I agree with all the posters that say "if you dont know what application it is good for, then there is a marketing issue here".
When you guys built it, there was some need in the market, and not just "pure bandwidth". Who are your customer? ISPs? Telcos? Who?
having said that, something that customers often ask is how to replicate a database in real time, so if one datacenter is hit by a quake, the remote one takes over in seconds. This often involves complex database tricks (Oracle has that, we looked at it a few times, and bandwidth was the issue then, a few years ago). Even storage vendors like EMC have the ability of a SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility) that replicates data in real time to another storage unit. If you have an appliction that does thousands of updates per second, and a lot of other traffic going on (e.g. off site backups, image/video traffic,...etc.) then there may be a need there.
So you may setup a huge database with lots of updates on one end, and replicate that in real time on the other end, the pull the plug on one, and the other one should pick up (e.g. for a pool of web browsing clients, and a director in the middle or something).
Turkish and Greek coffee are one and the same. It is not called Turkish coffee in Greece due to political reasons. I know of a case in Greece where a waiter said they have no Turkish coffee when a patron asked for. Oh well...
In parts of the Arab world (Egypt, Syria,...etc.), when you say just "coffee", it means Turkish coffee. Which is a strong sludgy mix made in special small containers (called Kanaka in Egypt). The coffee is ground finely into a powder, and a little ground cardamon, and sometimes cinnamon is added to it. The ground coffee and water is brought to a boil, then served in special small cups. Normally there is a layer of fine bubbles that have a lighter color on the surface and considered to be the "face" (wesh) of the cup, and the most flavorful part. Three levels of sugar (or none at all) have common names that are used in a coffee shop. Roasted coffee is used, not the green type, with varying degrees of color (dark, light,...etc. depending on taste).
What is described above is how coffee is consumend in other parts of the Arab world (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Gulf), there is another type of Arabic coffee, the cadramon percentage is much higher, and the coffee is lighter and not sludgy at all. It is more aromatic, because of the higher cardamon content. In Hadramout (Eastern part of Yemen), ginger is added to give yet another flavor. Served with sweet dates, this is out of this world... mmm.
By the way, coffee originated somewhere between present day Ethiopia and Yemen, so perhaps this is the original way of brewing it?
The difference is in Canada there are no "black neighborhoods".
So, Canada is more integrated than the USA.
There is a difference between integration (which I am all for) and assimilation (which should not be required -- look at what is going on in France in the name of assimilation for example).
No. This is not the case. You are confusing ghettos and exclusion with the mosaic model.
If the minority feels "foreign" or "alienated", then it is not integration at all. If they do not speak the language of the country they are in, then something is wrong.
What I am saying is a balance between the "assimilation" and "segregation", which are equally bad extremes.
In my view, Canada has a successful model where differences are accepted without requireing total assimilation and abandoning one's cultural, ethnic or linguistic roots.
On the other hand, racism is more in the USA, witness the black neighborhoods,...etc. There are no ghettos in Canada, whether for whites, blacks, south asians,...etc.
Not only is Canada the right answer here, but the model of Canada's diversity and multiculturalism (at least since Pierre Elliot Trudeau) is very different from what the USA diversity is.
In the USA, it is the "melting pot" model. After a while the immigrant is expected to blend in and assimilate/integrate. (Much like the French view it with all the noise about religious symbols and such over there now).
In Canada, it is the "mosaic" model, where difference in culture, religion, customs,...etc. is valued, and no "conformance" is required. The different small dots of varying color all come together to form a very nice coloful whole.
"Being Canadian" does mean the same thing as "being American"
"How old is the oldest known technical manual? About 613 years, it seems. Written in 1391 by Geoffrey Chaucer for his ten year old son Lewis (Lowys), the manual explains in great detail but very rough spelling and grammar, the intricate workings of the Astrolabe--the predecessor to the sextant."
Astrolabes were invented by Muslim navigators, and there are so many books on Astrolabes in Arabic and Persian.
