Cool Arabic Search Engine - yamli.com

I found this very cool arabic search engine called yamli.com , what it does is take your english text and transliterates it to arabic. This lets you search for arabic sites without needing an arabic keyboard. I dont know how new this is, but I like it a lot. Check it out.

According to my twitter buddy G_E, yamli is not really new, its only new to me. Thanks for the heads up G_E. 

Problems With Google Reader

I am having problems with Google Reader, some of the feeds that I subscribe to dont appear and I get the message "You don't have permission to view this feed." 


I looked around and found a solution. instead of using http://reader.google.com, use https://reader.google.com


You are welcome :)

Happy Holidays from Google

Google wished me Happy Holidays by email,



In the e-card was a link, I clicked on it and was pleasantly surprised, check it out here.

Twitter is Frozen

Twitter has not been updating for the last 3 hours. It seems a lot of other users are experiencing the same. Twitter has dispatched its army of techies to fix it. More from Twitter's blog here.

Cynthia Loves me

Cynthia just contacted me on skype, here is her message to me:



Hi Friend,


Hope this email finds u in good health, I come across your Profile In the Love
site as I Have interest In u i deem it very necessary to get in touch with u
for a long-lasting relationship.


Beside My name is Cynthia 22yrs old female, has decent hobbies like reading and
swimmimg and i desires to make long-lasting friendship with you. Do you think
age, colour or distance is any bar to make such friendly relationship with you?
If not, then stretch your hand to me and accept mine.


If you feel like we will be friends fine,then u mail me back so that I will
forward u my photos and Introduce myself to u more, So from there we will get
to know each other very well, just bear in mind that there is only one happiness
in life,to love and be loved.


Here is my pravite email.(misscynthiatrembley@yahoo.com) I will always remain yours in
love.


Big Kisses And Huggs!


Miss Cynthia Trembley

I think she got the wrong person, so if you are Cynthia's love interest, feel free to contact her.

Du's Blocked Page

Here is Du's blocked page. Almost makes you happy that you got blocked. Almost, especially if the banned site is flickr.

Saudi Airport Restrictions

This recent memo from MB petroleum services describes unannounced rules to scan any electronic device entering Saudi Arabia.

Yahoo Acquires Maktoob

TechCrunch reports that Yahoo has agreed to acquire Maktoob, more here.

It seems the deal is worth $85 Million, for 20 Million Maktoob users. This means that Arab Internet users are worth just a little above $4.

When Microsoft bought Hotmail back in 1998, it was purchased for $400 Million and had 9 million users. Meaning one user was worth just above $40 for Microsoft.

Social Media Addicts

Before Social Media when people had free time, they would have conversations, sit around the TV, read a book, now Social Media has taken over and people are always on facebook, twitter, etc. etc. etc.

Here is a funny video of a Social Media addicts meeting:

Twitter Wisdoms

Twitter is an eternal source of intelligent inspiring conversations.

Here is one about Michael Jackson's death, read it from the bottom up:



Here is another one about a clever blackberry fix (again, read from the bottom up) :

>

Twitter and Proxies

Now with the seeds of an Iranian revolution about to start (maybe?!?), twitterers (is that the right word?) are helping out by providing the Iranian folks revolting with proxy adresses. If you feel like revolting yourself, or for any other privacy reasons and you feel all locked up, you can get a whole list of proxies here:

Twitter Proxies.

Viva La Revolución

Here is a revolution song to get you in a revolting mood:

Best Web Site in the World

Trust me, its is really the best:

allmyfaves.com

How to make a skype money scammer go away

Inspired from How to make a Nigerian money scammer go away.

The Definitive List of the 99 things you should have experienced on the Internet

In case you have been travelling to another planet for the last 10 years or so, or possibly just discovered the Internet, here is GREG RUTTER'S DEFINITIVE LIST OF THE 99 THINGS YOU SHOULD HAVE ALREADY EXPERIENCED ON THE INTERNET.

I copied this list here from Greg's site, just for posterity in case the original site disappears into the great /dev/nul
Feel free to forward to all your friends and coworkers and witness and dramatic drop in productivity, resulting in a banking crisis followed by an economic collapse. Oh, wait, that already happened.

Note: Some content inappropriate for children, and people with sensitive eyes and ears.

