Wala 7abeh.

A petition has been launched against the blockage of Mahmood’s Den. Please support free speech in Bahrain by signing it and sending the link to as many people as possible.

Link to petition

There is music in the meadows, in the air–
Autumn is here;
Skies are gray, but hearts are mellow,

—William Stanley Braithwaite, “A Lyric of Autumn” (1904)

We stopped to pick the leaves that cover the beds of grass behind the cafeteria on campus. It’s not the season for rainbows and hanging laundry- it’s the season for blowing leaves, cool autumn showers, and the crunchy sound of leaves crackling beneath feet.

Picture taken by Noori during our walk today;

My god, the state of internet censorship in the Arab world progressively keeps getting worse, the latest series of bad news coming from Bahrain, which just blocked one of the best blogs in the Arab world, Mahmood’s Den.

Mahmood’s Den blocking order signed by the Minister of disInformation

I mean, what the hell?

Mahmood’s Den was the very first blog I ever read in my life while Googling the closure of Big Brother Arabia in Bahrain due to “indecency”. I had no idea that it was a blog, nor did I have any idea what a blog was. I rediscovered it later on when I started reading blogs in 2004. It is one of the oldest blogs in the Arab world, as well as one of the most informative and interesting. Although internet censorship is shitty in all its forms, what makes the blocking of Mahmood’s Den much more of a pity is that Bahrain’s “Big Brother” cannot distinguish between what’s good for them and what’s bad for them.

The other sites on the list are just as depressing, because this is a sad signal that the Arab world is going backwards with tolerance years at a time. In 2005, Huda Azra Nono, a Jewish lady from the Bahraini Jewish community, was the president of Bahrain Human Rights Society. Today, a year later, Bahrain blocks the following sites:

www.freecopts.net
www.arabchurch.com
www.ladeeni.net
www.kurdtimes.com
www.annaqed.com

Copts. Arab Atheists. Arab church. Criticism. Kurds.
Tolerance = 0.
(add to that albawaba.com, which is like, WTF?)

Ahhh. The state we have reached! It really breaks my heart. Arabs. We need to wake up and smell the coffee.

11 million fricking text messages were sent in Jordan on the eve of Eid.
My God. 11 million? That’s sort of crazy, especially as the whole whopping population of Jordan is like half that number; and I didn’t send any messages so you can count one person out.

The Al-Ghad article reads, “Text messaging service (messejat) reduced the social burden on Jordanians.”

[source]

I don’t know if you’ve come across the Yahoo! Time Capsule yet, but if you haven’t, you have 10 days to add your memories and experiences to this experiment. I
The Time Capsule is organized around ten themes: Love, Sorrow, Anger, Faith, Beauty, Fun, Past, Hope, Now, and You. Each theme is in the form of an open-ended question: What do you love? What makes you sad? What makes you angry? What do you believe in? What’s beautiful? What’s fun? What do you remember? What is your wish? Describe your world. Who are you? People respond to these questions in five simple ways – with words, pictures, videos, sounds, and drawings.

I was so pleased when I saw Hisham’s contribution to the time capsule, under the theme “Love”.

:) Sweet, is that not?

Here’s my contribution to the time capsule, under the theme love:

So what do you love? Contribute to the time capsule and drop a link :)

Tomorrow is Sunday. NOOO! Ma beddi, ma beddi, ma beddi. A week of vacation is just Not enough.

I just discovered an artist called Loren Munk, who derives his inspirations for his paintings, photography and writings from Brooklyn. His work is absolutely brilliant- colorful, graphically rich, and very full of delicious culture.

Here’s some of his work:

 
“Art History 1”, 54” x 96”, oil on linen, 2004 – 2006

“SoHo : The Center of the Art World Universe”, oil on linen, 60” x 72”, 2005 – 2006

“Skating through the 20th Century in Art History”, oil on linen, 60” x 54”, 2004 – 2005

“Aesthetic Discomfort Chart”, oil on linen, 54” x 60”, 2005 – 2006

You can see more of his work here.

I woke up to find a cute little white parcel from London laying on the keyboard. My moo cards are finally here!
I can’t get over how cute they are, they’re sooo tiny, and my flickr pictures look really good on them. Definitely not for passing out, haha.

Yay! I’m their new best friend!
Here’s what moo is all about:
“The web. You can’t touch it, write on it or put it on the mantle. You can’t hang it on the wall or pass it to the cutie on the bus and you certainly can’t give it to your mum for her birthday.MOO want to change all this.We dream up new products, personalised by your stuff on the web, that let you take that virtual life offline. We hope you like them.”
Sweet! I lurrrveee them!

