"So, here we are. Geek Etiquette. Seriously."

The Eyebrow Thing: A great column by Iman al-Gwaifli

Al-Hayat interviews the 20-year-old Saudi writer Hildaa Ismail. She has written two books, and she uses the internet to promote her literary talent. This interview has a usual mistake by Arabic newspapers, they write a long article regarding a website, but they don't provide the URL.

ABC News: "Large doses of ordinary aspirin are as effective as the anticoagulant drug warfarin in preventing stroke in people with partial blockages of the brain arteries."

Fashion with religious themes: "There is no question, religion is becoming the new brand."

Ejaaz: Yes, I get the full softwares for the lowest prices. Yes, I get the new pirated softwares for less than $3. Yes, yes!!

Google Blog: "When you do a search on [Firefox and Mozilla], we instruct them to download your top search result in advance, so if you click on it, you'll get to that page even more quickly." (via Lifehacker)

Haitham Sabbah was surprised how the author of this article in the Washington Post "made it sound as the Gulf countries are the only people in the world using the sms’s for social, political, etc… reasons. He made it sound so strange that made me wonder after I read it, SO? What is strange? I just can’t understand what makes us so different from rest of the world!"

Dear Haitham, I think the only thing you missed is that the United States is a bit different when it comes to using the SMS technology. People in the U.S. are not used to use SMS for such activities, and the text culture did not emerge in America in the same way it did in Europe. I read several stories on how American Telocos are trying very hard to promote the use of SMS among Americans, but they could not make any major success till now.

60 Minutes

I received this story by email three days ago (Thanks, Yasmin!). Reporter Ed Bradly of 60 Minutes, have spoken to some people in Saudi Arabia, and made this report.

"I like to be free. All people like to be free," a woman, who asked the cameraperson to follow her into a ladies room, where she removed her veil, said. All people like to be free, but the government does not understand this. Prince Sultan Bin Salman, the minister of tourism, told the reporter: "It's not important to have elections. It's important to have stability." OK, but what your highness think about this, we have democracy, and therefor, we have more stability. Isn't this better?

"I believe in equal right for everyone according to their circumstances," says Dr. Saleh al-Sheikh, the minister of Islamic affairs. This is so ironic. What we can understand from what the minister says is this: "we want to give people freedom, but we want it to be in our style," which I see it as non-freedom. People want to get their freedom, but they for sure do not want it be given by you.

MBC4 is broadcasting this show to the Middle East. I hope they include this report, but I'm afraid I missed the show because the date of the show is March 23, and I'm not sure if MBC4 is broadcasting the show on the same day. I'll ask some friends if they have watched it. Have anyone of you watched it?

A sheikh's sense of humor?

AP: Dubai looks to build tallest skyscraper.

The so-called Pulse of the Nation

The dean of of College of Pharmacy at KSU have opened an exhibition at the college's main lobby. The exhibition, called "Pulse of the Nation," is organized by the students' committees of the college. Please note that when someone says the term "The Nation" in Saudi Arabia, it does not necessary mean the Saudi nation, but it does necessary mean the Islamic nation. Now, one may ask: what an exhibition about Islam has to do with pharmacy?" Here comes the answer: The two have nothing in common. Also, one may thinks College of Pharmacy is filled with atheists, but this is not believable.

The reason for organizing such exhibition at the the college is because the organizers, the students' committees, are dominated by the Islamists. They have been in control of these committees in the College of Pharmacy, as well as the other colleges of the university, for years. They were behind the banning of musical concerts, plays and other cultural activities. This point was one of the points Dr. Hamza al-Mizeini mentioned in the article that made one of the Islamists in the university sue him.

The administration of the college should consider closing the offices of these committees and shut them down, as they have done with the academic adviser office, because I can't see any real activities in there. Actually, these offices have become a relaxing spot for those Islamists to drink beverages, eat snacks and chit-chatting the latest news of Sheikh Usama Bin Laden.

From Cairo: Love in the subway.

Al-Hayat: Lebanon is the oxygen of the Middle East.

