5 minutes of airtime

In the silence slumber of my days, the beckoning of new knowledge hung over like a dying frustration and while still not fully satisfied, some offerings have eased me over since citing Engadget's 2010 readers choice awards thereby directing my thoughts to how did Apple scoop the majority of the awards - our ramblings over how bad the smart phone is accumalated to it being voted best smart phone with best screen display, moments later!  Its no surprise that IPAD is the best gadget of the year but with HP and RIM hitting the market shortly I wonder how long it will be before IPAD starts losing customer loyalty or market share, if it does considering that it is priced cheaper than its android counterparts. For that, I have my eye on it eagerly checking my trusted TechCrunch daily.

Whether or not Qadhafi is going to step down or Bahrainis get to live their unified need, it is a thought that since the birth of 2011, its been showcasing itself with pure unrest as we, the worlds minions decide enough is enough and once again crave our 5 minutes of air time! The international flood disaster pinned the world down in each corner and it was not long after that, that Tunisia broke three decades of status quo spurring upheaval in the rest of the arab world and while oil hit higher days courtesy of the Libya debacle, travel and tour companies suffer the loss of this freedom call and somewhere in another part of the world a 6.3 magnitude earthquake got New Zealand some live time.

Facebook, the rallying supporter whose popularity doubled after much critic over its lack of security last year leaves you wondering if it and its shadow, twitter are the real evils behind the largest arab revolution of our times together - they are both after all becoming a platform for propaganda no matter how socialistically inclined they claim to be. Would we have been able to orchestrate such a huge revolution otherwise - perhaps stemming back to paper fly outs but then again, that would have taken masses of time between designing and delivering, right? No matter how rhetorical that question might be, it does leave you thought-provoked but not for long as it's time to get back to our life and for me, that means dusty windy days here in Qatar, busy work days, lifebook4life project (check out my cool badge on the right), hayfever feelings and today the announcement of the February winners for the BluePearl Awards. During February you made an impression on me:

Life of a Muslimah - February Winner

You're new in my world but I love reading your blog and this post was the best for February

خليجية *- February Winner

خليجية * all of your posts are just lovely but this was my favourite

Strangers Diary & Reviving of Sunnah - February Winner

I don't comment much on your blogs but I read both each time a new post comes out and I love them with this one being my favourite this month. 

BosnishMuslimah - February Winner

No matter which blog I go to (even my very own) I notice that you take the time to comment with only great words. In your own blog, thank you for all the wonderful informative posts about Bosnia during February

Congratulations ladies for making a difference!

One last thing, Amira, Mustika, RiaLive and RoseWater thanks for the Stylish blogger award, I appreciate it but I wont be posting it again as I already have it and to Sabirah, Happy Birthday dear darling - have fun today:)

I am beautiful

When I do envy another because of beauty or circumstances greater than mines I should reassure myself of how fortunate I am by looking to someone who has less than me, thanking Allah for the beauty He gave me...Allah fashioned me with a different beauty to the next.

I am a muslim, I should appreciate what I have.

Have a beautiful week!

The Winter of our Disconnect

My weekend brought lots of blessings in rain and cold, dark chocolate, warm blankets and loads of tv and lazy comforts. Its this very lazy attitude that gave me a wake up call after finding a review on a book by Susan Maushart called,"The Winter of our Disconnect" giving living without technology a new meaning. As we all climb on to the band wagon of technology, whether consciously or unconsciously, the fact remains its hit us faster than a blink with no inkling of stopping anytime soon. No one can say that their actually technology free until you make that decision to switch off your mobiles, telephones, television, computers, consoles and the like. 





But Is it that easy? I would think getting away from the television would be easier for me than the mobile as it is my portal to the ones I love...but...anything is possible as this writer set out to prove, in her book, which explores the details of the six months that she and her family disconnected from anything with a screen. She turned off all televisions, computers, internet access and cellphones. While they took to it with a fight they ended up loving it after six months, wanting to stay unplugged. She writes how her kids discovered nature, saxophones, board games and the like...





As i read the review, I remember thinking how resemblant of my childhood which only became filled with television, satellite, telephones and computers later on in life. I was a technology free child - when I was 5 years old the only pass time was looking to nature and around the home for good old fashioned pass-time. I remember exploring the four corners of my house indoors and outdoors was a fascination but ask me to do that now and I wont have the time...dont get me wrong, im still very much a nature driven person. I can sit and enthuse myself with nature for hours but not with an explorable mind like I once did possess. Its because exploration extends as far as google these days - why challenge my mind when I can just google it?  