Wal-Mart's Datawarehouse is NCR Teradata
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[Marketing people look for that magic connection called the Beer-Pampers theory. Wal-mart keeps one of the largest marketing databases ever, over 300 terrabytes. They found that customers that buy pampers usually buy beer also, and vice versa. So they put the beer and the pampers in the same aisle and increased their sales on those two products by over 80%. This will be a goldmine for companies like Informix who make one of the best databases for Data Warehousing.]
First, why do Beer and Pampers get sold together? The theory is that the wife picks up the groceries in the sedan, and leaves the bulky stuff for the husband (often driving the SUV). She asks the husband to pick up the Pampers, and while he is at it, he also gets the beer.
Wal-Mart uses their datawarehouse as a HUGE competitive weapon. K-Mart uses the same technology (see below) and have not gotten much competitive advantage off it. The reason is that Wal-Mart analyze detail data, but K-Mart analyzes sample branch.
Wal-Mart uses extensive research to open new branches. This includes demographic, driving distance, average household income,...etc. They know that the average customer drives 17 minutes to shop at a Wal-Mart, and passes two K-Marts and a Target on the way!
By the way, the visionary behind their datawarehouse (Randy Mott) left them after two decades, and joined another company.
By the way, their datawarehouse is probably the largest commercial database, and it runs on NCR Massively Parallel hardware (Worldmark), and the really unique Datawarehousing Optimized database called Teradata
I know, because I used Teradata, and work for NCR:-)
Recently, Travelocity and E-Trade joined the who's-who list of Teradata users (British Airways, Bank of America, Wal-Mart, Delta Airlines, Royal Bank of Canada, and tons more).
Basically, if you have a large amount of data to analyze, (specially 500 GB or more, the more the better:-), don't use Informix, nor Oracle nor IBM DB2: Teradata just shines!
First, you should know how the word "Arabic" is spelled! It is not Aribic!
Second, your site in your own words on it "Sucks" and "Webmaster is lazy"! Talk about people with glass houses throwing stones!
Third, the main point that I should shut up and write some code may appear valid at first.
You (and many slashdotters) have the very narrow view of "scratch your itch" of Open Source.
Not everyone is able nor willing to write a whole software application or system if they need it. For example, I am not a GUI guru, and therefore my contribution to GNOME or KDE in Arabic would be limited. Also they are in C++ which is not my favorite language anyway. More important, is that I have very little time to spare on such a huge undertaking (BiDirectional Language support in computing is not trivial - It is a huge task. This is why you see only few companies offering fully integrated Arabic solutions).
There are already console Arabic support for Linux (check Linux 4 Arab web site), but it is not an integrated solution.
The very promising KDE 2 Konqueror and KOffice support for Arabic are a few months away. So, why re-invent the wheel?
[If Julius hadn't been such a power hungry jerk consumed by fits of jealousy we might still have the library at Alexandria.]
As a native Alexandrian (the original one, not the fake on in Virginia:-) I am glad to see that some people got the historical facts right.
The burning of the Library of Alexandria has been wrongly attributed to the Arabs.
By the way, the Library is being rebuilt (I think it will open this summer) on the original site, and it is really impressive.
However, some works are sure to be lost forever in that fire! Very sad.
Another sad incident is when the Mongols (under Hulegu) invaded Baghdad (1258 C.E.) and used the books in the library as a make shift bridge for the cavalry to cross the river. It is said that the river was blank (from ink) for days! Too sad to think human heritage permanently lost.
Cost is an issue! In Europe and elsewhere!
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Cost of internet access (and infrastructure in general) is a never ending story outside North America, mainly because of metered per-minute access.
For example look at the Middle East, where I am from and where I live, you will find a comparison of Arabs vs. West, which is part of larger site on the Internet in Saudi Arabia.
The only country that is forward looking on this is the United Arab Emirates, which just a month ago introduced Al Shamil ADSL, albeit at 103.25$ per month for 384 Kbps down and 128 Kbps down. In Saudi Arabia, I pay more than that per month for a 33.6 Kpbs dialup connection! No ISDN nor DSL in Saudi Arabia yet!