01) Grape Stomp

02) Charlie Bit Me

03) Chocolate Rain

04) Dancing Baby

05) Post Secret

06) Charlie The Unicorn

07) Mentos and Diet Coke

08) Numa Numa

09) Peanut Butter Jelly Time

10) George Lucas In Love

11) You're The Man Now Dog

12) Yatta

13) Star Wars Kid

14) Bubb Rubb

15) The Flying Spaghetti Monster

16) Dramatic Chipmunk

17) Homestar Runner

18) GI Joe Pork Chop Sandwiches

19) Fail Blog

20) Skateboarding Dog

21) All Your Base Are Belong To Us

22) Winnebago Man

23) We Like The Moon

24) I Can Has Cheezburger

25) Barney Vs. Tupac

26) Shining

27) Cute Overload

28) Rick Roll

29) Lazy Sunday

30) David After The Dentist

31) Powerthirst

32) Christian The Lion

33) Bert and Ernie Rap

34) Lady Punch

35) Leprechaun in Alabama

36) Where The Hell Is Matt

37) Boom Goes The Dynamite

38) Breakdancing Baby

39) Drunk Jeff Goldblum

40) Scarlet Takes A Tumble

41) Sepultura - Refuse resist (cover) By Gauchos

42) Gay Mount Everest

43) Afro Ninja

44) Cop Shoots Himself In Leg In Classroom

45) Tron Guy

46) "Leave Britney Alone"

47) Laughing Baby

48) I'm the Juggernaut Bitch

49) The Chairperson Falls

50) Take On Me The Literal Version

51) Bill O'Reilly Flips Out

52) Don't Tase Me Bro

53) The Landlord

54) Breakdancing Baby Kick

55) The Pet Penguin

56) Ms. South Carolina Answers A Question

57) I'm F*#king Matt Damon

58) Will It Blend

59) Spaghetti Cat

60) Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

61) Little Superstar

62) Chad Vader

63) Pretty Much Everywhere It's Going To Be Hot

64) I Like Turtles

65) Who Needs A Movie

66) Jake E. Lee Shreds

67) Hawaii Chair

68) Aussie Party

69) Hitler Plans Burning Man

70) Flirting with Magic

71) Look At The Horse

72) Asian Backstreet Boys

73) Leroy Jenkins

74) Pinky The Cat

75) Monkey Sniffs Finger

76) Sneezing Panda

77) Prison Inmates remake "Thriller"

78) Techno Viking

79) Ask A Ninja

80) Best Man Trips and Ruins Wedding

81) Best Wedding Toast Ever (Amy's Song)

82) Kitten Surprise (how to break up a cat fight)

83) Katana Sword Infomercial Goes Wrong

84) Matrix Ping Pong

85) La Pequeña Prohibida

86) Angry German Kid (translated)

87) Evolution of Dance

88) Ok Go – "Here It Goes Again"

89) Battle at Kruger (lions vs. buffalos vs. crocodiles)

90) Daft Hands

91) Human Beatbox

92) Most T-Shirts Worn At Once

93) Zero G Dog

94) Cuppy Cakes Song

95) George Washington

96) Scary Maze Prank

97) Gay Referee

98) Tranquilized Bear Hits Trampoline

99) Reporter Gets A Fly In The Mouth

Where is your username registered?

Here is a neat little link that checks your user name across all the social sites and tells you if it is taken or not.

Username check.

How to Add More Speed Dials in Opera (For Opera 9.5 or greater)

One of the coolest things about Opera is the speed dial where you are presented with a quick shortcut to your favorite destiantions every time you open a new tab or window in Opera. The Speed Dial displays a 3 x 3 mini image of your favorite web sites to allow you to quickly jump to those sites.



I always wanted to include more sites so I found this little tweak that allows you to increase the number of speed dials. like this:



You can do this as follows:

1. Find out where your Opera Directory is located on your computer by going to Help -> About Opera


2. find the Opera directory and open it.


3. Find the speeddial.ini file


4. copy the speedial.ini file to a backup file like speeddial.ini.backup (always back up any settings files just in case something might go wrong)


5. Close your opera browser (very important)


6. Open the speeddial.ini file in and text editor and add the following lines to your speeddial.ini
   
   [Size]
   Rows=4
   Columns=4
   
   save the file of course.


7. Start Opera again and you have more speed dials to add more of your favorite links there.

This hint was taken from Operawatch.com and from Remco's web page

If you want more speed and beauty from your browser, you can get Opera here:

The ABC of Technology

Here is a nice picture of the ABC of Technology today, stolen borrowed from haha.nu

Now what would the Kuwaiti one be ?

I reserve D for Don Veto - Reviews and Words of Wisdom

You can choose any other free letters. Maybe I will make a nice graphics once we complete the whole alphabet.

While Shopping at Amazon.com ...

I was browsing around amazon.com and I always try to fill my orders with stuff that I need desperately, and stuff that would be nice to have, just to save on the shipping. I was looking around Amazon to see what I else I could put in my order cart. To get some ideas I looked at my wishlist that I update from time to time. No inspiration there. There is a special place where you can "Find someone's Wish list", just for fun I put in Kuwait and I got some funny results.

The "kuwait awqaf public foundation" wanted a whole bunch of books about Awqaf, they where mostly unavailble except for some french waqf books.

