Author: Mohamed Marwen Meddah

Mohamed Marwen Meddah is a Tunisian-Canadian, web aficionado, software engineering leader, blogger, and amateur photographer.

Flickr To Offer Print Service

Finally…

Flickr, the online photo service owned by Yahoo, is gearing up to launch a new print-on-demand service.

Flickr will partner with Qoop to offer a service that lets users select photos and formats to be printed into bound books.

Those who want to publish books can sell their books on their own Web sites or through online ads, including a link that takes the buyer to Qoop for payment processing, ordering and fulfillment.

[Source: internetnews]

This is great news. I’ve been wanting to be able to sell some of my photos online for some time now, and I hoped Flickr would do something like this.

Anyway, It’d be good if the end user could also have the choice of choosing which photos he wants to print and buy, with the original photographer getting a cut of the payment.

links for 2005-06-15

How many languages in your music collection?

Inspired by Kottke, I’ve counted how many languages are used in my music collection and found the following.

– English: Most of the songs.
– Arabic: A lot of artists.
– French: A lot of artists.
– Italian: Eros Ramazotti, Zucherro, Laura Pausini…
– Spanish: Manu Chao, Shakira, Il Divo, Enrique Iglesias…
– Turkish: Tarkan and others.
– Urdu (Pakistani): Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan
– Hindu: Punjabi MC, and others…
– German: Mo-Do, Die Toten Hosen…
– Thai: I can’t remember the name of the guy. (I got his album when I was visiting Thailand.)
– Latin: Enigma, Era…
– Russian: Tatu
– Gaelic: Enya
– Portuguese: Nelly Furtado
– Chinese: Don’t really know the names.

I’m sure there are a lot more languages here and there in my music collection, but well these are the ones I found now.

How many languages can you find in your music collection?
Post your list or a link to your blog post in the comments.

Atonement – Ian McEwan

I finished reading “Atonement” by Ian McEwan today.

When I bought this book a few months ago, I had never heard of it nor its writer. I started reading it and the first couple of chapters didn’t really get me that attached to the book as it was mostly character development, so I kept leaving it for a while and coming back a number of times. That’s until the story picked up and things started becoming interesting, then really interesting, then amazing and I was sucked in.

This is a truly great book. The characters feel so real and are so well developed you feel as if you’ve known them for years. The story is amazing and very well told in a fascinating writing style.

It tells the story of a 13 year old English girl (Briony) who lets her imagination overwhelm her judgement leading to close family ties being irreparably severed, and a promising young man’s (Robbie) prospects being destroyed.
The book goes on to track Robbie’s attempts to recapture the grace of his life before the fall, and Briony’s attempts to atone for ruining his future.

The ideas I loved most in it were how with a bit of imagination a number of different versions of a story can come to life, some of them really destructive.

I also loved how the writer told the story through the characters’ eyes and thoughts. It was so beautiful.

I really recommend this book. It was actually nominated for The Booker Prize award a few years back.

Backstreet Boys – Never Gone

Yesterday, I got to hear Backstreet Boys’ new album “Never Gone” while I was at a friend’s place.

Before listening to the full album, the only song I knew from the new album was “Incomplete” which I thought was a pretty nice song.
The album mostly follows in the same footsteps.

The boys have grown up and matured and it shows in their music and lyrics, it’s no longer that annoying teen pop music (which I bet wasn’t that annoying for everyone some years ago. You know who you are :P).

I quite enjoyed the album and like the style they’re going in. Sort of a mix of soft rock and r’n’b, some nice acoustic guitar and piano here and there, easy cool tunes and very nice vocals.

One little problem though is that their name “Backstreet Boys” doesn’t quite fit them anymore.
But oh well, who cares, the name sucked from day one.

A Lot Like Love

A Lot Like LoveWe just got back from watching “A Lot Like Love“, starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet.

The movie is a light romantic comedy about two people who cross paths, make a connection, and then keep coming back to each other every now and then, with a romance growing between them.

I’m not much of an Ashton Kutcher fan, in fact I used to hate the guy’s guts, especially with Punk’d. Anyway this movie is quite nice.
It’s no cinematic masterpiece or anything, it’s just what it’s meant to be, a nice light romantic comedy.

Both lead actors do a pretty good job, and I actually liked Ashton in this role and felt he was very natural playing it. Amanda Peet, I’ve liked in all her roles up to now.

If you have some time to spare and feel like a light movie, this could be the one for you.

My score for it is: 6.5/10.

Michael Jackson Not Guilty

At last this whole thing is over, I hope…

A California jury found pop superstar Michael Jackson not guilty Monday of all charges in his child-molestation trial.

The jury deliberated about 32 hours before reaching its decision.

The verdicts were read in a packed courtroom, where a large crowd of supporters gathered outside the courthouse cheered, wept and hugged upon hearing the verdicts.

Courtroom observers reported that Jackson dabbed his eyes with a tissue after his acquittal.

[Source: CNN]

Personally, I always thought these accusations were made up. Ok, Michael Jackson has become somewhat of a weirdo over the years, but still I don’t think he’s a child molester.
Obviously this jury agree.

Now, please Michael, get your act together, get things sorted out with Sony, and give us some good music for God’s sake!

Sex Huts for the World Cup 2006

World Cup 2006 LogoDortmund, one of 12 host cities for the 2006 World Cup, is hurriedly building wooden sex huts with the aim of encouraging discretion among prostitutes and their clients.

Experts estimate as many as 40,000 prostitutes may travel to Germany to offer their services to fans during the tournament.

“The World Cup has put us under added time pressure, as we don’t want a situation where prostitutes and their clients disturb residential areas,” an official said

Dortmund plans to arrange the Dutch-designed huts, which have been introduced in the city of Cologne, another World Cup venue, in an area with condom machines and snack bar.

This is just crazy, lol…

[Source: Reuters]
[Via: 2:48AM]

The Israeli Media

“Since 1967, we have been brutal conquerors, occupiers suppressing another people…”

It is in such terms Yavin has been expressing his disgust for the Israeli occupation in the five-week series of reports “A Land of Settlers” currently being broadcast on Israeli Channel Two.

Known to Israelis as “Mr. TV”, Yavin has been the anchor of Mabat, the main news show on Israeli public television, since 1968, and has accompanied Israelis through all major political events since.

[Source: Electronic Intifada]
[Via: Je Blog]

Microsoft Bans ‘Democracy’ For China Web Users

Microsoft’s new Chinese internet portal has banned the words “democracy” and “freedom” from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending Beijing’s political censors.

Users of the joint-venture portal, formally launched last month, have been blocked from using a range of potentially sensitive words to label personal websites they create using its free online blog service, MSN Spaces.

Attempts to input words in Chinese such as “democracy” prompted an error message from the site: “This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech from this item.” Other phrases banned included the Chinese for “demonstration”, “democratic movement” and “Taiwan independence”.

First Google banned some news sources from it’s Google News for Chinese users and now MSN is banning words such as these.
I truly wonder what will come next?!

[Source: MSN Money]