On top of that the service is very erratic and is of low standard compared to other countries. Symptoms include busy lines, disconnects, and slow connections. Check the Speed and Service Watch pages.
Internet penetration in the Middle East as whole is very low, compared to North America and even in Europe. Check my Middle East Internet Statistics web site.
I can't believe I was talking to my colleagues at the office a few hours ago over lunch about Corel and how you can judge a company by its top man.
We discussed Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Michael Cowpland.
I was telling them that I thought Corel was a good company, until I read about the always overly optimistic Cowpland, his life style, obsession with stock price no matter what the company does well or not,...etc.
A few minutes ago we found another colleague who bought 2000 shares of CORL at 15$. Today it is 5.4$
Someone above asked for a List of OpenSRS affiliates (i.e. resellers). I have been trying to do the same, but never could get such a list, despite extensive searches.
Last week, I decided to ask OpenSRS themselves, and opened a sales ticket and a support ticket. The support guy gave me the usual run around ("Our reseller list is confidential", "we cannot release such info", "try a web search").
The sales person was more helpful and gave me a list of five resellers:
Processing Innovations 15$ a year. I am not sure if they are OpenSRS or not. Some (see above) have objected to their agreement, since they can terminate the domain,...etc.
All of them provide online domain transfer from NSI or from other registrars.
In case you are wondering, if your reseller goes out of business (many of them are small operations or a one-man-shows), then OpenSRS will be the registrar. The sales person told me they would help me find another registrar should this happen.
I am willing to maintain a list of OpenSRS resllers that offer cheap (20$ or less per year) domain registrations. If you find more, please let me know. You can contact me via the web site above or via 2bits.com (fill a contact form) or you can e-mail me at khalidATbaheyeldinDOTcom.
As a related issue, I have been looking for a PHP port of the OpenSRS library (Yeah, I am a Perl-Hater!), so I can implement it myself, shell out the 250$ minimum needed for being an Open SRS reseller, then I can provide domain registry for friends, family and clients. However, there is no such port planned by OpenSRS.org, and one reseller (forget which one) has a library that is working in every aspect except the encryption stuff.
I am a Muslim, an Arab, and a resident of Saudi Arabia for the last 11 years.
I have built an extensive web site that describes how the internet is setup, list of all the Saudi ISPs, comparison of prices, service issues, internet cafes,...etc.
Slashdot is not blocked in Saudi Arabia. However, some links (related to hacking and porn, specially when CmdrTaco does the Quickies) are blocked.
Prior to the internet becoming available to the public (January 1999), there have been rumors that Saudi Arabia will allow access to the internet thru a "White List", meaning that only those sites that are explicitly allowed can be accessed. This turned out to be just a rumor. Only those sites that are explicitly blocked are unaccessible.
I am told that sites are blocked not by an employee seeing that it is inappropriate, but there is an approval process in place (he has to go to higher levels of authority and get approval).
Anyone can recommend a site for blocking or request the unblocking of a site (the links are on the site mentioned above.
My main gripes about the internet in Saudi Arabia are:
Price It is very expensive compared to neighboring countries, even those with a comparable (see the Arabs vs. West page on the above site.
Poor Service There is overload on the infrastructure. Proxies just make things slower than they should be. Compared to internet access in (say) Alexandria, Egypt, my home town. Access in Saudi Arabia is slow! Check Speed and Service Watch pages.
In reality, I have not found this censorship to be bothersome.
You should also consider that there are tons of backdoors available for those who are keen to access something that is blocked.
When an Automatic English to Arabic translation service (Tarjim) was made available two months ago, kiddies started to use it as a back door to access pron. The result: it was blocked! (Note to Arabs: The translation isn't any good. Just try it on your own site and sit back and laugh. Bablefish is ages ahead of it!)
You should also consider that The United Arab Emirates also blocks porn from the net. So does Singapore.
To its credit, Saudi Arabia doesn't block any Voice over IP services (Net2Phone, MediaRing, Dialpad, Yahoo Voice Chat,...etc.), unlike most of the Gulf countries (Kuwait, Qatar, UAE) and even Lebanon, where the Telecom monopolies are afraid of loss of revenue.
