It’s been a while since we had a Tunisian blogger meetup, so I think it’s about time we organize one soon.
As it’s Ramadan, I’m thinking we could all meet and have dinner together somewhere nice.
So, what do you guys think?
And when do you think we should have it?
And do you have any suggestions for good restaurants that serve a delicious meal at accessible prices?
Please leave a comment or email me with your suggestions and ideas.
Continuing it’s startup shopping spree, Yahoo has gone on and acquired Upcoming.org, the online event planning site that we’ve been using to organize the Tunisian blogger meetups lately.
Los Angeles-based Upcoming acts as a social calendar that depends on its users to post free listings about a wide range of upcoming events, from local rock concerts to picnics in the park.
The site, founded by Andy Baio, provides tools that enable users to share observations about the events and identify common areas of interests.
Yahoo says that it plans to keep Upcoming’s current Web site separate, but eventually will incorporate much of the content into its own site to bolster its local search capabilities.
Yahoo is undergoing a big makeover and trying to make itself a cool company again. I hope it succeeds and doesn’t end up screwing up all these good services it’s been acquiring.
[More: Yahoo News]
The U.N. nuclear watchdog and its head, Mohamed El Baradei, won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their efforts to limit the spread of atomic weapons.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee picked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and El Baradei, an Egyptian, from a record field of 199 candidates.
It praised El Baradei as an “unafraid advocate” of measures to strengthen non-proliferation efforts.
The two had been among favorites for the award on the 60th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
Nobel Committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes said that the prize was not meant as a veiled criticism of Washington, which has often been at odds with ElBaradei on Iraq.
I personally do not agree that the IAEA or El Baradei deserve this award.
They’re far from being objective, unbiased and solely dedicated to the cause of promoting a nuclear free world.
Before the Iraq war, they didn’t do enough to stress that Iraq didn’t have any WMDs and that there was no reason for war, and now the same is happening with Iran with them complicating things and not cooperating enough with Iran.
They’re just another puppet agency in my point of view.
[Source: CNN]
Today on our way back from a work meeting, a friend told me about this new service in Tunisia called “Le DVD Mobile” (The Mobile DVD).
“Le DVD Mobile” is a sort of Tunisian Netflix. It’s a service that delivers rented DVDs to your doorstep.
The process is as follows: You subscribe online to one of their plans, and then order DVDs, from their catalog, either online, by SMS or by phone.
The DVDs are then delivered to your doorstep the following day, and then collected again from your doorstep according to the date you specify when you ordered them.
Another option is that the DVDs get sent to you through the Tunisian post, and then you send them back by post too in the pre-stamped parcel that comes with them.
Their prices are very interesting and competitive, they have movies that were newly released on DVD, and the timing of delivery and flexibility is great.
What else could anyone want?
I’ll sure be checking them out.
I’m really happy to see such services pop up in Tunisia and I truly hope more people will try to use the internet to make their businesses more exciting, more accessible, more flexible and more competitive.
Programmer to Team Leader:
“We can’t do this proposed project. **CANNOT**. It will involve a major design change and no one in our team knows the design of this legacy system. And above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which this application has been written. So even if somebody wants to work on it, they can’t. If you ask my personal opinion, the company should never take these type of projects.”
Team Leader to Project Manager:
“This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don’t have any staff with experience in this type of work. Also, the language is unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we take this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a project of this nature.”
Project Manager to 1st Level Manager:
“This project involves a design change in the system and we don’t have much experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we might be able to do the project but we would need more time than usual to complete it.”
1st Level Manager to Senior Level Manager:
“This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who have worked in this area and others who know the implementation language. So they can train other people. In my personal opinion we should take this project, but with caution.”
Senior Level Manager to CEO:
“This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in remodeling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some people have already given in-house training in this area to other staff members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip by us under any circumstances.”
CEO to Client:
“This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients. Trust me when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry for doing this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can execute this project successfully and well within the given time frame.”
