Dawali & Wara2 Malfoof are Awesome!
• Rule #200: Bro bloggers are single by nature. Romantic posts are permitted at a maximum rate of one post per month.
• Rule #217: When referring to your spouse on your blog, the following terms are prohibited: sweety, honey, 3omri, 7ayaty, 7abeeb albi. The only acceptable reference is: “to2borni wliy 3ala amti shu rijjaaaal eben 3ammi”. Update: the term “husbandy” is prohibited as well. (amendment motioned by Hani)
• Rule #230: l33t is dead. You are not a haxor. And Bro Bloggers with aliases of the type: xtra_kool, hot_ice ..etc will be stripped of their Brohood.
• Rule #250: Blogs with more than 3 shades of pink are not cool.
• Rule #251: Blogs that use the orange color correctly are cool.
• Rule #255: Each Bro Blogger can have at most one imaginary friend. Imaginary characters are not entitled to their own imaginary friends.

I can not explain the logic of guys like this (you should at least read the title). Their complete and utter stupidity is beyond comprehension, and they really do give faith and the rest of us a bad name.

Last week before Ramadan, my advisor invited our group to his lake house for some barbecue and fun; and it was alot of fun! It was a beautiful sunny day, we had some good food, and nice chats. The lake was warm and calm. I was encouraged to try kayaking, and i did. It was my first time, and it was AMAZING! Ahh .. it is so great to have a nice boss/advisor.

The view from his lake house.

Maybe it is my Palestinian & Arab genes; but i am addicted to news and politics. So naturally over the past weeks i followed the developments in Russia/Georgia, and the American Democratic and Republican conventions. It became clear to me that facts don’t matter quite alot. At some level, i knew this already, but the idealist in me tried to deny it. I have always tried to convince my self that substance rather than presentation is what matters most. Not true!

You can get away with the most ridiculous statement ever if you present it correctly. Sometimes you don’t even have to even present it elegantly. All you have to do is just repeat it over and over and it becomes fact. Isn’t it amazing ?! You can promote propaganda to facts just like that !!

The most recent events in American politics give you all the examples you need. I do not have deep favoring for one party over the other. All i really want is somebody to push the Middle East Peace Process forward. Currently it seems that Obama is more likely to do that than McCain. It has been interesting to see the Republicans attack Obama on experience and then have to justify picking Palin as the VP candidate. All of a sudden this unknown person is being promoted as the champion of the common man. Her words and speeches say one thing, and her record says another. Yet the Republican pundits are sitting on TV shows distorting the truth very severely. I guess the Democrats might do the same thing. But the extent to which it is being done by the Republican party is just ridiculous. How dumb do they think people are ? Anyway, this satirical segment sums it up pretty nicely.

So Google introduced this new browser, and the world is buzzing. Part of this buzz is that which surrounds every Google product release. The part of this world-wide buzz is because this is one of the company’s few ventures to the world of the desktops, and this product could develop into something more serious. The company that is known for making web applications wants to provide a solid platform for its applications to run on.

I didn’t see a huge technological breakthrough in Google’s browser. They use the WebKit rendering engine which is supposed to be good. I really liked the idea of encapsulating each tab in a separate process. However, this is not totally new, and has been introduced a couple of years ago by some researchers at the University of Washington. I haven’t played much with this since it is for Windows only at this time. But i sure will try it when it is made available for Linux.

I am not sure whether this will trigger a new browser war or not. After all, Firefox 3.1 is on its way and it is claiming an even faster rendering engine and a very very fast JavaScript interpreter. All three major rendering engines (Trident, Gecko, and WebKit) are sticking more and more to standards.

Regardless of what will happen. This sure is a good boost for web application development. We sure are at the beginning of a new phase of web applications. My hunch it is all about interactivity, performance, and storing application data on the client browser side.

هذا الخبر ليس جديد على الإطلاق، بل على الأغلب أنه أقدم من معظمنا، ولكني لم أكن أعرف به من قبل ولذا قررت مشاركتكم إياه.

هل تعلمون أن هناك رائدان فضاء عرب خرجوا في رحلات إلى الفضاء في الثمانينيات من القرن المنصرم لإجراء أعمال علمية (وليس للسياحة كما هي موضة الوقت الحالي)!! ورواد الفضاء هؤلاء ليسوا أمريكان أو أوروبيين من أصل عربي، بل هم عربٌ عرب.

رائد الفضاء العربي الأول كان السعودي سلطان بن عبد العزيز آل سعود والذي خرج إلى الفضاء في السابع عشر من حزيران عام 1985 كجزء من الفريق الدولي لتثبيت الستالايت عربسات 1B على متن الرحلة الأمريكية STS-51-G.

أما رائد الفضاء العربي الثاني فهو السوري محمد أحمد فارس والذي خرج إلى محطة الأبحاث الفضائية الروسية ميير (Mir) في شهر تموز من عام 1987 على متن الرحلة السوفيتية Soyuz TM-3.

