Feras’s Blog

My New Video Player!

// September 30th, 2006 // No Comments » // Information, me, tech

At last, I have my own flash player. Now I can play some of my favorite flv videos, which means I can now host my favorite youtube videos, then show you them here (youtube is blocked by ISU in Saudi Arabia). Anyways, I thought I would start by showing you a video clip of a very talented young boy reciting “surat ya-seen” from the holy quran.

The only thing that I’m afraid of is exceeding my bandwidth. So , I will be deleting old videos a few days after posting them. If you are interested in adding a flash video player to your site, then I guess I’ll write a tutorial about it pretty soon (i’ll try before eid in sha allah).

ONE CARD ?! Liars

// September 28th, 2006 // 6 Comments » // uncategorized

When it comes to long distance calls I like use an internet calling card. I usually use phoneserve. It’s prices are pretty cheap and their services are perfect.

Last Monday I went to Jarir and to a few other stores, but I couldn’t find it. They told me that I could find phoneserve cards at “haraj al-olaya”. That night I went to Gurnata mall, and when I passed “mashail alkhaleej” I saw that they had a card called “OneCard“. When you buy a card you get access to about 25 services like paltalk, zajoul, ALO, etc.. After you get the card, you can choose how to spend the money in your card. Anyways, I got the card because phoneserve was one of the services they offer.

After I got home I opened their website and to my surprise phoneserve was not on the list of services. I called the 800 number, and when I asked why phoneserve wasn’t on the list, he told me that they don’t offer phoneserve services anymore. I told him that it says on the card I bought that you offer phoneserve!!

Ok, that was my story with onecard. After I hungup I started looking for any other way to spend the money I spent on their dumb card!! I can’t buy a DSL card because I don’t have DSL. I can’t buy a dialup card because I don’t use dialup cards. I don’t want to get an SMS card because I like to send my SMS messages from my mobile phone. I don’t want to buy a hosting card because I only deal with godaddy. AND I don’t want a zawaj website card because it’s lame and only losers buy those stuff!!

Now imagine how many people got tricked into buying onecard’s card, because they wanted services that onecard “said” they offered. I hate being ripped off, so I decided to send their support team an email asking for a refund. I still haven’t received an answer from them and I’m not sure they will…

Ramadan Headaches

// September 25th, 2006 // 1 Comment » // Information, me

Fasting Ramadan is difficult at the beginning of the month. And each year it seems to become more and more difficult, or maybe it just seems that way.I wrote about the same thing last year.

Alot of people suffer headaches during Ramadan, especially during the first days. One of the biggest reasons behind these headaches is that people are used to drinking coffee, and through the year they become addicted to caffeine. This year I decided to try to search for a solution for these headaches.

I searched the internet and I found a few articles that were based upon personal experience. I read an article on alsaha. The guy says that these headaches come from low blood sugar (caused by hunger) or caffeine addiction. He proposes a solution to stop these headaches, so here are the steps he suggested:

1. eat “sahur” three hours before fajer.
2. eat alot a food during sahur, especially food that stays a long time in your stomach (he suggested fool, but I wouldn’t ).
3. drink alot of coffee or tea to fill your blood with caffeine. (how am I supposed to sleep when I have had alot of caffeine?)

I searched the internet more for something more professional, with medical facts. Then I came upon a paper written by a cousin of mine, i’m serious. He’s a doctor at King Fahd National Guard Hospital. The paper’s title was “The first-of-Ramadan headache“. Here is the paper’s abstract:

This study was designed to estimate the frequency and characteristics of headaches occurring on the first day of Ramadan (Moslems’ fasting month) and to determine possible causes. One hundred fifty copies of a specially designed questionnaire were distributed on the second day of fasting to a random sample of hospital staff. Completed questionnaires were obtained from 116 subjects (77%). Headaches were reported by 37 (41%) of the 91 persons who had fasted as compared to 2 (8%) of those 25 who did not fast (P = .002). The headache was of tension type in 78% of the cases. Headache frequency increased with the duration of fasting and affected mainly those prone to have headaches, more particularly of the tension type and the most important exogenous-associated factor was caffeine withdrawal. Other factors such as lack of sleep, hypoglycemia, and dehydration may have been contributory in a small number of cases. A progressive reduction of caffeine consumption in the weeks preceding the month of Ramadan and a cup of strong coffee just before the start of the fast may prevent the occurrence of first-of-Ramadan headache.

