Month: January 2006
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Google’s slowness problem in Jordan: a suggested solution
Google.com is still painfully slow in Jordan! Sometimes totally unusable. I’ve written many times about this and I’ve even complained to Google to no avail. Google Adsense speed is now back to normal. No problem there. I really cannot understand why this is happening. Every other search site (Yahoo, MSN, A9) is working just fine.…
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The Hummer phenomenon: what do you think of this car?
Going through my inbox, I saw this ad for the Hummer H3. I also saw several of them on show in the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai. Those who know me, know that I drive a Smart (read: I am a very-small-car guy). But, I’ve been seeing more Hummers on the streets in Amman and…
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Stuck on newsprint (or how the daily press is missing Jordan’s online conversation)
Orginally published in JO magazine In one corner a young Jordanian design student, lost in her fascination with color, was enthusiastically showing her friends a collection of pink colored artefacts, while, a few meters next to her, a hot-headed political analyst was standing on a wooden box, delivering a long speech, in which he warned…
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Wikipedia: a cause worth supporting
Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales has recently issued a personal appeal to everyone to donate to the Wikimedia foundation. Personal Appeal – Wikimedia Foundation Wikipedia is based on a very radical idea, the realization of the dreams most of us have always had for what the Internet can and should become. Thousands of people, all over…
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Al Jazeera vs. Al Arabiya: are we getting sick of the former?
First I want offer a big discralimer here: I almost watch no TV. I can honestly claim less than one hour of TV per week. Amazing but true. Nonetheless I was intrigued by the news coming out today about statistics showing Al-Arabiya is overtaking Al Jazeera in some Arab markets. This certainly reflects some of…
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toot and Arabia’s web 2.0 movement!
It seems that 2006 will be the year of the Arab web 2.0 (whatever that means ). After we launched toot, on the 1st of January, two new blogging/RSS related sites were launched: Dawwen and feedi. Arab bloggers are taking note. Check out what< a href=”http://www.hiahmad.net/blog/2006/01/14/itoot-feedi-dwwen/#more-99″>Ahmad has to say about it all (Arabic). It’s all…
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Arabic iPod?
I first thought this was a joke. I kind of have given up on Apple taking notice of the good old Arab world. But this news seems legit. Is this the start of something? Gulfnews: Arabic version of iPod to be launched soon Dubai: An Arabic version of Apple’s hugely popular iPod will hit the…
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Apple’s Jobs says Michael Dell should eat his own words
A lot of people I meet, espacially in the Middle East, have this ‘Apple is just for graphic designers’ or ‘I used to have an Apple computer, but that was 15 years ago’ attitude. I sometimes really have to go into lengthy explanations about how great Apple is actually doing. This will be some excellent…
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The future of TV, as experienced on a plane!
MEDIA | Ahmad Humeid checks out Emirates Airways ‘ice’ in-flight entertainment system If you think personal video monitors with a few channels to choose from in economy class is cool, you have seen nothing yet. On a recent flight from Dubai to Amman my family and I experienced the future of TV in mid air.…
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Dubai photo diary
Back in Amman, where Flickr is not banned. Uploaded 86 photos from our Dubai trip. No time for tagging or descriptions. Will do that in the coming few days. There is a lot to blog about too. Read these related posts on 360east: Ikbis at Photo World Dubai: stay tuned for some cool news Ramadan…
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Shopping is the new religion and malls are its cathedrals
When you hear about a mall that it probably 1.5 kilometers in length, that’s divided into zones that are themed as China, Egypt, India, Persia and so on, you might smile, cringe or do both. But after visiting the Ibn Battuta mall today convinced me I was doing neither. When one enters the Persia hall,…
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Not really an Apple Store
One of the things I was eager to visit in Dubai, was the so-called Apple store that opened last year in the new Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai. Yesterday I went there and was quite disappointed. It is branded as an Apple Center. And while it’s nice to see a store dedicated just to Apple…