Remember the Million Dollar Homepage? Well, some folks in Amsterdam are trying to do something similar which they call Artvertising. Each tile on their building’s facade is 29×35cm and 19.99 euro per tile for the advertisement to be placed on the building for one month. Yay or nay?
For me, I think I would say yay.

Around this time last year, Lina made me climb a tree. For the first time in my life. 

You know, it’s all in the details, and your choice of details says a lot about your character. So which of these accessories would you happily show off in your home, if any?

(product page)

(product page)

(product page)

product page

(product page)

I think I would choose the set of diner plates with the photographs on them. They’re really interesting.

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly love Firefox any more, I come across this list of Firefox 2 tweaks that just perfectisize it. Gone are the tab close buttons on each individual tab!
Check out some of the tweaks that can make your life better.

I just downloaded Firefox 2 and naturally, I love it. There’s a new Web 2.0-ish shiny glass like look that looks more sophisticated than before, and I love how they only “refreshed” the visuals, rather than changed their positions like the IE team did with IE7, which makes for a terrible user experience, at least for myself. I mean, what’s the stop button doing on the far right corner of IE? Are they serious?

They also have this awesome spell check built into the actual browser, and although I’m rather proud of my spelling capabilities, it is really great for typos and slips, and it gives the Word processing vibe. Most of my extensions work on Firefox 2, save for a few which I mostly won’t need now anyway as they are built into the new version. The only thing I will miss is the Highlighter extension.

The only thing I dislike about it is that the close button for each tab is placed on its tab, rather than at the end of the tab-bar, which sort of sucks as I batch close consecutive tabs often.

Meanwhile, the rather unaesthetic cake you are looking at was actually sent to the Firefox team by none other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team as a congratulatory gesture on the occasion of the launch of Firefox 2.

Touché.

Long live Firefox!

Here’s the download page to Firefox 2, which is packed with new features including a visual refresh, session restore, enhanced search, improved tabbed browsing, and even a spell check among other stuff.

And here’s where my dad will jump in, “Kol 7ada? That’s not a phrase”, so I will also say it correctly as well, Eid Mubarak, but that sounds kind of boring doesn’t it?

… but these seriously must be my favorite pair EVER. I mean, oh, my God, I’m so in love with them that I can’t take them off.

How gorgeous are they? I’ve been wanting a pair like this for a very long time, and I’ve seen several models in several places, but they never have my shoe size!

This morning, my mother and I went shopping, and I saw this gorgeous pair in Stradivarius Sweifieh, but they typically didn’t have my shoe size. Then later at night, I went to the mall with my mother and Omar “just for the heck of it”, and I ended up walking into Stradivarius (I can never resist, they always have fantastic window displays), and there they are. In size 40. I had a party right then and there.

YAY! Today was such an awesome shopping day… Now that winter is here and it’s chilly, I realized that I don’t have any “chilly” clothes- all of mine are either hard-core winter or just regular summer stuff, so I was in desperate need for some tops that are for this time of the year. I ended up buying most of the things from Stradivarius, who have a really gorgeous autumn/winter collection. They even have a lot of winter shorts.

The mall is amazingly lively, I can’t believe how CROWDED it is. We left at around 12:00 AM, and it was no where to walk although the shops were already closing.

So Jordan announced that tomorrow is the final day of Ramadan, while many other Muslim countries (dare I say most?) are celebrating the first day of Eid tomorrow.
The guy who announces these things on tv is terrible at it. He talks and talks and talks about God and the sky and the scientists and judgement day and good actions and Muslims and Jordan and the Quran and the poor and great and the Hashemites and every single other topic in this world for 20 minutes before he says the two words everyone is waiting to hear. Ya3ni why the anticipation? It’s not a thriller, is it?
So yeah, one more day.

I just watched this really cool documentary about the modern evolution of blondeness, starting from the modern classic Blondie, and ending with Gwen Stefani, which was dubbed the post-modern blonde.