You can download the paper from Here, but it will cost you 39 USD

Ramadan

// September 24th, 2006 // 5 Comments » // uncategorized

اللهم كما بلغتنا رمضان فأعنا على صيامه و قيامة على الوجه الذي يرضيك عنا. اللهم اجعله شهر نصر و عزة للاسلام و المسلمين. اللهم اجعلنا و والدينا و من له حق علينا من عتقائك من النار في هذا الشهر الكريم.

~ Coffee Art ~

// September 21st, 2006 // 3 Comments » // Information

I was at a cafe a few days ago, and I was abit amazed by the beautiful designs they make when pouring milk into the latte. Last year I was at a cafe here in Riyadh, and I was talking to this Filipino barista (The guy that makes the coffee) and he said that he can make me any design I want. What he really meant was that he can make butterflies or leaves

I searched the internet for the best coffee art designs and I was amazed by what I found. Did you know that there were contests where baristas are given esspresso machines and asked to make coffee art!! If you want to see how this art is made click on the video link below (it’s on google video). Here are some of the best coffee art designs I found (if you can open flickr click on the gallery link below, you’ll find tons of outstanding designs).

Outstanding Coffee Art by Ryan Spinoglio

Colleen’s sporting mad skills

amazing latte art

click on the above image to see a step by step guide on how to make it

Coffee Art tutorial
Coffee art video
A huge gallery of amazing Coffee Art

Zune is almost here!

// September 17th, 2006 // No Comments » // tech

Rumors say that the Zune (Microsoft’s MP3 player) will be in markets by November, and from the picture above you can see that the design is finalized and that Microsoft has begun producing Zunes in large quantities. I was an ipod fan myself and I thought that Zune wouldn’t stand a chance, but after seeing a videoclip of Zune’s incredible interface and their designs and colors, I truly think that Zune might take over ipod’s market. Here are a few images of Zune’s deigns and colors. The brown is my favorite!!

All I can say is “wow!!”

The only thing that makes ipods better in my opinion is the rather small size of their ipod nano. ipod also has a huge variety of accessories, while you might have to wait awhile for Zune’s accessories.

Zune’s interface. It’s about 41 MB

Coolest Cup

// September 14th, 2006 // No Comments » // Information

If there is something I can’t resist, it’s an icy cold glass mug of coca-cola. Like Pizza-Hut’s coca cola glass cups, I just find them irresistible. That’s why I flipped when I saw this “cool” glass mug.

Imagine a glass that is basically made of ice to keep your coca-cola (or other beverage of choice) just below freezing temperature! Sound good? Well that’s what you get with the Ice Tankard, a hard-wearing acrylic pint glass filled with a clear, non-toxic gel that freezes into one big ice block of a mug!

Ice Tankards cost about 18 USD (set of 2)

Google Headquarters

// September 13th, 2006 // No Comments » // tech

As I was browsing the internet a few days ago, I came upon a few images from Google’s Mountain View headquarters in California. Here are images of their incredible architecture!!

PS All the images are from flikr, but since it’s closed I had to host them…

Kenwood USB Compatible Car Radios

// September 11th, 2006 // No Comments » // tech

It’s about time someone made a USB compatible car radio…

It’s getting considerably easier to access your digital music collection from your car’s audio system. Whether it be the car manufacturers themselves, or third party automotive sound system makers, you are now able to either play MP3 CDs, plug your iPod directly and access its controls, or even use flash based memory cards preloaded with your music. And in what may be the best option yet, Kenwood is releasing four car radio models that allow you to connect any USB drive and access all your music goodness.

There’s no word on pricing or availability yet.

via OhGizmo

Loneliness

// September 1st, 2006 // No Comments » // friends, life, me

Graduating from college is something I’ve been waiting for since my first day in kindergarten. As a child this day seemed so far I never thought it would come. But now that it has come, it’s not as good as it seems! It’s scary, freaky, and LONELY. It’s scary and freaky because there are so many ways you can go, but it’s really difficult to decide were to go next. I thought I had it all figured out, but once you graduate and you start getting “nice” paying job offers, then that kind of starts to play with your head.

One of the biggest things that I hate about graduating is that it’s LONELY. I realized a few days ago that most of my friends will not be in Riyadh anymore! Three of my dearest friends will be going to the military, one went to Australia yesterday, and one went to Canada yesterday. They have all been really great friends, they have been there for me when I needed them the most, and I will miss them alot.

May Allah join us all back together in AlFirdous.