I’ve been diligent to eat my fair share (and a bit more) of falafel, shawirma, kifta, and your other normal Arabic restaurant food. Perhaps I am preparing for the upcoming drought I’ll experience when the internship ends and I’m back at my small isolated campus.

Today after going to the gym (yes I am surprised too) I went for my daily dose of falafel at a nice Turkish restaurant. On my way back I noticed a cafe called “rotana” with the smell of m3assel spilling out of the door seams. I immediately thought “trix & tarneeb”, something I haven’t had properly for almost two years now.

I walked inside and the owner recognized I was new. He insisted to treat me to a cup of tea even though it was late and mentioned I had to leave. Typical Arab :-). We were 3 Arab men; sitting in an Arabic coffee-shop with argeeleh, tea, cocktails, and cards served, a tv stood in the corner and nobody was lokng at it. The talk undoubtedly turned into politics even though we just met. Ahh how I missed hanging out with the guys in the 2ahawee. I haven’t had the chance to play tarneeb yet, there was no fourth! But I am happy, maybe because it reminds me of back home.

Interestingly enough however, Israel-Palestine has been mostly blank with only English written there. That made me curious because Google, like many other tech companies, tries to remain neutral when it comes to international political issues, and i wanted to see how they handle this one. So i kept on checking back often.

Today I noticed that they started to display Hebrew names in pre-1967 areas (which is politically safe). Interestingly however, the Hebrew words only appear when you are not zoomed in to see the individual city names.

Anyway, what is really funny is that they have hugely misspelled the Arabic name of Madaba. Here is a screenshot below:

Btw, I couldn’t find a link to report this mistranslation, otherwise i would have reported it.

The video picture quality is not good, but that is not important.

Figaro … Figaro … Figaro …

In these days (and specially if the whole “cloud-as-a-service” model is to become successful, oh and it will) we should have a concept of a single global account, or a managable federation of accounts that form a global account, that would allow people to “turn on” services on the web to try them out (or use them), and then “turn them off”.

I know about openID, but having a single account (be it from Google or Microsoft or Yahoo) to log in to many places is too “big-brothery” for my taste. Plus, not all online services allow users to use openID, even though they really should.

It is bollocks! Bollocks I tells ya! *shaking his fist*

But now i’ve decided. Enough is enough. I must disengage. Let the demons clear out of my head. Let me sleep the night again.

Computers are no longer those bulky devices under or on your desk. They are no longer those thin and slick laptops on your desk or lap. These have become merely interfaces to computers and computation power.

Your new computer is somewhere off in the “cloud”; you don’t own it, you can’t touch it, and you don’t even know exactly where it is. Your computer today is really a collection of hundreds of thousands of what you used to think of as computers before, all of which working in unison to provide you all the services you need.

Your new computer is on the Internet. Actually, your computer today is the Internet. The Internet is no longer an auxiliary service to complement the rest of your computation needs. The Internet today is no longer just a service, it is everything. Although our desktops and laptops are capable of doing wonderful things on their own, but if they are disconnected from the web we tend to think of them as useless.

The Internet today can stream you an infinite collection of videos, movies, TV episodes, and live events. The Internet can let you call, email, IM, and handle all your communication needs. The Internet can take care of your office needs of word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, team collaboration, and database. The Internet can store, organize, or even help you edit your photos. The Internet provides you with games you can instantly enjoy.

While this is not new, what is new of the past two or three years, however, is that you can get all these services with minimal configuration on your end, and with all these services running in your browser, and we’ve only just got started. This is the new Internet. This is your new computer!

With this, all the old debates of Windows vs Mac OS vs Linux are kind of irrelevant these days. All of them connect you to the same Internet, and that is where all the new applications run. What is relevant however, is the emergency of the new Internet Operating Systems. Unfortunately there isn’t much debate about this. However, if you think about it, companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft Live, are all competing to build your next operating system, or the environment where you work.