WSJ: "Through Wikicities, groups of Web users can create their own free Web sites and fill them with, well, nearly anything. Among the topics being discussed on the nascent site: Macintosh computers, college hockey and real-world cities like Los Angeles, Beijing and Calgary." (via BuzzMachine)

ISU have also blocked TinyURL. What the hell are they thinking? I think this blog in next on their list.

Matt Haueghy's observations in Etech and SXSW.

What's this "Shqip" word in the Google logo?

Saudi Arabia blocked Flickr! F**k!

Religious police in Kuwait?

Ahmed Zaki, R.I.P.

Can anyone get any large screenshots of NewsBlogger using the Internet Archive and send them to me? Thanks.

Regarding the previous post, I can say that some of the ideas and concepts of NewsBlogger are available now through other services. For instance, Nick Denton and Meg Hourihan, a co-founder of Pyra, reinvented the web-based news aggregator, and made Kinja.

NewsBlogger

Pyra, the company behind Blogger, founded by Evan Williams and his friends, and later acquired by Google, was one of those few companies which decided to focus on producing better user experience, instead of making huge loads of money.

However, Pyra had some rough times. It was so rough that Ev asked people to donate money for buying new servers. During the rough times, they had to drop some interesting projects. One of these projects was NewsBlogger. I read about it, and liked it very much. According to Ev's words, this web application was "not for everyone." It was the fruit of cooperation between Pyra and Nick Denton's Moreover.

I tried to use the Internet Archive website to retrive some pages from the project, but found out the f**kers at ISU have blocked the Wayback Machine tool. I don't have any large screenshots, so I'll try to describe in words. The user interface would be divided to three parts; a column on the left for headlines, the upper (larger) part for the syndicated content from the websites you subscribed to through RSS, and the bottom part which contains the well-known Blogger input box where you can write whatever you want and push Publish to update your blog.

Such thing would have been perfect for people like me, but unfortunately, NewsBlogger was killed early and never crossed the Beta mode. "I wish we'd have had the resources to keep NewsBlogger going," Ev wrote on his blog. Too bad they did not have the resources, and too bad when Google acquired Pyar no one thought of reviving it.

Take a look at the "Bloggers from the A-list to the Z-list" by Jon Garfunkel. Nice. Here is a question: Where Saudi Jeans would be listed?

Abid Khazindar: "Yes, our universities are dying."

Arab News asks some citizens why they did not register as voters, and one of them says: "I do not know what benefit that I would get from the election. I heard from my friends that the elections are a waste of time." Hmmm, this man seems to have some stupid friends.

Husein Shubukshi: A new ministry for local governance?

Asharq al-Awsat is starting a new column for the young population of the Arab World. Good luck.

NY Times: "We all have a life. Must we all write about it?"

In his column, Mohammed al-Rasheed advises Iyad Madani, the new minister of information to "concentrate on culture, not banning books." However, I disagree with him on the mechanism he suggested to solve the issue of censorship of books. Employing people to read all books published and then publishing a monthly list of banned books is not a solution. I don't understand why the writer spent some of his precious time writing such column when he knows what the ultimate solution is. He writes in the very last paragraph: "We must keep in mind, however, that the ultimate solution lies in the steps taken in other Arab countries: Shut it down."

Here's a list of some Syrian blogs by Mohammed.

HOWTO make a duct tape wallet. Or you know what? Don't make it yourslef, because it gets all sticky once the tape starts to peel. Instead you can buy a better looking one from Ducti. (via Lifehacker)

Full transcript of the Saudi writer Abdullah Bekhit, who has a similar case to Dr. al-Mizeini's case, interview on al-Arabiya TV.

In case you've missed it: "Finding sunlight on the web and Martin Luther King's dream."

Al-Hayat interviews Dr. Hamza al-Mizeini, who was sentenced by a Sahria court with 275 lashes and 4 months imrosment. The sentence was later quashed by a decision from the Crown Prince Abullah. Read more on Dr. al-Mizeini's case on al-Hayat website.

Jawatha historical mosque would be included in some kind of tourism location development plan. Woohoo.

I always wondered how Need To Know created their logo. Now I know. The ASCII Generator. (via Lifehacker)

In a country where celebrating any occasion needs a permission by the government, Huda al-Salem thinks there is nothing wrong with celebrating Mother's Day or Teacher's Day. Tell this to the second person who commented on your column.

