Archive for October, 2007

Basatah.com and ibasatah.com now open!!

// October 25th, 2007 // 7 Comments » // Personal

I am proud to announce that basatah.com and ibasatah.com are now officially open. There are a few things that need fixing, like:

- The page’s download speed: Some have complained about the page’s download speed. The problem is that when you open the site, it checks it’s cache files. If the files are less that 3 minutes old, then it will go fetch the latest links for the RSS feeds, and that causes the page to load a little slower than usual. The way to solve this problem is that I will always let the user get the links from basatah’s cache files. While updating the links will be from a cron job. This will make the site load alot faster in sha allah.

- The Colors: A few complained about the colors, although I’m personally in love with those colors. Since the website is for the public to enjoy, then I guess i’ll add another background color feature which can be chosen though a little button next to the website’s banner.

- Clickable Website Titles: Rayed mentioned this as a comment to one of my past posts. I know its easy and it doesn’t take time, but i’m really busy because I’m leaving Saudi pretty soon in sha allah.

- Link iBasatah and Basatah to same cache files: ibasatah has its own separate cache files which makes me fetch each link twice, once for Basatah and once for iBasatah, and that uses too much of my bandwidth.

I’ll try to fix these problems as soon as I settle down after my trip in sha allah…

PS iBasatah is designed for the iphone, and after clicking on it it takes you to basatah.com/iphone…

Microsoft Genious!! Zune 1 = Zune 2

// October 18th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

Many of you have probably already heard of the all new Zune. The first Zune made the iPod look like a cheap useless toy! Then came the iPod touch, and that made people regret buying the zune!

I personally was totally upset because Microsoft promised firmware updates for the Zune and the marketplace! They said they would support podcasts, but that never happened.

Here are Zune2’s features:
- Smaller and thinner than the original Zune.

- The sharing feature is being expanded so you can send music AND “other media” to other Zunes. The shared songs have no expiration date and can be shared again with other people, but the same 3 play limitation is still there.
- There’s additional video codec support as well: h.264 and MPEG4. You don’t have to convert all your stuff to WMV.
- The ability to use the zune’s wifi to sync to yuor PC!!
- Supports podcasts.

- Connects and syncs with Microsoft Media Center. So you can watch some of your content on Media Center, and when your not home, just watch it on your Zune!

The surprise was that Microsoft was trying to come up with a way to satisfy it’s customers and make Steve Jobs and Apple look really bad!! They announced that they will release a new firmware for the first Zune that will make it function like the new Zune for free!! Unbelievable!! So what Microsoft is saying “if you already have a Zune, you don’t need to buy the new one for its new “software”, just download the firmware!! but if you want more capacity then you might want to get the new 80GB version!!
For more

all I can say is “Microsoft, you have totally redeemed yourself!!“

My Latest Project: Basatah +iBasatah

// October 12th, 2007 // 7 Comments » // Personal

I’ve been working on a website for a while now, and since you’ve come to my blog I’ll give you a sneak peek…

I made this website and I called it Basatah (it means simplicity). One of my favorite websites is a website called popurls, and I liked the website’s idea so much I made an arabic version of it. What this website basically does is that is fetches RSS feeds of popular arabic websites, and unlike many RSS readers outhere like google reader you don’t need to login to see your RSS feeds everything is there by default (I just hate logins!! I think I have like 400 passwords)…

I also made an iPhone webapp, and I called it iBasatah. It has the same content as Basatah, but without the videos and pictures. It also meets the standards set by Apple’s own native iPhone apps. Now I’m not sure but I think its the first arabic iPhone webapp :)

Check both of them out and let me know what you think. If there are websites that you suggest I add, just leave them in the comments please. The domains of these websites will be Basatah.com, Basatah.net, and iBasatah.com.

PS I know the logo looks kind of dull. I went to a designer to come up with a good logo, and I should get it sometime next week.

EidMubarak.cpp

// October 11th, 2007 // 7 Comments » // Personal, tech

# include < iostream >
using std::cout;
using std::endl;

int main ()
{

cout<< "I just got the news that tomorrow is eid alfitir" << endl;

for(int n=0; n<1000; n++)
cout<< "Eid Mubarrak" << endl;

cout<< "May allah accept our good deeds, and forgive us for all our sins" << endl;

return 0;
}

Starbuck Raises Prices in Saudi Arabia

// October 8th, 2007 // 6 Comments » // Personal

Last week I went to Starbucks after Taraweeh. I asked for the usual grande caramel machiato and handed the cashier 15 Riyals, thinking the prices was 14 Riyals. The price has been 14 Riyals for years, and even though it’s considered a bit expensive compared to other cafes here, it’s still worth every halalah!

The cashier tells me that their prices have changed as of today. The price was now 17 Riyals, thats about a 20 % increase in the price!!

The barista gives me my cup, and he says “How, are you boss? Did you see our new prices? They changed them today…” so I say “but thats about 20%, why did they change the prices?“, then he says “it’s because the deli companies raised their prices 15%“…

As an “almost” everyday customer. That really does make a difference! Lets say I go to Starbuck 250 times a year, that’s about 750 Riyals a year.

Here is a list of the number of starbucks branches all over the world:

click on the image to enlarge