The closest of these to a full-blown “operating system” is probably Facebook. This of course is no wonder because they bought the Internet start up Parakey that was interested in building a hosted, virtual, Internet operating system. If you look at Facebook, they even adopt the mantra of existing operating systems. They have a little bar at the bottom where your notifications appear on the right (just like where your system tray icons would appear in Windows). You can install different applications to your profile, you start your applications by clicking on a menu from the left side of your bar. Developers have an API and programming languages to write programs to run on the Facebook environment. So it is in effect a full-blown “operating system”. I only put the quotes here because it technically doesn’t manage your hardware like a “real” operating system does, but it is pretty much everything else for you.

This is very exciting. Your new computer data and services are available to you 24/7 around the globe. It is very exciting because you no longer have to manage and maintain your computer as you inadvertently had to in the past. Previously, you would buy a computer to use it, and you’d end up administering it just to keep it running, which took away from the time you can actually use your computer to derive some benefit out of it. To realize this, think of how much time you had to spend to install applications and fix problems that you encounter (computer doesn’t work, this or that program don’t work ..etc). Now, all that is gone and taken care of by somebody else. You can now derive benefit from your computer without any extra effort.

This is also exciting because it creates new problems for us to think about. For example, we are now no longer owners of our data and computation. It is probably companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Zoho that own your data. So how do you ensure that your data is still safe and confidential ? Your new computer services run on hundreds of thousands of machines in a distributed fashion, how do you make that possible ? Your new hosted services are expected to be up and running (available), and extremely responsive, 24/7 and around the globe, how do you make that possible ? How do you integrate the experiences of millions of people so that we can facilitate collaboration while still protecting security ? and how do use users’ experiences to create better services ?

This is the new Internet. This is the new world of “cloud computing“. This is your new computer. Welcome to your new computer.

-OR-

… we are all insignificant.

This is the last of my Blog About Palestine Day 2009 posts. This harvest post contains a sample list of more than 30 articles (in 4 languages) and a video contributed to this magnificent event on that solemn day by YOU (and people like you). They are presented in no particular order here:

English:

• The Coffeehouse: The day i went home…
• Cinnamon Zone: She is Palestine
• Qwaider: The Lies and Myths Machine
• Naser: Meet Jedditi (Grandma)
• Za3tar: Rewriting the History of the Holy Land
• Rebellious Arab Girl: Where is my homeland?
• Garfan: Arab Isralis vs Palestinians vs Arabs
• Yameen Shmal: Ana Falasteeni
• Historian: Silence
• Laura Sparkle: Blog About Palestine Day 2009
• Choice Words: Social and Reproductive Justice under Occupation
• Jumana: The 61 anniversary of Palestine’s catastrophe
• Silver Lining (realisticbird): Palestine; is the cause alive and well?
• Al-Falasteenyia: Wake up and smell the Nakba(t)
• Nina: Palestina In My Mind
• SaSa: Palestine - peace without justice
• Medad/Nathan: Palestinian Portrait
• Maysaloon: The Nakba - 61 years on
• Sacred Beginnings: May 15th - Blog about Palestine Day
• Ahmad Hamda: Palestine I am Sorry
• Umm Ali: May 15th - Nakba Day - Blog about Palestine
• SimSim: Palestinian voice can only be heard by blood
• Yasmin Hamied: One day later
• LongLivePalestine: My Time in Palestine

Arabic:

• Mona’s Corner: أبوريت صوت من فلسطين
• Mohammad Badi: العام الواحد والستين في عمر قضيتنا، لن ننسى ولن نغفر أبداً
• Mohammad Online: فلسطين
• ASKAdenia: ماذا تبقى من فلسطين بعد 61 سنة؟
• eNAS: 15th May –> BAPD
• عين العقل: الخنازير تحكم العالم
• سجال: إلى فلسطين

Bulgarian:

• Rusland Trad: Иргун,Хагана и други организации в Израел
• MKaragyozov: 61 години история на несправедливостта и унижението ІІ

French:

• Samia Lamine: La Nakba: 61 ans d’errance et le droit de retour

Video:

• HATTLER - Assalamu Alaikum - Live 2008 (HD)

Thank you everybody for your contributions! Many personal stories about first hand experiences of the Nakba were told. Many stories about the Palestinian identity, and living in diaspora were discussed. Many wonderful poems were written. Many first hand present-day accounts were shared. Many visions for the future. It is all because of you, and thanks to you.