Jeans in Egypt.

The real volunteer work.

President Bush’s neoconservative hawk Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon’s architect of the US invasion of Iraq, is dating a Muslim!

Arab News: "A woman had to get into the driver’s seat and speed to the nearest hospital to save her husband’s life after he suffered from a sudden rise in his sugar level while on their way from Riyadh to Taif."

Finally, the national day becomes an official holiday in this country. (No link)

The Islamist hackers think this is the electronic jihad.

Which religion is the right one for you? (via Subzero Blue)

It turns out Saudi Arabia is not the only country with a religious police. Ben Kerishan takes a look at the different editions of religious police in several countries.

An Egyptian friend says Amina Wadud's decision to lead mixed prayers did make the impact he thought on the Arab blogosphere. However, he made some good points. Check out the BBC website to read more comments.

Original artwork from the early years of Blogger.

I want to buy something from the Google store, but I found out they have two different stores. One for orders from the Americas, and the other for the rest of the world. Now the problem is, the thing I want to buy is only available at their American store. Any suggestions?

Matt was expecting something called Flickrhoo.

FlickrBlog: "Yahoo! actually does acquire Flickr."

The Friends of Democracy in Iraq are Beta testing this tool now. You can try it, too.

Jeff Jarvis: "With this tool, citizens throughout the Middle East will be able to declare their independence. They will be able to build bridges to fellow citizens in other parts of the world."

Spirit of America: "We are funding the development of an Arabic blogging (Web logging) tool and, with donor support, we will host the blogs at no cost to the bloggers. This will allow blogs to be created easily. It will give voice to those working for freedom and democracy in the Arab world. And it will enable them to more easily connect with and share ideas with their peers."

Natasha reporting from Doha.

What's with all these spam blogs appearing on the BlogSpot domain?

Al-Jazeera.Net: "A car exploded on Saturday night next to a theatre near a British school in the Qatari capital."

A good column by Hussein Shubukshi.

Gay wedding in Saudi Arabia!

Get ready for a week of flirting on Walladah's blog.

I've decided to make some little changes on the design. I hope these changes will provide more readability.

Badria al-Bisher: When a telecom company try to ban people from telecommunication.

The Lebanese journalist Diana Mkalled, known for her documentaries on Future TV, wrote about blogs on Asharq al-Awsat website. However, she made some mistakes in her column. Kevin Sites works for NBC, not CNN as she mentioned. Also, I think Ms. Mkalled does not know much about Arab blogs. It is true that we still do not have the kind of reporters/bloggers such as Kevin Sites and Dan Gilmor, but I think the Arab blogging scene is expanding rapidly, and we will reach this stage soon. She also said the word "blog" is not translated to Arabic yet, which is wrong because the word "مدونة" (Modawanna) is a perfect translation, coined and approved by Arab bloggers.

Blogs: Not permissible. Blogs are Haram! (via Moahmmed)

Seven years of kottke.org. Happy birthday!

Gmail are providing a basic HTML view now. The Java view is much faster, but the basic HTML is better for me because it enables me to save long emails to my hard drive to read them later. BTW, I have 10 Gmail invitations to give away. If you are interested, leave your email address with a joke or something in the comments :)

"Portable Firefox is a fully functional package of Firefox optimized for use on a USB key drive." (via Lifehacker)

SiliconValleyWatcher has a screenshot of Yahoo! 360, and they say Yahoo! is about to acquire Flickr. Actually, I wish they don't. I like Flickr the way it is now, and I don't like to see it as a part of something else.

CSM: "What is a journalist?"

Don't try to visit this dangerous neighborhood in Dammam.

Saudi Arabia will have about 20 million mobile users by 2014.

Lubna Hussain had the shock of her life. Something similar happened to a Syrian friend of mine, who lived almost all his life in Saudi Arabia, when he visited Dubai for the first time, two weeks ago. "Riyadh could be as luxurious as Dubai, or even more, but the freedom you feel there is totally astonishing," he told me during a chat.

When a haircut means death of the barber.

Conspiracy in Egypt? (via Hawadeet)

The End of Radio (as we know it).

I just added a favicon to the blog. As you can see, it is the flag of Saudi Arabia. I know it is not so clear. I may change it later.