As we become robots of the world, how easy is it to switch off for you? Can you switch of the computer and walk to the shop to buy the newspaper, can you play  piano and board games in lieu of console games, evening walkings instead of tv or scouting for mushrooms in the rainy season? Is it a bit too healthy for us global technology munchers? 

My dazzling AH530

My LIFEBOOK AH530  arrived at work today leaving me smiling completely. I could not resist waiting until I get home, so i opened up right away at the office and most of my colleagues came over to see my new toy. There were "oohs" and "aahs" along with wonderful compliments.

The size took me by surprise cause it is much much bigger than my current 13.3 inch and while travelling with this big guy will become a bit of a problem, I do however  believe it is a small price to pay for this really great piece of machinery. I love the dazzling jet black smooth operator look which does however make for messy finger prints. This made in germany laptop surprised me when I opened it up to see that it had an arabic spec keyboard. I love it even more now!!!! The additional number pad makes for good use when I have to complete reports so that was a great value add.

BluePearl (c) - my dazzling jet black LIFEBOOK

BluePearl (c) - my lifebook in it's box

BluePearl (c) - Letter from the LIFEBOOKTeam

BluePearl (c) - 2 star Green IT label And Intel I7 core processor

BluePearl (c) - My arabic spec keyboard with seperate numeric keypad

The spill protection is great for the clumsy like me as I often tend to love having my cup of tea close by, when I blog. I love the feel of the keys - smooth and yet easy to follow on. It's 39.6 cm featuring a 1.3 Mpx Webcam with digital microphone, Bluetooth and 11n WLAN.

Fujitsu's  Green IT label to the right of the laptop is eye catching and re-assuring of Fujitsu's commitment to the environment. I love that my laptop is lighter on earth's health. 

To see the more on this laptops spec, click here

A story about a LIFEBOOK and me

"We have chosen you to become one of 53 LIFEBOOK4Life Insiders! If you are still interested, please confirm your participation under the following link..." is what the e-mail dated 3rd November 2010  read. Did I just get accepted to test the new range of Fujitsu's LIFEBOOK's? Oh yes I did!

It was only a week ago, that I saw this advertisement pop up while I played my daily game of Monopoly online at Pogo and at which stage you had to select your needs for the laptop...and now wow! I got accepted...still breathing and re-collecting, awing myself with surprise, I clicked through and entered the LIFEBOOK blog where indeed all was very much a reality.  As I wait for my laptop, the fun and challenge of testing these LIFEBOOK's will run over a 3 week period with everything being documented on the blog itself. So follow me and the other Insiders who will be sharing their impressions of a designated LIFEBOOK.

Thank you to Fujitsu and the Project Team!

Stay tuned as I uncover my new LIFEBOOK in the next few hours...

Arabic word of the day

For those of you who are keen on learning Arabic or enhancing your current vocabulary, this application or widget will be most useful. You can either visit the website daily or embed the widget into your blog.

Have fun!

Go to: Arabic word of the day

A monopoly of the modern era

Google Search engine - earlier version

I am sure Larry Page and Sergey Brin sat down one day and decided they going to take over the world...for me, Google is an absolute fascination not because I can pretty much get an answer to anything over Google Search but because of what the brand stands for.  Just reading their book makes you realise that this Silicon Valley company certainly pulled out big fish with shop stoppers of note in the last decade. The marker is always set higher than achievable with their expectations met every single time. Its a "take of the hat" to them over and over again showing the world that all you need is innovative dreams and of course a skill. Since its inception way back in 1998, it has dismally out weighed the technology scales tipping others off to a GOOG share price, today, of 538.84.  

It first stormed the market with its appealing clear white spaced search engine,  really a breathe of fresh air after all those cluttered search engines. While it made hit sucesses with its search features, Google was not satisfied and moved to introduce the first huge storage space mailbox facilities "Gmail" (which originally came as an invite only to give it's uniqueness). Then came Google Talk, Google Voice, Google Street maps, and the takeover of YouTube. Lets not forget how they notably educated people on the value of open source code with the launch of their Android phone. 

Google TV

And now, It certainly is celebrating its 12th birthday in style after launching Google TV which has consequently been dubbed as "the next big thing" and thats not all -  It seems the miracle team have left everyone oohing and aahing with a 140 000 miles secret - until now that it is! Its the Google self driving car - yes! This is what they had to say, "Manned by engineers and drivers with spotless records, the Google cars are specially designed Toyota Prius, equipped with video cameras mounted on top, radar sensors embedded in the vehicle and laser range finders to keep view on the traffic, and detailed maps to assist in navigation." 