I know for a fact that i didn’t/couldn’t list all contributed entries here (simply because it is intractable). If you were not listed and would like to be listed, please let me know.

As we know, the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin in general were the cradles of many early human civilizations. This region is full of historical artifacts dating to thousands of years ago. These historical artifacts are not the exclusive right of any one people, but are indeed the property of the world in general because they are a crucial part of our common humanity and global history.

For this reason, it is sad to see the destruction to ancient historical ruins and artifacts in conflict zones. We’ve all heard of how ancient Babylonian monuments were some of the victims of the war in Iraq. A similar situation is also happening in the holy land amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

However, an even worse crime is the deliberate rewriting of ancient history to serve current political moods. There is no denying that Jews lived in this region thousands of years ago. Yet at the same time we can not deny or ignore that Arabs and other ethnicities lived in this area as well for thousands of years. Not only that, but for the last 1400 years, the area of Israel and Palestine was inhabited and ruled over by Arabs and Muslims.

For the past few years, Israel has been digging for artifacts of the biblical Jewish era of the land at the expense of artifacts from other eras, specifically Arab and Muslim times. Just to make it clear, the problem here isn’t that they are digging for Jewish artifacts, it is that they are doing that at the expense of the Arabic history of this land. Israel should not be allowed to pretend as if this land has been sitting empty and idle for the past 2000 years. Not only does that history belong to Arabs and Muslims, it also belongs to the world in its entirety. This is just like the fact that the ancient pyramids in Giza do not belong to Egyptians exclusively, they belong to the world. So, if for some reason Egypt decides to demolish the sphinx or one of the pyramids tomorrow, it will not be allowed because these monuments are not its exclusive property. So must be the case for Israel.

This concern is not a wild stroke of the imagination. The New York Times recently ran an article on a series of parks being built in Jerusalem that will overrun Arab and Muslim old sites and enforce only Jewish history, totally ignoring the History of that city and its current Arab population.

Not only that, but if you take a walk inside the Old City of Jerusalem you will see how the many Muslim sites are ignored by the municipality and left to deteriorate , while the Jewish sites are dug up and excavated at the expense of Muslim sites. When I was in old Jerusalem i was shocked to see that there even some paintings being sold of the old city without the Dome of the Rock which is the city’s most prominent land mark and has stood tall in the city for at least 1300 years!

If you watch the History Channel you will undoubtedly run into the multitude of shows excavating the tiniest rock to show the ancient Jewish history of the area. However, hardly any show ever mentions the Muslim history of the land as well, or even other epochs by other people. The audience of these shows is left with the impression that this area has been continuously controlled by Jewish people and that Arabs and Muslims never were there. I remember clearly that in one of the shows the host joined a tent of volunteers who were looking at rubble in some area and were excavating for historical artifacts. As the host was sifting through his pile, he came across some peculiar piece, so he asked the tent director if it could be of some relevance. The directory replied “No, it is Umayyad” and they tossed it away !! Why toss it away if it is Umayyad ? isn’t that at at least 1250 years old ? Isn’t that interesting ?

The danger is not in ignoring the big noticeable landmarks like the Dome of the Rock or Al-Aqsa mosque. These are easy to spot and many people recognize them. The problem is in throwing away, damaging, or destroying the smaller and lesser known sites. The ruins of a small Umayyad palace near the Noble Sanctuary have been damaged by Israeli excavations for Jewish ruins.

These infringements on ancient sites, and preferring some over the other will result in a warped view of the history of this region. In my opinion, this is totally wrong. Old history does not belong to one people, it is a property of our common humanity.

Of course, Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims have their role to play. We should pay more attention to preserving these ancient ruins in the holy land, and start our own efforts to excavating this region for its history as well. With that said, I think historical sites should be protected from politics. Archaeologists should be honest to history, and should not favor one people’s history over another based on politics. Truly, if we don’t know our past, we can’t understand our present; and if we don’t understand our present, we can’t plan for our future.