[When linux becomes popular, and everyone uses it, developers will start creating better GUI's. Archaic commands will no longer be used, and the zealouts will move onto a new OS.]
You mean normal evolution in software will take its natural course? Yes, of course. Stating the obvious? I do not think Linux of today will be the same O.S. we are using 20 years from now! Newer paradigms will arrive.
[ It's not about free-speech, free-software, or even the fact that it's better, it's about Power.]
That is a limited view! Yes, power may be the driver for some, but there are other factors to consider. Flexibility is one, free (as in liberty) and free (as in no-cost) are others. Performance is another. The list goes on and on... Just picking up one factor and making the be-all/end-all is not productive!
[About 99% of the *nix system admins that I have talked to are usually big pricks, who can never be wrong.]
I do not agree with the 99%. I assume that you just meant "a large number", rather than an exact figure drawn from scientific studies. You mean that they are human, and suffer from the shorfalls of being human? Yes, so what? You find pricks in atheletes, actors, celebrities, managers, engineers, techies, children,...etc. So why generalize?
Access is a a nightmare for anything reliable or complex
I second your commnet. Twice I have been bitten by Access:
One time in the form of the MS Jet Engine used in Visual Basic, when accessing a database (Teradata, a parallel processing datawarehousing engine). Bypassing the MS Jet and using ODBC pass thru was like a miracle. 600% improvement in some cases!
Another time, an application was using Access and only a small number of users (can't remember, but less than 20). Since Access is not an SQL engine, most client applications would read the entire data from the server over the LAN and process it locally! The traffic light on the LAN cards were almost always on! Converting to MS SQL solved the problem!
Does anyone know if this includes support for BiDirectional languages? (Arabic and Hebrew).
For languages based on the Latin character set (or even a non Latin set like Cyrillic, Kanji,...etc.) it is a piece of cake to "localize" an application. Just make sure everything is in a message file for the appropriate language, for the labels, menus, errors,...etc. and you are home free.
However for Arabic (and Hebrew) the challenge is totally different. Display goes from Right to Left, and characters have different shapes depending on their position in the word and what other characters follow/preceed it.
I am using Windows and Internet Explorer because there is no Linux product that supports all this in full.
There are projects to arabize Mozilla, and the new New KDE/Konqueror 2 has Arabic support. This is all very encouraging, but nothing in production yet. Also, we need Arabic spreadsheets, word processing, calendar and scheduling PIMs,....etc.
Of all the Linux companies, I am disappointed the most with LinuxCare.
I had originally thought that they have the best business model and would make real money since they are in services and not in selling GPL'd software.
However, it seems that their current dilemma is caused more by lack of execution and bringing in people who did not get what Open Source / Free Software is all about (e.g. Doug Nassaur,...etc.)
Internally, there has been infighting between pro- (i.e. the founders) and anti- (read: the VC appointed management) Open Source factions.
At least there are lessons to be learnt from all that. I wish the founders the best of luck in the future.
Well, I realized the potential of kfm/Konqi early on. It is very tightly integrated with the KDE desktop, which makes file management, downloads and browsing so easy.
A few days I switched from Netscape 4.72 to MS IE 5.01, for several reasons:
NS 4.72 is really unstable. Crashes often, and slow.
No Arabic support.
Well, Mozilla is not there yet (I have M15, and it is promising) but there is no Arabic out yet (although there is a BIDI project for Mozilla).
So, I switched to MS IE 5.01, and I like it. It is fast and does Arabic very well.
Now that Konqi can do that, I will consider going back to Linux when this is out.
Of course there are other issues of using Linux as my permanent desktop:
Not everthing is Arabic enabled.
Many apps are just Windows, including Yahoo Messenger Voice Chat, MediaRing, Dialpad,...etc. These things are great for staying in touch.
So, things are promising, but we are not there yet!
When furbies first came late 1998, I told my two young daughters about it, and they wanted one. We could not get any of them locally first due to non-availability, then due to the exorbitant high price.