Somebody called Kuwait wanted an Etienne Aigner A Logo Tote with some Havaianas Women's High Light Flip Flops, I hope its a girl.

Captain Amer T. Almajed (Kuwait airways) wished for the book "Building Safe Systems in Aviation". Hmm, makes me a little nervous about flying on Kuwait Airways.

Jordan Kuwait Bank wished for a long list of books. Books like "What the Hell Do Women Really Want: A Guide for Men in the 90s", "Flirting with Forty", "The Playbook : The Definitive Guide To Dating For Young Professional Men". Ladies, if you are looking for a job don't work for the Kuwait Jordan bank, unless you want to be hit upon.

The Kuwait Science club wished for a "Canon EOS 20Da Digital SLR Astronomical Camera". That sounds reasonable, someone might donate one to them.

Its interesting what people wish for, and more interesting to find out.

To iPhone or not to iPhone

Here is an email converstation I had with my friend MQ who is in Enlgand right now. We where talking about the merits of getting an iPhone or not.

From: MQ
Subject: Question about the iPhone

Hey there,

Before you trash this email, it's me MQ. I have a question about the iPhone. I'm thinking of getting it here in the UK. The problem is that it wouldn't do me any good if I can't use it Kuwait. I know about the jail break thingy, but I was hoping to get the full capabilities via the network.

So what gives?

Thanks.

MQ

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone


. If you are in the UK, jump over to France and get it there. French law forbids SIM locked phones. Apple always tries to break unlocked iPhones (done by something like the jailbreak hack) with each firmware upgrade.


From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Another question, I need your advice. I'm still kind of hesitant about the iPhone. I watched Job's keynote, and you know that it kind of gets you dazed for a couple of days, but when the hangover wears off, and you get back to reality and things start looking different. I was wondering, if you had a chance to check out the keynote on the new iPhone, what your thoughts are on the device. Cause I am torn between the iPhone and the HTC Diamond. What do you think? Do you have a super geeky opinion on the subject, oh king of all things geeky?

Thanks

MQ

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

I would. Go for the iPhone, but one that is not SIM locked from apple. I don't want any jailbreak bullshit hack.

Also, I would wait a few months so that they get a chance to fix all the bugs that are usually found in a new product.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Why did you choose the iPhone over the HTC Touch Diamond? Do you any particular reason for that?

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

I had an older htc mobile and the battery sucked, especially with push email. I have an ipod touch and the interface is much nicer and usable, even without a keyboard. It is also faster for email attacments. My htc got bricked after I tried downloading a large pdf file from an email.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Since the touch interface is the deal breaker, then I should settle for an iPod touch. As far as the email and email attachments go, I don't think I ever seriously used the email program on my imate, and I'm not sure if I will be using this feature on an iPhone much either. I think since you are in a corporate atmosphere, and having to travel a lot means that you rely on your email a great deal.

Any other reasons why I should get an iPhone?

MQ

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

The Safari browser is excellent and supports all that AJAX stuff and browsing
with your fingers is fun.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

So why haven't you jail broken an iPhone, and used its other features as opposed to using the iPod Touch? Also, there is still this other question you didn't answer: why should I get the iPhone, when all the features you had mentioned are in the iPod Touch. I mean I could just skip the phone feature of the iPhone, and get all the other touch, feel, coolness, and emotional relief from the iPod "Caress".

You also mentioned the browser. Opera has just "released" its beta version (hackers actually ripped off the unreleased version from the Diamond) of a super duper browser for the Windows Mobile platform. I have it now, and it rocks. Granted they have copied the coolness from the iPhone's "mini" Safari, added all the other AJAX, Flash, and pretty much all the other important regular browser plug-ins, but they have added something absolutely necessary. They made it so that when you double tap the screen, and get zoomed in, the text within the screen wraps around to the size of the screen. With the iPhone/iPod, you would have to scroll sideways if the text didn't fit the screen.

Sorry for the length of the message, your Geekyness.

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

I don't believe in jail breaking products, especially from apple. If apple does not want us to use the phone, then they can keep it. I will only buy it if it does not put on me restrictions. That's why I'd buy the French iPod because its does not have SIM lock. Also, hacked software might be fun, but one small mistake and your phone is a shiny brick. HTC still has a short battery life. Opera is my browser of choice for the desktop, and its features are always excellent. The problem with Opera on the Mac is that it still does not know how to behave with multi touch. I don't know how it will behave on the iPhone platform. Opera on the Nokia would not run youtube flash, on the htc it might be different. Safari ran all the flash stuff as if you where on a regular Mac, which is expected because the iPhone is really running a slimmed down version of OSX, which has roots in Mach Unix.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone


I was searching for information on buying an iPhone from France, and I got the following response in a forum. It should be clear that buying one from France is not worth it all.

-----


Ok well having just returned from France on Wednesday with an iPhone I can help you out here with some details.