If you would like to participate but you’re facing a mental writer’s block, here is a list of possible topic ideas that i hope you find useful. Also, I would really appreciate it if the title of your blog post was preceded by [BAPD] (for example “[BAPD] My Article About Palestinian Cities”).  Finally, I would really appreciate it if you added a graphical button leading back to the event’s page so that future readers can learn more about the subject and read other people’s articles. You can use the following code to add a button to your post:

<a href=”http://www.za3tar.net/?p=742″><img src="http://files.za3tar.net/pal-day-09/buttons/pal-day-en.png" border="0" alt="Blog About Palestine Day" /></a>

Here is a short list of blogs (that i know about) that have signed up for this event. This list is absolutely in no particular order, This list is absolutely not all-inclusive, if your blog has not been listed here, please let me know so that i can add it.

These are some of the seeds, tomorrow will be the blossom, and after that i will try to compile a harvest list of the articles.

• Memories Documented - Qwaider
• Whisper
• Rusland Trad
• Garfan
• Ulysses
• Nekrif
• Mona
• SimSim
• Mohammad Badi
• Cinnamon Zone - Ola
• Yameen Shmal
• MKaragyozov
• Nadeem
• Mohammad Online
• Historian
• Fatema
• Jumana
• Samia Lamine
• Rebellious Arab Girl
• Danny D
• Laura
• Ahmad Hamdan
• Yousef

Thanks again for your participation, and I look forward to reading your wonderful articles.

يَسُرني أن أدعوكم للمشاركة في يوم التدوين عن فلسطين 2009. هذه العودة الثانية لهذا الحدث بعد النجاح الباهر الذي حققه في إنطلاقته الأولى العام الماضي. فبمشاركتكم الطيبة تم كتابة أكثر من 70 تدوينة عن فلسطين بأربع لغات! وأنا على ثقة بأن مشاركتكم هذه المرة ستؤدي إلى نجاحٍ أبهر وأكبر من العام الماضي.

كما تعلمون، يوم 5/15 من هذا العام سيصادف الذكرى الواحدة وستين للنكبة الفلسطينية. هذه الذكرة المؤلمة تُحيى ذكراها على الصعيد المحلي والإقليمي وحتى الدولي. ولذا شاركوني يا أعزائي لنرفع الوعي العام بالواقع الفلسطيني والثقافة الفلسطينية.

لا شروط أو قيود على ما يمكن أن تكتبه أو حتى اللغة التي تكتب بها. فأي موضوع له علاقة بفلسطين أو الفلسطينيين سيكون ممتازاً. يمكنك الكتابة عن الماضي أو الحاضر أو المستقبل. يمكنك الكتابة عن الثقافة أو السياسة أو الإقتصاد الفلسطيني. فعلياً، الهدف من هذا اليوم هو زيادة الوعي العام عن فلسطين، فأي تدوينة لها علاقة بفلسطين بأي شكل ستكون ثمينة.

بعض الأسئلة والأجوبة:

هل الحدث مقتصر على الفلسطينيين والعرب ؟

لا، كل شخص في العالم مهما كانت إتجاهاته سيكون مُرَحباً به للمشاركة. الجميع مدعو للمشاركة.

هل على مقالتي أن تعكس وجهة النظر الفلسطينيية (أو حتى أن تكون مقالة إيجابية) ؟

كلا، أنتَ حرٌ ومشجع لتكتب ما تشاء.

أيجب أن تكون التدوينة سياسية أو تقتصر على النكبة ؟

بالطبع لا، فيمكنك الكتابة عن فلسطين من نواح سياسية، أو إجتماعية، أو إقتصادية، أو إنسانية، أو حتى قطعة أدبية تعبر عن رأيك وإحساسك.

كيف يمكنني أن أساعد أو أنشر هذه الحملة ؟

هذا الحدث يعتمد على جهود المدونين أمثالك، فساعدنا رجاءً لنشر هذه الحملة وتحفيز المدونين للمشاركة بها. يمكنك نشر الحملة بعدة طرق:

- أعلن عن “يوم التدوين عن فلسطين / Blog About Palestine Day” في مدونتك أو موقعك.