Then, two Made in China clones appeared in the market at one third the price. One called Furbish, and the other called Baby (or similar).
We bought one for the kids after months of waiting, and to my dismay, they only played for half an hour with it and that was it! They never touched it again! What a disappointment!
I think I will not do an autopsy, but will kill the darn thing for the frustrating experience!
Well, I cannot give you actual code or configuration files, but here are some ways others are doing it:
Yahoo!Mail uses POP authentication for SMTP, and mandates that your e-mail must be the Yahoo mail. This works OK, but the problem is that I am behind a corporate firewall that block POP, which means that I cannot use SMTP as a result.
My hosting provider allows SMTP from my domain, but only from a predefined set of IP Addresses and/or IP Address ranges. They do this because of the ORB RBL mentioned in the article. This works well from the office and from home, but is annoying when I travel, since I have to check what IP subnet I am using and send it to my host,...etc.
All of my domains (except one) are with register.com. I only have good things to say about their web site and service.
They are not cheap, the price is the same as NSI, but service is awesome!
I am looking forward to transfer that one last domain from NSI to register.com, but there is some paper work they require (notarization, photo ID, legalization - not easy when you have those in Arabic!). But eventually, I will do it!
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with all the posters that say "if you dont know what application it is good for, then there is a marketing issue here".
...etc.) then there may be a need there.
When you guys built it, there was some need in the market, and not just "pure bandwidth". Who are your customer? ISPs? Telcos? Who?
having said that, something that customers often ask is how to replicate a database in real time, so if one datacenter is hit by a quake, the remote one takes over in seconds. This often involves complex database tricks (Oracle has that, we looked at it a few times, and bandwidth was the issue then, a few years ago). Even storage vendors like EMC have the ability of a SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility) that replicates data in real time to another storage unit. If you have an appliction that does thousands of updates per second, and a lot of other traffic going on (e.g. off site backups, image/video traffic,
So you may setup a huge database with lots of updates on one end, and replicate that in real time on the other end, the pull the plug on one, and the other one should pick up (e.g. for a pool of web browsing clients, and a director in the middle or something).
Demonstrate the Disaster Recovery value of this.
Just an idea.
Turkish and Greek coffee are one and the same. It is not called Turkish coffee in Greece due to political reasons. I know of a case in Greece where a waiter said they have no Turkish coffee when a patron asked for. Oh well ...
...etc.), when you say just "coffee", it means Turkish coffee. Which is a strong sludgy mix made in special small containers (called Kanaka in Egypt). The coffee is ground finely into a powder, and a little ground cardamon, and sometimes cinnamon is added to it. The ground coffee and water is brought to a boil, then served in special small cups. Normally there is a layer of fine bubbles that have a lighter color on the surface and considered to be the "face" (wesh) of the cup, and the most flavorful part. Three levels of sugar (or none at all) have common names that are used in a coffee shop. Roasted coffee is used, not the green type, with varying degrees of color (dark, light, ...etc. depending on taste).
... mmm.
In parts of the Arab world (Egypt, Syria,
What is described above is how coffee is consumend in other parts of the Arab world (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Gulf), there is another type of Arabic coffee, the cadramon percentage is much higher, and the coffee is lighter and not sludgy at all. It is more aromatic, because of the higher cardamon content. In Hadramout (Eastern part of Yemen), ginger is added to give yet another flavor. Served with sweet dates, this is out of this world
By the way, coffee originated somewhere between present day Ethiopia and Yemen, so perhaps this is the original way of brewing it?
Not true.
I have a Netgear RT314, and it can be managed via telnet, no problems.
The difference is in Canada there are no "black neighborhoods".
So, Canada is more integrated than the USA.
There is a difference between integration (which I am all for) and assimilation (which should not be required -- look at what is going on in France in the name of assimilation for example).
No. This is not the case. You are confusing ghettos and exclusion with the mosaic model.
...etc. There are no ghettos in Canada, whether for whites, blacks, south asians, ...etc.