It is certainly possible to purchase an unlocked iPhone in France. In fact as of the other day it is no longer possible to buy an unlocked iPhone in Germany leaving France as the only place in the world where this is possible.

Its a relatively involved process but achievable.

The Prerequisites:
1) Speaking French (Pretty difficult to go through the process without)
2) A French address (a friend living in France is fine)
3) A French credit card (you need this to create a French iTunes account to activate it)
4) Un ordinateur (French for computer :p)
5) Patience :)

The Process:
1) Walk into an Orange store and ask to buy an iPhone with a prepaid sim (mobicarte is their product name). This will cost you 649eur. Provide them with your valid French address (this is important). Oh, and most likely you will need to do this all in French :)
2) Purchase 100eur pre-paid credit for you mobicarte.
3) This brings the purchase price up to 749eur.
4) Wait around 4 hours for the mobicarte to become active on the network.
5) Call the mobicarte recharge number and load the 100eur credit you purchased in the store. (Simply key in the code number on the paper they give you) (Prompts are in French)
6) Fire up iTunes on your computer and create a new iTunes store account using the French address (must match the one you gave Orange when you bought the phone) and your French credit card.
7) Once you have your French iTunes account you can now activate your iPhone (this will make it fully usable as a phone/ipod/device with the Orange prepaid SIM. Just connect the iPhone to your PC via the USB cable supplied and follow the prompts in French to activate it using your iTunes account.
8) Ok so now you have an activated but still locked French iPhone. If your PC was Australian then the iPhone will be in English and it will be using the QWERTY keyboard layout. Otherwise you will need to go into the settings on the iPhone and change this from French and AZERTY (easy process).
9) Now you need to make a couple of phone calls from the iPhone to announce the IMEI (hardware phone serial number) to the Orange phone network.
10) Wait a couple more hours (2?) or the Orange call centre will not see your iPhone on the network yet.
11) Call the Orange support centre and request "desimblockage" (unlocking). This is where the 100eur credit comes into it. They deduct the 100eur unlocking fee from the prepaid phone credit you loaded. Its also worth noting here that when you buy 100eur credit you get a little extra, like 125eur due to a bonus system they have. This is useful because you dont want your test phone calls/data usage to drop the credit below 100eur or they wont unlock it for you - if in doubt or you want to play more, just buy more credit when you get the phone or at the petrol station etc.
12) Now the waiting begins.
13) Orange will send the unlock code to your French address via snail mail.
14) Once you have this code I presume you connect up the iPhone to your PC, visit the iTunes store, click a link and type the code in and voila - desimblockage!!

I say presume with step 14 because this is as far as I am up to in this process as I only bought mine last Sunday (2nd of December) and got back to Australia on Tuesday. My buddy in France emailed me today to say he called the Orange support line today and they said they mailed out the code yesterday. Unfortunately for me hes out of France for a week so I have to wait another week before my iPhone is unlocked :(

Another worthwhile tip is if you wont be in France the whole time required (7 days is the end-to-end process i believe) then call the Orange service line and ask to turn on International/Global roaming on your mobicarte so that the SIM still works in Aus, just roams as if you were visiting here from France. Not sure if this is technically necessary but it costs nothing and I wanted to guard against activation SMS's or similar that would have required the iPhone to still remain in France.

Anyways, that's enough of a post. My apologies if it is somewhat unclear but im tired :)

If you have any questions or require clarification on anything just ask.

Alex.
----

This is the website

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/873516.html

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Vive La France


I thought it would be easier, if you are willing to wait, then the French iPhones will be gradually getting in the grey market through eBay. I hate hacking an iPhone, then having Apple zapping all my fixes/hacks through a firmware upgrade.

From: MQ
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

Now I'm thinking of getting an iPod touch. It seems more logical since I can upgrade the software to 2.0 in July, and get all the software features of the iPhone. Of course, with exception to those features that uses hardware available only to the iPhone.

It seems that getting an iPhone to work as it should either requires that I go through the hassle of jail breaking it, or get setup properly through UK's O2 carrier and have an iPhone that functions as an iPod in Kuwait.

I'm definitely not liking this situation.

MQ

From: DV
Subject: Re: Question about the iPhone

That's business, that's why I got an iPod touch with 32 GB, I get all the connectivity I need through wifi, and for a Mobile I got a blackberry, which is not the best mobile, but good for doing work. I hate the blackberry but I can't live without it. :-(

Dwwen Dead

Dwwen, the blog aggregator for Arab blogs is closing down on 15 June 2008 because they could not make enough money to support themselves.

I feel bad for those guys, it was a decent site. I don't know how popular it got but I passed by from time to time.

Dear Dwwen,

Please don't die, just release your server code into the wild and let some enterprising hacker maintain it.

All the best.

Don Veto