- أضف شعار وعداد “يوم التدوين عن فلسطين” إلى موقعك (العدادات والشعارات موجودة هنا).

- شارك بالحدث على Facebook وأدعو أصدقائك للمشاركة.

لندون معاًً عن فلسطين ولفلسطين، من داخل فلسطين ومن خارج فلسطين! لنساعد فلسطين بأفكارنا وآرائنا وكلماتنا وتدويناتنا. لنعمل معاً لإنجاح هذا الحدث ورفع الوعي العام عن تلك الديار الحبيبة. نحن جيل المستقبل، فهيا بنا نكتبه لنا بأيدينا.

وفي الختام أشكركم، وأتمنى دعمكم، وأطوق شوقاً لأرى تدويناتكم.

]]> http://www.za3tar.net/2009/05/04/%d9%8a%d9%88%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%af%d9%88%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%b9%d9%86-%d9%81%d9%84%d8%b3%d8%b7%d9%8a%d9%86-2009/feed/ http://www.za3tar.net/2009/04/21/blog-about-palestine-day-2/ http://www.za3tar.net/2009/04/21/blog-about-palestine-day-2/#comments Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:12:13 +0000 za3tar http://www.za3tar.net/?p=742 ***UPDATE #1:*** A Facebook event for this initiative has been created. Please join the event and pass the message on to your friends (more info here).

***UPDATE #2:*** Topic Suggestions and a preliminary list of participating bloggers has been published here.

***UPDATE #3:*** A sample harvest list of blog posts contributed to this event has been published here.

Dear all,

It is my pleasure to invite you to this year’s second annual Blog About Palestine Day. Thanks to your efforts, last year’s event was a huge success with more than 70 articles published in at least 4 languages. I am confident that with your continued contribution and the contribution of new bloggers, this year’s event will turn out to be an even bigger success.

May 15th of this year is the 61st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba –which marked the beginning of the modern age Palestinian plight and suffering. This date is remembered annually on local, regional, and global levels.

I am certain that many in the blogosphere will dedicate some posts to commemorate this tragic event. However, inspired by last year’s success, I would like to start a formal initiative to encourage everybody to dedicate one post on Friday, May 15th, to talk about Palestine or the Palestinian Experience.

There are no restrictions on what you can write, or the language that you can use. Really, anything that talks about Palestine, or the Palestinians; in the past, present, or future; political, social, economical, or any other aspect is welcomed. The goal of this event will be to share thoughts, and raise awareness about the Palestinian situation. Hopefully, with everyone’s support, this will be such a spectacular event that it will catch the eye of the mainstream media (specially that the Palestinian situation is inadequately and incorrectly represented in most of the western media outlets).

FAQ:

• Do I have to be Palestinian / Arab to participate ?
  No, everybody is welcomed to join in on this effort.
• Does it have to represent the Palestinian point of view (or be a positive article) ?
  No, you are free, and encouraged, to write whatever you want.
• Does it have to be about the Nakba precisely ?
  No, you can talk about the history of the Palestinian plight, current internal and external affairs, or outlooks for possible future resolutions to this conflict and how do you think can we achieve and maintain peace.
• Does it have to be a political article ?
  No, you are free to talk about any aspect of the Palestinian life inside and outside Palestine. You are free to talk about whatever you want.

I would appreciate it if you could help me spread the word about this event. For your convenience, i have created some simple counters and web buttons for this event. You can find their code below:

Thank you in advance for your help and support.

**NOTE:** Blogs *hosted* on Wordpress.com (and possibly other engines) might face some trouble embedding JavaScript code as is done above. If this is the case for you, you can use the following web buttons below:

<a href="http://www.za3tar.net/?p=742"><img src="http://files.za3tar.net/pal-day-09/buttons/pal-day-en-small.png" border="0" alt="Blog About Palestine Day" /></a>

<a href="http://www.za3tar.net/?p=742"><img src="http://files.za3tar.net/pal-day-09/buttons/pal-day-ar-small.png" border="0" alt="Blog About Palestine Day" /></a>

<a href="http://www.za3tar.net/?p=742"><img src="http://files.za3tar.net/pal-day-09/buttons/pal-day-en.png" border="0" alt="Blog About Palestine Day" /></a>

<a href="http://www.za3tar.net/?p=742"><img src="http://files.za3tar.net/pal-day-09/buttons/pal-day-ar.png" border="0" alt="Blog About Palestine Day" /></a>

I see this often in Arab-Israeli debates. There is no doubt that we Palestinians have had tremendous injustice bestowed upon us, and we’ve been constantly wronged for the past 60+ years. Yet, Israelis know how to appeal to external/western audiences. There is no magic there, no great conspiracy. Just basic carefully examined messages.