If the minority feels "foreign" or "alienated", then it is not integration at all. If they do not speak the language of the country they are in, then something is wrong.
What I am saying is a balance between the "assimilation" and "segregation", which are equally bad extremes.
In my view, Canada has a successful model where differences are accepted without requireing total assimilation and abandoning one's cultural, ethnic or linguistic roots.
On the other hand, racism is more in the USA, witness the black neighborhoods,
Not only is Canada the right answer here, but the model of Canada's diversity and multiculturalism (at least since Pierre Elliot Trudeau) is very different from what the USA diversity is.
...etc. is valued, and no "conformance" is required. The different small dots of varying color all come together to form a very nice coloful whole.
In the USA, it is the "melting pot" model. After a while the immigrant is expected to blend in and assimilate/integrate. (Much like the French view it with all the noise about religious symbols and such over there now).
In Canada, it is the "mosaic" model, where difference in culture, religion, customs,
"Being Canadian" does mean the same thing as "being American"
My name is not "Moran" :-)
...
Here is the text of the article above:
"How old is the oldest known technical manual? About 613 years, it seems. Written in 1391 by Geoffrey Chaucer for his ten year old son Lewis (Lowys), the manual explains in great detail but very rough spelling and grammar, the intricate workings of the Astrolabe--the predecessor to the sextant."
Didn't see anything about English there
Astrolabes were invented by Muslim navigators, and there are so many books on Astrolabes in Arabic and Persian.
First, why do Beer and Pampers get sold together? The theory is that the wife picks up the groceries in the sedan, and leaves the bulky stuff for the husband (often driving the SUV). She asks the husband to pick up the Pampers, and while he is at it, he also gets the beer.
Wal-Mart uses their datawarehouse as a HUGE competitive weapon. K-Mart uses the same technology (see below) and have not gotten much competitive advantage off it. The reason is that Wal-Mart analyze detail data, but K-Mart analyzes sample branch.
Wal-Mart uses extensive research to open new branches. This includes demographic, driving distance, average household income, ...etc. They know that the average customer drives 17 minutes to shop at a Wal-Mart, and passes two K-Marts and a Target on the way!
By the way, the visionary behind their datawarehouse (Randy Mott) left them after two decades, and joined another company.
By the way, their datawarehouse is probably the largest commercial database, and it runs on NCR Massively Parallel hardware (Worldmark), and the really unique Datawarehousing Optimized database called Teradata
I know, because I used Teradata, and work for NCR :-)
Recently, Travelocity and E-Trade joined the who's-who list of Teradata users (British Airways, Bank of America, Wal-Mart, Delta Airlines, Royal Bank of Canada, and tons more).
Basically, if you have a large amount of data to analyze, (specially 500 GB or more, the more the better :-), don't use Informix, nor Oracle nor IBM DB2: Teradata just shines!
I think you are confusing Zope with Midgard.
Zope uses Python as its underlying language. Midgard is the one that is built in PHP.
Both are worth a look, if only because they are Open Source and Free, so costing nothing.
Yes, I am sure you did the necessary research for many years and found out that out of the 250 Million Arabs none can write code.
Care to show us the research papers?
Can you also please show us how much useful code youv'e written?
First, you should know how the word "Arabic" is spelled! It is not Aribic!
Second, your site in your own words on it "Sucks" and "Webmaster is lazy"! Talk about people with glass houses throwing stones!
Third, the main point that I should shut up and write some code may appear valid at first.
You (and many slashdotters) have the very narrow view of "scratch your itch" of Open Source.
Not everyone is able nor willing to write a whole software application or system if they need it. For example, I am not a GUI guru, and therefore my contribution to GNOME or KDE in Arabic would be limited. Also they are in C++ which is not my favorite language anyway. More important, is that I have very little time to spare on such a huge undertaking (BiDirectional Language support in computing is not trivial - It is a huge task. This is why you see only few companies offering fully integrated Arabic solutions).
There are already console Arabic support for Linux (check Linux 4 Arab web site), but it is not an integrated solution.