Blogger has been driving me crazy lately. The Blogger team must work faster and harder to solve the problems with the application. It is really frustrating when I want to post something and the error messages slaps my face.

Dave Winer: "Flickr is amazing. It deserves all the accolades it's been getting. I love two things, one specific, one general. First, I love the way they edit graphics. It's way beyond what I expected. Second, the attention to detail, across-the-board, is wonderful. The user interface constantly delights the user, with things they thought of; and you can use the software with confidence that they are thinking about users every step along the way. Very excellent work."

Badria al-Bisher: When physical covering of women becomes more important than their lives.

Subzero Blue: "When the hell did they start putting nipples on mannequins?!"

Reuters: Yahoo! to step into blogs, social networking.

HOWTO cope with life's annoyances?

Two jokes from Lonewolf. (May offend).

Radio

When I was living in the university dorm, I used to listen to the radio most of the time. This was mainly because students were not allowed to bring TV's to the dorm. Whenever I was awake, I turn on the radio and let MBC-FM DJ's play every kind of music they have. I was listening to the MBC-FM exclusively when I'm in Riyadh, because when I'm home I either watch TV or use my computer, and in my car I have all my favorite music CD's. I hate to admit this, but even though MBC-FM were broadcasting some ugly music some times, I used to miss them in my holidays. When my holiday was over this time, I moved to a new apartment with a flat 29” TV screen, so I did not bring my radio with me.

Last week, I was in the car with a friend of mine. I turned the radio on, and found that MBC-FM were playing only Khaleeji music. It turned out that MBC Group decided to dedicate MBC-FM to Khaleeji music only, and moved all their talk shows and programs, in addition to all other kinds of music to Panorama FM, which was formerly a news radio channel. It is early to tell if this is a smart move or not, but I'll miss, for sure, listening to different types of Arabic music on the same channel.

The problem with the radio channels here in Saudi Arabia, is that we have a very limited choice. There are the two MBC radios, and those government ones, and that's all. No other FM's are allowed to broadcast in this country. Moreover, there is not a single radio broadcasts Western music, not even Radio Sawa.

Microsoft to release six new typfaces.

A letter from Serdal to Microsoft.

I have no idea how did they knew this, but Bluejacking is really popular over here. Yesterday, while I was on train, the man sitting next to me was watching some porn videos he just received from another guy on the same trailer. Hunter Heaney, and his friends, have developed CrowdSurfer, which is a social networking "location-based Bluetooth application." I'm not quite sure if this thing would work out here, because most people, if not all, don't want others to know if they are sending or receiving files, especially most of these files are porn and other crap.

Toilet paper algorithms. (via Kottke.org)

NY Times: "Are bloggers reportes, too?" (via Sabbah)

The Blogger team at Google launched a new blog called Blogger Buzz.

Interview with Jason Kottke on Glassdog.

My Story

My history with blogging goes back to 2001, when I stumbled upon a website called Blogger. In that time, I had no idea what the hell blogs are. I tried it, but since Blogger did not support Arabic language, I've decided to leave it behind, and started hand-coding my website. It was really hard and time-consuming, but I thought it was the only way to have my own space on the web. It was mainly a diary, in addition to my other writings; short stories, articles and ramblings.

Around mid-2003, the word “blog” began to spread more and more. I was frustrated with the process of updating the website, so I decided to go back to Blogger and check it out again. I was surprised and pleased to find out it started supporting Arabic. But the idea was sparkled in my head at first by reading an Iranian blogger, who thought blogging could do for Arabs what it did for Iranians.

I was overwhelmed with the idea of blogging. I started reading more and more about it, and started reading more blogs. Simply, I loved it. I began my Arabic blog, Yawmyat, with a real passion for the medium. However, I was a bit disappointed because a) I did not know how to make my blog looks good; I'm no HTML monkey, and b) no one was reading it.

Arab users were, and are still, fascinated with forums. I think in less than 5 years, we will see a “migration” for Arab users from forums to blogs. Mainly, because blogs provide more freedom and personality. I think an Arabic blog hosting service would make the change easier and faster. Here's a little secret. I think Blogger are planning to launch an Arabic edition of their ever-popular service soon.