[Read the full article here]

Google Self driving Prius

Apple App review: Stick It

I love sticky notes but I got to say this one exceeded my expectations. "Stick it" is available on the app store - once downloaded, you can create a sticky note for e-mail or reminder purposes. It has options to change the font weight, font style, font color and alignment. Nicest of all, once you done, click e-mail icon and you post it directly to your blog, like this post.

Create marvelous photos

How cool are these - created using Dumpr

Its a lot like PhotoFunia - just a little different in its offerings.

(2 pictures in this set - click on read more to view all)

BluePearl (c)

BluePearl (c)

Diesel says

Want to write arabic?

Arabic Calligraphy

If you one those people who loves to write in arabic but because it is not your primary language, you tend to struggle with grammar and writing or from a lack of tools, then this post will be most useful for you.

The first is a translator, that allows you to convert english words to arabic - the one drawback is that, the translator does not necessarily translate correctly so be sure to check your results each time.

Google translator (click on this link to access the website)

Arabic Keyboard (click on this link to access the website) The second is my favourite tool, which I often use, It's an arabic keyboard and perfect if you one of those people who do not have an arabic option keyboard or if you have one and not sure how to access the arabic features (on the keyboard), like me:)

 

If you have any other questions relating to this topic, please leave me a comment and I'll be glad to assist where I can. 

Have fun

Artificial Rain in Dubai

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?

It was an artificial rain !!

Done by the meteorological department at the national centre of meteorology and seismology (NCMS)

To remove the air pollution on Dubai's atmosphere..

It is called 'cloud seeding' a latest technology to customise weather..



Cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei. The usual intent is to increase precipitation, but hail suppression is also widely practiced. Silver iodide and dry ice are the most commonly used substances in cloud seeding technology





An aircraft is putting dry ice on clouds which makes artificial rain

More rains are expected on these summer days...

Happy chilling out Dubai'ians!

OLD CALCULATOR'S

Iphone 4G-already?

While some are still contemplating the thought of purchasing the latest Iphone 3G/3GS and others are enjoying their brand new ones, it's rumoured that Apple is already working on IPhone 4G. For long it has been said that Apple wanted to stop using external parties for the Iphone's chip but was not able to do so, until the IPAD was released. Enter Apple's own custom-designed A4 system-on-a-chip which has a monsterocity of power with specs  bragging 10 hours of video playback and over a month of standby time. It has also been rumoured that an Iphone 4G will be released as early as Jul 2010 sporting a scaled down version of the IPads A4 chip.





So the question remains, should you sell your 3GS or still get one if you one of the prospective buyers? The answer is, yes, even if you live in America (it's said that AT&T is busy upgrading to 4G) or are lucky enough to get hold of an offical IPhone 4G in 2010 itself. The reason is in 90% of the cases you will find that carriers/network providers will take up to a year or 2 to be fully upgraded to 4G. As it stands 3G is still developing in its coverage in most countries with this delay thereby contibuting to current/prospective 3G/3GS Iphone owners taking full advantage of current day technology. Another reason is that if you live outside of America, it takes a good few months before the offical IPhone 4G hits your part of the world and even if you did get your hands on one, what's the point if you dont have a full 4G network to play with..might as well just stick with 3G. In other words, 4G, is quiet possibly futuristic in most parts of the world right now.



Happy 3G/3GS Iphoning until then...if you one of those lucky people who have been able to get their hands on an IPad, do let me know what's it like.



Featured below: Concept IPhone 4G and Apples latest A4 chip (A possibly in reference to Apple)

Don't you just love Google Chrome

I have to say that I am very pleased with my move to Google chrome as a default web browser.  The home page reveals the 8 most frequently used web pages - just a simple click gets you there so there is no need to toggle from "favourites" any longer. You also can customize with some really beautiful themes. Take a look at mines - I think its just awesome. Give it a try, if you haven't already.

Hot Iphone apps

Pulse Apps - Amazon shopping app

If you love shopping online especially at Amazon - try this nifty app that has "Amazon Remembers" feature which allows you to take a photo of an item with the Iphone camera, upload it to http://www.amazon.co.uk/ to search for similar products matching your picture. How cool is that.



Price: Free







Home Apps - Remote (App name: "Remote")

Turning your iPhone into your very own iTunes remote you deftly navigate through the music on your computer or flick through the channels on your Apple TV. Swish.



Price: Free





Reference: http://www.t3.com/