Always know your audience. People in the USA have different mentalities than those in Britain, or France, or Turkey, or Palestine, or Pakistan ..etc. So naturally, what might be a sound argument in one place could be totally useless somewhere else. In Arab-Israeli debates many people immediately jump to issues from the time of the British mandate or 1948. Why ??!! I honestly think this is a bad dialog course. There are far more contemporary immediate problems that we can talk about (and try to resolve). Shouldn’t we try to solve the immediate problems first before tackling the big grand picture problems ?

When talking to people you have to befriend them and think like they do. People are more willing to engage in the viewpoint of somebody who is similar to them rather than somebody who is very different. Never come off too strong. Never be inflexible.

I am often asked questions about the situation in Palestine by Americans. I found it best to start out by telling them the simple most basic things. That is, we don’t like violence. Like them, we too like to live peaceful lives. We like to be able to live, work, visit family, and go about doing our business without hassle. That the vast most Palestinians are not hell-bent on the destruction of Israel but rather want to live normal peaceful lives. Then I tell them how ordinary people who haven’t done anything suffer. How we have more than 500 checkpoints in the West Bank that prevent us from moving around, how Israel imposes city-wide curfews, how people can not move around freely or conduct business freely, how the mobile telephone company struggled with Israel for more than a year just to import a single retransmission tower to meet the increase in demand. I tell them my personal story. People do respond when you tell them about your personal story.

Anyway, this came to mind after seeing what happened in the recent U.N. racism conference. I do not agree with the Iranian president, but he was trying to use Palestine as an excuse for whatever he wants and he was trying to present a case in which, as always, he came off as a nut-job to the west and just managed to hurt the true message of the Palestinian struggle with his idiocy.

(it is hard to read, but the printout on the shirt says “made in Jordan in the second line after the L)

أمن الممكن لمثل هذه الفكرة أن تنجح ؟

Really, if you think about it, time is the only thing that you can never get back. Once it is spent it is spent. There is no magic undo button (although i often wish there was). By managing your time correctly you can control the only resource that doesn’t wait for you.

I really suck at time management.

Honestly, this is very puzzling. And it is not like it happened gradually. No, Twitter was actually sort of considered like most non-revolutionary web startups, occasionally mentioned but not too much. Then all of a sudden you can’t escape it. Everybody on TV is talking about it. It is mentioned in TV shows, talk shows, and even news programs. And it hasn’t been mentioned casually as “hey, there is something called Twiiter” .. no .. it is repeatedly mentioned on TV as if it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Every news reporter in almost every single news hour mentions twitter (”hey i’ve been twittering ..etc”) … this is just too much.

I don’t think this is natural growth of a technology, specially that Twitter hasn’t been making any money yet. What i honestly think has happened is that the investors in Twitter have probably paid several TV shows and personalities to start talking about Twitter constantly so that it becomes hype du jour and raise its value in preparation to sell it to some company.

Don’t get me wrong, i think there is some benefit to Twitter (and it is starting to be utilized correctly by some networks to interact with their audiences easily). However, i really don’t see the big deal about it. And it really feels sleazy that we are being bombarded about Twitter as if it is the next thing since sliced bread. The reason i am convinced that they must have paid these people to talk about it is because it never happens that politicians, celebrities, and news programs start adopting a relatively technology relatively all at once without some financial incentive.