Wi-Fi is barely starting in Tunisia, apart from three airports and a very few hotels here and there, it’s unlikely you’ll come across any wireless hotspots.
This post is more about some of my ideas and thoughts on how WiFi internet can get off the ground and become a reality in Tunisia.
Maybe it’s a bit too early, as even broadband connections are still not that wide-spread yet between home users, but we’re on the way there, and we can allow ourselves to look a bit to the future.
As with anything like this, government entities should be and are the first to encourage such ideas.
The airport authority have invested in providing Wi-Fi internet in three main airports; Tunis-Carthage, Monastir and Djerba-Zarzis.
I think that is great so that passengers on their way in or out of Tunisia can have access to the internet.
I also think it’s important for government entities that are involved with international trade and business, like the CEPEX and FIPA for example, to provide WiFi internet in their buildings so that foreign businessmen, investors and officials can easily access their emails, extranets and more.
And of course, I suppose the Kram fair building will be equipped with Wi-Fi internet for the WSIS in November.
Google is making a bid to build a San Francisco-wide free wifi network, according to company officials. The company filed documents in response to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
Finally got the bit about me in the Dutch Computer Idee blogger article scanned, thanks to Eman…
So here it is:
Anyone got any idea what it says? lol…
So the holy month of Ramadan is on the doorstep, starting tomorrow or the day after, depending on whether they see the crescent today or not.
Now, just this once, I want to get this whole crescent thing off my chest because it’s bugging the hell out of me!
Every year, religious insititutions in all Muslim countries go out and start looking out for the crescent that marks the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan. But of course, they won’t all be able to see the crescent from all over the world on the same day, and we end up with Muslim countries starting the month on different days and ending it on different days too.
Ramadan should start and end on the same day for all Muslims, I think it’s wrong the way things are going now.
Some people suggest we all follow Saudi Arabia, and some others think that if one country declares it has seen the crescent then all countries should declare the beginning of Ramadan.
But then second thoughts, politics, international relations get in the way of those ideas.
I personally think the solution would be for all Muslim countries to get behind one International Muslim Institution, that has among its duties the watch for the crescent in all Muslim countries and declaring Ramadan for the whole world.
Such an institution would have members from all over the Muslim world, and also serve as a central for Muslim scholars to debate and issue religious decrees (Fatwas) for the whole Muslim world, avoiding having scattered scholars issuing different and conflicting decrees on their own.
This would also eliminate the risk of having rogue self-claimed scholars issuing decrees for their own benefits and influencing Muslim youth.
Of course, Muslim countries’ adherence to Islam varies and so a decree that would be accepted in one country might not be in the other, but that’s politics not religion.
In the end, and when it comes to religious matters in our time, I think that it’s important to have one centralized source. Whether the country chooses to apply the decree or not is something else, but the source should be one.
This post turned out something a lot different from what I had in mind when I started writing it, but well that’s the beauty of writing I guess. you start somewhere and end up somewhere else.
Anyway, this is my opinion, maybe a bit optimistic or even unrealistic, but well we can still dream.
Anyway, I’ll be tuning in to the news today to see the Mufti (Head scholar) of Tunisia announce whether Ramadan starts tomorrow or the day after.
In either case, Ramadan Mubarak to everyone. May it be a happy and blessed month for you all.
Update: Ramadan in Tunisia starts on Wednesday, and started on Tuesday for most other countries.
The guys from 37signals have gone on and released another nice light web application called “Whiteboard”.
Writeboard is an online collaborative writing application, through which you can write alone or with a team of writers, keeping different versions of the document along the way, comparing versions, sharing it, emailing it and exporting it as text.
It’s simple, no bells and whistles, just a place to write your text unformatted and work on it until you’re happy with it.
This new app follows the same path as their previous ones Basecamp, Backpack and Ta-da List, in a sense that it makes your life easier and more organized, both solo and in a team.
Bravo to 37Signals for rolling out these small, very useful apps that are helping us all get more organized in our personal and professional lives.