   Blondie (70’s-80’s)

who influenced

Madonna (80’s-90’s)

who in turn influenced the
appearance of blond subcategories
in the 90’s and 00’s

       The Dumb Blonde    The Innocent Blonde  The Naughty Blonde
        

and the

The All-Kinds-of-Blond Blonde
 

Gwen Stefani
 (and I love her style, it’s awesome, if I was a stylish person,
which I’m not, she would so be my style icon)

and of course, we can never forget the

                                                               Blonde-Gone-Wrong

Lindsay Lohan

or the Arab counterparts to blondeness

The Dumb Blonde

Ana Dana Ana Dandan

The Blonde Gone Wrong

Amal Hejazi

The Mummy

Sabooha

So, yeah. I think I’m going blonde soon. There’s just so much… diversity.

Matthew Charles Mullenweg (b. January 11, 1984 in Houston, Texas) is the founding developer of the popular open-source blogging software WordPress.

Looking at that sentence on Wikipedia makes me feel like a grade A underachiever. Damnit. That guy is literally one of the things that shaped the internet as we know it today, and heck, I can even go as far as saying that he is almost changing the world.
He’s 22. I’m 21. What have I done with my life?

N: Did you pray yesterday on Laylet il Qader?
S and me: No
N: My God, you guys are horrible! Even my mother prayed.
Me: But you guys are Christian, why would your mother pray on a very Muslim thing?
N: She says it is Laylet il Qader, God doesn’t only opens the Gates of Heaven for Muslims.

:)

So while doing my evening round of blog reading, I discover that 3 blogs have some interesting hijab-related posts today:

“… wearing the veil has become the epitome of close-mindedness and backwardness; it is a common misconception these days that if a woman is wearing the veil, she cannot be sophisticated or open minded and by default is oppressed and does not own her decisions. 60% of Jordanian women are oppressed because they are veiled; I find this silly and not logical.”

Women & the Veil!! in Mind

I’m not too pleased that some have chosen to label her as the ‘Muslim’ Barbie or doll. I don’t think that is necesarily correct. Someone saw a niche/potential and created her. Arab kids are identifiying with her because she looks less foreign that is all.

LoneHighLander

And finally, the Big Pharoah reports that Egyptian actress Hala Sheeha has decided to wear the NIQAB, and so has recently gone from this:

to this:

to now this:

Hmmm. I wonder what those preachers are telling women in Egypt.

Here’s a thought-worthy exerpt from the news article: “Amer Mounib says that in the movie Hala [which she last acted in] plays a disciplined and great character, and during the shooting she was an ideal person in every way. Amer inexplicitly said that Hala has  indeed wore the Niqab.”

How the hell do you act wearing the niqab? Seriously? And what’s with the whole “disciplined” and “great character” stuff? So does  covering your face automatically means that such buzzlines have to be used whenever your name is mentioned? Ye.

Ahh, how I love Firefox! It makes life so beautiful.

I’m currently typing this post on a really cool Performancing blogging extension for Firefox. On the top right corner of my browser I have a Google search bar that allows me to search for anything I want. The links that I use often are conveniently placed side by side on my toolbar. The browser’s footer is also packed with goodies that I have downloaded for my Firefox browser.

I thought I’d share these goodies (which are actually extensions) with all, perhaps some of them will make your life more beautiful.

Highlighter:

This extension is sooo useful for researching, especially when it comes to tedious articles that blab on and on and on and on. It works like an actual highlighter, you just highlight the text you want in whatever color you want and that seriously saves a lot of time and effort.
My usefulness rating:
 
(get it here)

Tweak Network Settings

Firefox has a couple of hidden network settings. With this extension, you can tweak these settings, and you might be able to speed up the loading of web pages.
My usefulness rating:
 
(get it here)

Search Plugins Hack:

Adds a menu to the search plugins drop-down list, which allows quickly deleting unneeded plugins. I like it because I hate it when stuff get too crowded (not that I ever bother to do anything about that but just in case).
My usefulness rating:
 
(get it here)

Google Blogger Web Comments

This extension takes its feed from Google Blog Search and makes it easy to see what bloggers are saying about any page you’re viewing in Firefox, and if you have a Blogger account, it has a link to post about the page without leaving the page you’re on. Nefty, although I think Google Blog Search sucks.
My usefulness rating:
 
(get it here)

Bug Me Not

This is an absolutely brilliant extension for BugMeNot.com, which was created to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/ demographic information (such as the New York Times). Features: multiple login attempts, failure reporting, and auto-submittal.
My usefulness rating:
 
(get it here)