الشيء الغريب في الموضوع أني لا أذكر أني وجدت ذكراً لأيهما في كتب العلوم المدرسية (وأنا درست على منهاج الضفة الغربية القديم والذي هو أساساً المنهاج الأردني). يعني على الأقل ذكر رواد الفضاء هؤلاء قد يعزز الطموح عند الأطفال الصغار للجد والعمل. هل صادف أحدكم هؤلاء الرواد في مناهجكم الدراسية (أو حتى الذكر عن طريق التلفاز) ؟

الصورة على اليمين هي لرائد الفضاء السعودي والصورة على الشمال هي لرائد الفضاء السوري.

أما الصورة التالية فهي تبيين دول العالم بتاريخ إخراج أول روادها الفضائيين … ههههه شكله هذه هي الشغلة الوحيدة اللي سبق فيها العرب إسرائيل .

I have complained previously about Ikbis not using the term Palestine in their countries list. At the suggestion of Qabbani, i sent them an email expressing my concern, and they promised to work on it soon. I checked back a couple of times since then, but nothing had changed.

When i checked back today however, i did find that the Ikbis folks were true to their words. They did in fact replace the “Palestinian Territories” with Palestine, and for that i sincerely and deeply thank them.

Thanks again Ikbis for your prompt response, for your great product, and for listening to your users.

And for now, i leave you with this funny April’s fool prank featured video

شوية نهفات خفيفة. طول الوحدة منها 15 – 30 ثانية موجودين هون وهون وهون. للأسف الفيديو بيشتغل أول ما تفتح الصفحة فما بقدر أحطهم هون … إزعاج

تنزيلات ؟! … آه قصدك ديسكاونت…. هاهاها رهيبة

The events of this little article by Ola probably happened over the course of 2~3 minutes. But it is really moving. You should definitely read it.

“This weather loves hot chocolate with marshmallows!” That was the message I sent my friend as I sat in the car waiting for my father, cuddled up in the warmest clothes I have and yet feeling my feet freezing.

Drifted away in thoughts, I was brought back to reality by the sight of a little boy, around 9 or 10, approaching a woman who was getting in to her car. The woman reached out to her purse and gave him some coins, although I didn’t see him begging. Obviously, he didn’t need to. He was wearing a jersey with no jacket on, the kind of attire that won’t make you warm enough for an average winter day. The jersey was soaked in the chilly melting ice, the sleeves pulled over his hands, his lips quivering and his eyes drooping in the cold.

Read more….

I believe that a user-friendly and reliable electronic replacement for paper is necessary. Take newspapers for example, they are daily consumed and wasted. Many people just take a quick glance at them and then just throw them away, big paper waste! In addition to that, since daily newspapers are targeted for the mass public audience, they have to include many different sections in each issue that do not necessarily fit the interests of every single reader. But you get these sections anyway because they do not know your individual interests. More paper waste!

An electronic version will not only save trees and be cheaper in the long run, but it will come with many added benefits. Easy archiving and quick searching is among the more obvious benefits. However, using PCs exclusively for this task is not an appropriate solution. While many of us spends alot of time infront of their laptop/desktop screens, most people are used to reading books and newspapers in a different manner. Reading habits that were formed and inherited through centuries of reliance on handwritten and printed press are not easily replaceable with the ~30 year-old invention that is the personal computer.

Lots of research has been done on producing electronic papers. Some companies have tried that before, but i really did not see anything usable to hit the mass market through big retailers. Until now. Amazon introduced an eBook reading device that is more of an ePaper to me. Hopefully this new product (named Amazon Kindle) will be better than its predecessors. The cool thing about Kindle in my opinion is its integration with the Amazon store. It is integrated with their Amazon store such that if you buy a book, you can have it as an eBook through Kindle. Amazon already scans every single book they sell in order to gather these statistics (regarding topics and most prominent words/places), so i assume they will be able to deliver all books in an electronic version (even those ones that are not currently available as eBooks). At least hopefully.

Although i am not affiliated with Amazon, and i have not tried Amazon Kindle for my self, i am deeply interested in this topic, and wish there would be a good solution soon.

From Sabbah’s Blog:

OK, it’s Eid holiday, so this is not politics-related, but it is a cool way to find out if you are a right-brain or left-brain dominant. Look at the dancer and decide which way she’s spinning.

Focus!

If you think she’s going clockwise, you’re apparently right-brain dominant (imaginative, philosophical, touchy-feely, impetuous); if you see her going counter-clockwise, you’re left-brain dominant (logical, practical, detail-oriented, safe).

The publisher claimed that “most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it,” but I see it only clockwise!

Huwara Checkpoint … a few hundred meters from the soldiers.

Coming back from visiting relatives, we were stuck with many others on Huwara (حوارة) checkpoint, which is set up by Israeli soldiers on the main road. We were stuck on that checkpoint for more than 75 minutes, even though it was not highly crowded (the Israeli soldiers were moving veeerrryyyy sloooowly).