Given that, and inspired by some pioneer Arab bloggers, I've decided to start a blog in English. It was not easy to find a nice name among all that jungle of taken names in the BlogSpot domain. In the beginning, I thought it will be the same personal blog, but in English instead of Arabic. After a while, the blog turned to be less self-centered and more content-centered. Actually, playing with Saudi Jeans helped me to improve my HTML knowledge, and finally I figured out how to make a perfect design for my Arabic blog.

I think blogs could make a real difference, especially in the Arab World, where the lack of freedom of expression is a main barrier to progress and development. And to encourage more Arab users to start blogging, I'm glad to announce that I'm ready to give away the design of my Arabic blog to anyone who would like to start a blog with Blogger. Just drop me an email on my address at the bottom of this page, and I'll be more than happy to help you set up an Arabic blog for your own pleasure.

Turki al-Hamad's new novel on the 9/11 bombers.

NY Times: "A computer is also a screen, Wil Wheaton discovers."

When was the last time you tried to memorize a phone number?

Abdul-Rahman al-Rashed: Demonstrations express an opinion, but it does not change much in politics.

Now, you can customize your Google News front page. Nice.

The problems with the Religious Police will never end. This time, According to Arab News, "a group of men were detained by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice [The Religious Police] for trying to help a woman who screamed for help as she was being forcibly taken away by commission members." What amazed me is the statement of the commission member who said "What that man did does not represent the commission." I don't understand this. Who the hell does this man represent? The Saudi Human Rights Center?

Recently, I'm in a good mood for writing. I've written another short story in Arabic.

An article in Riyadh newspaper has mentioned my blog. The weird thing is, unlike all other blogs mentioned in the article, the writer did not link to mine. (via al-Mohareb)

Zamakan calls the Arab users to support the Open Directory Project. I tried to help in the past by adding websites and organizing a little, but I think what we are looking for here is somebody like Monica from Friends ;-)

Bُen Kerishan: It's not a democracy when a man can talk in politics without being threaten. It's a democracy when a woman can talk about her lover without being killed.

After a long hiatus, Mad M is back.

I'm thinking of buying some t-shirts from Threadless. Cool tees, but I'm afraid of the size difference between the US and here. Anyone knows anything about this?

Now, when you search for Saudi Jeans with Google, my weblog will be the first result.

More photos from the demonstration.

UN-VEILED.net: "a place where people could speak their minds about certain topics that are seen as taboo or generally not talked about in the society."

The Saudi liberals were lost in translation?

Check out Zaydoun's blog for some photos from the demonstration.

Kuwaitis are to demonstrate this morning for women rights. Go get 'em, tigers!

Why liberals lost the municipal elections?

Arab News: "Thursday’s landmark municipal elections in the Eastern Province gave an opportunity to the country’s minority Shiite population to choose their public representatives."

Shiites won 5 out of 6 seats at the municipal elections of Hassa, and Sunnis are not so happy about it. I think it was fair.

For the first time, I think Google is wrong. The new AutoLink feature in their toolbar is “anti-Web.” Google has no right to modify my content.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I usually prefer to read fiction in Arabic. However, while I was roaming at Jarir Bookstore, the weird title of this book grabbed my attention. I purchased it out of curiosity. When I started reading, the beginning was unimpressive. I thought, "kids detective story," this is not my idea of the word "interesting." But little by little, things change and I started enjoying the novel. The NY Time says:

Mark Haddon's stark, funny and original first novel, ''The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,'' is presented as a detective story. But it eschews most of the furnishings of high-literary enterprise as well as the conventions of genre, disorienting and reorienting the reader to devastating effect.

I think “I will miss more what I haven’t had the ability to experience than what I have,” too.

It's totally true that some cities in this country are over-filled with empty mosques. For example, in Riyadh, it is so common to see two mosques in the same block with less than 500 m between them. Meanwhile, Shiites in the eastern side of the country are suffering to death to get permission to build a single mosque.

I voted! For the first time in my life, and for the first time in the history of this country. It was clean, easy and painless. I took couple of photos for my papers. More photos from the campaigns to come later.

Making out in public, in abaya?

Today, Yahoo!, the invisible giant, turns ten.