Crash Recovery

Crash Recovery recovers all tabs and windows after a crash, and it is actually extremely useful. For example, if your PC decides to shut down, you won’t lose your meticulously organized tabbed windows, and if you come across a website that screws the browser, all you gotta do to not lose everything else is force a quit and then everything opens again and works perfectly well.
My usefulness rating:
 
(get it here)

Internet Explorer Tab

An excuse to NEVER EVER open Internet Explorer again! Fantastic is that not? If you come across a website that doesn’t render properly on Firefox (thanks to stupid programmers), all you have to do is click on the little Firefox icon in the footer of the browser to switch the rendering to IE view. It even works with tabs and all.
My usefulness rating:
 
(get it here)

Web Developer Extension

This is probably my favorite extention ever. I love it so much that I can’t even imagine life without it. It makes everything SO easy.
It is jampacked with so many features that I use on almost daily use for things that have absolutely no relation to web development. Some of its wonderful features:
- live CSS editing (Oh. My. God. It’s magical I swear.)
- CSS disabling (for the CSS-naked view)
- image tools including dimensions of images on a site, image outlining, image information, and more wonderful tools.
- live HTML editing!
- resizing site
- view source tab
- validate tabs
Yum.
My usefulness rating: (I’d totally give it ten stars if I can!)
 
(get it here)

Google Toolbar

 My favorite feature in this extension is the Send with GMail feature, because I heart GMail. I also enjoy the spellchecker, word translator, page rank display, word find, and highlight search items. Simple features, but they really do make a difference.
My usefulness rating: (I’d totally give it ten stars if I can!)
 
(get it here)

Video Downloader

For those times when you wished you could rip that movie off youtube, and who hasn’t wished that at some point or another?
My usefulness rating: (I’d totally give it ten stars if I can!)
 
(get it here)

Performancing Blog Editor

Another absolutely brilliant extension, and one that actually lives up to its slogan- blogging really did just get easier. It supports all major blogging softwares and is full with really awesome features that make using Wordpress a lot more enjoyable:
- full WYSIWYG and source editing (both of which are a lot better than the ones that are in Wordpress)
- save as notes (like drafts, except it autosaves)
- manage all your blog accounts
- technorati support
- delicious integration
- Image upload and FTP (the ftp bit is wonderful)
- stats
Bonus: If you get this extension too, you also get flickr integration!
My usefulness rating:
 
(get it here)

So, that’s it for now folks, care to share your extensions with us? I love a good extension!

I HEART Firefox :)

It sort of scares me because there’s an excessive amount of life only a few meters above. I can also imagine days when there was a lot of energy inside these locker rooms under what was once the Faculty of Physical Education. Today it’s just ruins. The lockers were broken open while leaving their locks intact. There are traces of personals in the lockers… someone had covered his with flower-patterened wrapping paper.

The Forbes Arabia Top 40 Arab Brands list looks at companies that not only have created strong brands in Arab countries, but that are gaining recognition worldwide.

1. Al Jazeera (Qatar)

2. Emirates Group (UAE)

3. Al-Marai (Saudi Arabia)

4. Al Arabiya (Saudi Arabia)

5. Afia (Saudi Arabia)

6. Americana (Kuwait)
7. Burj Al Arab (UAE)
8. Fine (Jordan)
9. Jarir Bookstore (Saudi Arabia)
10. Emaar (UAE)
11. Qatar Airways (Qatar)
12. Gulf Air (Bahrain)
13. Aramex (Jordan)
14. LBC (Lebanon)
15. Patchi (Lebanon)
16. Rotana (Saudi Arabia)
17. Future Television (Lebanon)
18. Etihad Airways (UAE)
19. Kudu (Saudi Arabia)
20. Rotana Hotels (UAE)
21. Gandour (Lebanon)
22. Thuraya (UAE)
23. Ajmal (UAE)
24. Al-Islami (UAE)
25. Kassatly Chtaura (Lebanon)
26. Gulfa (UAE)
27. Air Arabia (UAE)
28. Wataniya Telecom (Kuwait)
29. Mikyajy (Saudi Arabia)
30. Nakheel (UAE)
31. Mecca Cola (Tunisia)
32. Milco (UAE)
33. Melody (Egypt)
34. Al-Tazaj (Saudi Arabia)
35. Fayrouz (Egypt)
36. Splash (Indian-owned, based in UAE)
37. Jashanmal (Bahrain)
38. Two Apples (Egypt)
39. Al Rawabi (UAE)
40. Orascom Construction Industries (Egypt)

(Link)

14 of these brands are Emarati.