The people crossing that checkpoint were of all ages and walks of life. Entire families dressed up and moving to visit families and loved ones for the Eid. One could not help but notice the different contradictory, yet inspiring, pictures seen there. Perhaps the most inspiring one i saw was that of a young little girl (13 ~ 14 yrs) all dressed up in a nice black and white dress/skirt and carrying a bouquet of red flowers.

This angelic young girl was walking on the rubble across the checkpoint, surrounded by cement blocks and security fences. She looked completely out of scene. Somehow, soldiers, machine guns, cement blocks, and security fences didn’t go well with her nice dress, red flowers, and innocent youth.

….. who knows …. maybe this contradictory scene would yield a short story (or at least a post) !

I was just looking at the second section of Al-Ayyam newspaper, and i found it a bit odd (and funny) to see the following:

 These are advertisements for 4 radio stations that were placed one after the other !! What was the rationale behind this. Maybe they all wanted to be on the first (colored) page of the second section ?? Eh … who knows !!

Randy Pausch is an accomplished researcher in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). It is sometimes the case that big researchers are asked to give a “Last Lecture” where they would address their audience as if this was the last public lecture they will ever give.

Unfortunately however, this title is a bit more literal for Randy Pausch. He is terminally ill (Panceriatic Cancer), and the doctors have projected 4-6 months of good health. Despite that, Randy still enjoys his upbeat spirit and humor. In this lecture he talks about the pursuit of childhood dreams and enabling childhood dreams for others. It is quite a good lecture, and i advise all to watch it.

This commercial must be at least 6 months old, but i have just seen it for the first time. It is quite clever, and very moving.

I wonder if the same still holds for Palestinians now adays!!

If you are using Firefox you can enjoy this nice, and meaningful, “easter egg”. In the address bar type about:mozilla, and you will be greeted by the following “holy” text.

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced.
But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird.
The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire
and thunder upon them. For the beast had been
reborn with its strength renewed, and the
followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

Beyond sounding as if this text came from some holy scripture, this text does indeed reference events from the end of the browser wars. Here are some of the references it makes:

1. The Beast: is actually the Netscape browser. The core engine of Netscape was called Mozilla, and its mascot was a dinosaur, and thus it was a beast.
2. The Fall of the Beast: that is when Netscape loss the browser wars for MS Internet Explorer.
3. The Unbelievers: are the Internet Explorer crowd.
4. The Great Bird: the original name for Firefox was Phoenix.
5. Fire & Thunder: references to Firefox and Thunderbird

A Feeling I’m Being Had

I was happy to hear that NYC didn’t allow Iranian President Ahmadinejad
to place a wreath at the WTC site. And I was happy that Columbia
University is rescinding the offer to let him speak. If you let a guy like
that express his views, before long the entire world will want freedom
of speech.

I hate Ahmadinejad for all the same reasons you do. For one thing, he
said he wants to “wipe Israel off the map.” Scholars tell us the correct
translation is more along the lines of wanting a change in Israel’s
government toward something more democratic, with less gerrymandering.
What an ass-muncher!

Ahmadinejad also called the holocaust a “myth.” Fuck him! A myth is
something a society uses to frame their understanding of their world, and
act accordingly. It’s not as if the world created a whole new country
because of holocaust guilt and gives it a free pass no matter what it
does. That’s Iranian crazy talk. Ahmadinejad can blow me.

Most insulting is the fact that “myth” implies the holocaust didn’t
happen. Fuck him for saying that! He also says he won’t dispute the
historical claims of European scientists. That is obviously the opposite of
saying the holocaust didn’t happen, which I assume is his way of
confusing me. God-damned fucker.

Furthermore, why does an Iranian guy give a speech in his own language
except for using the English word “myth”? Aren’t there any Iranian
words for saying a set of historical facts has achieved an unhealthy level
of influence on a specific set of decisions in the present? He’s just
being an asshole.

Ahmadinejad believes his role is to pave the way for the coming of the
Twelfth Imam. That’s a primitive apocalyptic belief! I thank Jesus I do
not live in a country led by a man who believes in that sort of
bullshit. Imagine how dangerous that would be, especially if that man had the
launch codes for nuclear weapons.

The worst of the worst is that Ahmadinejad’s country is helping the
Iraqis kill American soldiers. If Iran ever invades Canada, I think we’d
agree the best course of action for the United States is to be
constructive and let things sort themselves out. Otherwise we’d be just as evil
as the Iranians. Those fuckers.

Those Iranians need to learn from the American example. In this
country, if the clear majority of the public opposes the continuation of a war, our
leaders will tell us we’re terrorist-humping idiots and do whatever they
damn well please. They might even increase our taxes to do it. That’s
called leadership.

If Ahmadinejad thinks he can be our friend by honoring our heroes and
opening a dialog, he underestimates our ability to misinterpret him.
Fucking idiot. I hate him.

This is old news, but i just found this out. Apparently there has been some trademark issues in the use of the name “Gmail” in Germany, the UK, and other countries. So, in those countries gmail is officially known as “Google Mail”. And all over the site, you do not see the traditional gmail logo

, but rather you see this logo