Honestly, my last few dreams have been amazing; the view point, the music, the dramatic climactic plot .. they are fairly complex for 2-5 second dreams, and they are a major step up from what i used to dream before. You might think i am exaggerating, but last night’s dream was most definitely a work of art . For example, the beginning of the dream was narrated and was in a yellowish color scheme. The view point was not static, it moved in complicated ways. For instance, at some point i was seeing things from an vantage point hovering in the sky then all of a sudden rushed between incoming heavy traffic (including some vehicles from Red Alert 2). I was seeing things as if i was accelerating between the vehicles going in an opposite direction of them. The only fitting music for that segment would have been Verdi’s Dies Irae Requiem.

I know what you might be thinking, and no i haven’t seen a movie since at least two or three weeks. Nothing super dramatic has been happening in my life .. just the dreams got better

Unfortunately, as all dreams, this one ended before i wanted it too. Don’t you hate it when you’re dreaming and then you get disrupted and you get into a state when you are not dreaming any more but you are not quite awake yet ? Then you try to get back into the dream but it doesn’t work ? Then you try to stimulate your mind by trying to think of a continuation for the dream and it sometimes succeeds and you’re back in and sometimes it doesn’t. Well unfortunately this was one of those times when i couldn’t get back to my dream. Ahhh .. only if there was a way to capture dreams and continue them over multiple nights

The weird thing is that the display driver is configured correctly, and i can see the full screen area and can move the mouse and windows around .. it is just the full-screen on flash and maximizing windows that does not work as needed. Another thing that added to the weirdness is that things are working perfectly fine on KDE3.

Anyway, i found the easy fix to this problem. The following file
/etc/sysconfig/displaymanager contains some configuration for your display manager. The following two lines demonstrate the problem:

DISPLAYMANAGER_RANDR_MODE_VGA="auto"
DISPLAYMANAGER_RANDR_MODE_auto="1024x768_60 64.11 1024 1080 1184 1344 768 769 772 795 -HSync +Vsync"


It says in the comments that this is supposed to help laptop devices somehow .. i didn’t totally understand that part. However, some online searches revealed some advice to comment out one of the lines. What i personally did to fix this problem is modify the first line above so that it won’t refer to the configuration on the second line. So i have something like this:

DISPLAYMANAGER_RANDR_MODE_VGA=""

I am posting this here so that it could help somebody some day … when i was facing this problem i did a ton of search and found nothing. So, if your screen is displaying a small area (1024×768) in the top left corner of your monitor, this might be the fix.

Note: Just to let you know how lazy i am getting, i thought about writing more in this post, but i am too lazy to do so.

It is no surprise that the world is facing a huge economic crisis. Jordan, and indeed the rest of the Arab world, has not been spared from this crisis. As we all scramble to recover, it is worth noting that we face additional challenges. Although Jordan has shown many good development projects that aim to expand the potential of students and entrepreneurs, we should observe that that this development has not been uniformly distributed across the different areas of the country. Most of these initiatives have concentrating on the capitol Amman, which makes sense since it is the biggest city in the country. However it is just as important to provide good opportunities to residents of the other places of Jordan. This will dampen the disparity between Amman and most of the rest of the country.

One way this could happen is by expanding infrastructure projects to the rest of the country. Infrastructure projects are great because they employ a large group of people to build and provide benefit a large group of people for a long time after they are built. Infrastructure projects include upgrading schools, hospitals, waterworks, electricity, roads, ..etc. As great as these projects can be, we have to realize that the government’s has a limited amount of financial resources (specially in this global crisis).

So what can we do ? This is a perfect opportunity for citizens to contribute to the well being of their future, their children’s futures, and the country as a whole. For example, many people these days prefer to buy land and keep it until it gets expensive and then sell it. All this time the land sits underutilized. Why not grow something on it for example ? This would require working hands, but there are many people who are out of work and would be available to do this job. Plus the land’s produce can either increase the export of the country or at least feed a few more hungry families.

I think the road to a bright future for Jordan, and many other Arab countries, is through citizens trying to utilize the limited set or resources that we already have. When i compare our situation to that of people from other emerging developing countries (like China and India) i notice that what we lack is a grand vision of how should we move forward as a unit as a country. No doubt that Jordanians and Arabs are skillful people, so imagine what we can do if we put our hands together and look forward ?