The very promising KDE 2 Konqueror and KOffice support for Arabic are a few months away. So, why re-invent the wheel?
As a native Alexandrian (the original one, not the fake on in Virginia :-) I am glad to see that some people got the historical facts right.
The burning of the Library of Alexandria has been wrongly attributed to the Arabs.
By the way, the Library is being rebuilt (I think it will open this summer) on the original site, and it is really impressive.
However, some works are sure to be lost forever in that fire! Very sad.
Another sad incident is when the Mongols (under Hulegu) invaded Baghdad (1258 C.E.) and used the books in the library as a make shift bridge for the cavalry to cross the river. It is said that the river was blank (from ink) for days! Too sad to think human heritage permanently lost.
Cost of internet access (and infrastructure in general) is a never ending story outside North America, mainly because of metered per-minute access.
For example look at the Middle East, where I am from and where I live, you will find a comparison of Arabs vs. West, which is part of larger site on the Internet in Saudi Arabia.
The only country that is forward looking on this is the United Arab Emirates, which just a month ago introduced Al Shamil ADSL, albeit at 103.25$ per month for 384 Kbps down and 128 Kbps down. In Saudi Arabia, I pay more than that per month for a 33.6 Kpbs dialup connection! No ISDN nor DSL in Saudi Arabia yet!
On top of that the service is very erratic and is of low standard compared to other countries. Symptoms include busy lines, disconnects, and slow connections. Check the Speed and Service Watch pages.
Internet penetration in the Middle East as whole is very low, compared to North America and even in Europe. Check my Middle East Internet Statistics web site.
I can't believe I was talking to my colleagues at the office a few hours ago over lunch about Corel and how you can judge a company by its top man.
We discussed Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Michael Cowpland.
I was telling them that I thought Corel was a good company, until I read about the always overly optimistic Cowpland, his life style, obsession with stock price no matter what the company does well or not, ...etc.
A few minutes ago we found another colleague who bought 2000 shares of CORL at 15$. Today it is 5.4$
Someone above asked for a List of OpenSRS affiliates (i.e. resellers). I have been trying to do the same, but never could get such a list, despite extensive searches.
Note that the Domain Name Buyers Guide does not cover any OpenSRS affiliate yet.
Last week, I decided to ask OpenSRS themselves, and opened a sales ticket and a support ticket. The support guy gave me the usual run around ("Our reseller list is confidential", "we cannot release such info", "try a web search").
The sales person was more helpful and gave me a list of five resellers:
- http://www.nal.qc.ca
- http://www.msnhosting.com
- http://internationalwebhostingservices.c om
- http://www.islelink.com
- http://www.msquaredweb.net
I checked them out, but none of them seemed exceptionally cheap or impressive.Independantly, I tried searching for such info myself. Here is what I found:
- JumpDomain 14.99$ a year.
- DiscountDomainRegistry 14.99$ a year.
- DomainMonger 17$ a year.
- Processing Innovations 15$ a year. I am not sure if they are OpenSRS or not. Some (see above) have objected to their agreement, since they can terminate the domain,
...etc. - Domains JH Cloos
- . Again not sure if he is OpenSRS or not. He offers domains for 12.50$. You cannot pay by credit card and need
- e-gold.
All of them provide online domain transfer from NSI or from other registrars.In case you are wondering, if your reseller goes out of business (many of them are small operations or a one-man-shows), then OpenSRS will be the registrar. The sales person told me they would help me find another registrar should this happen.
I am willing to maintain a list of OpenSRS resllers that offer cheap (20$ or less per year) domain registrations. If you find more, please let me know. You can contact me via the web site above or via 2bits.com (fill a contact form) or you can e-mail me at khalidATbaheyeldinDOTcom.
As a related issue, I have been looking for a PHP port of the OpenSRS library (Yeah, I am a Perl-Hater!), so I can implement it myself, shell out the 250$ minimum needed for being an Open SRS reseller, then I can provide domain registry for friends, family and clients. However, there is no such port planned by OpenSRS.org, and one reseller (forget which one) has a library that is working in every aspect except the encryption stuff.
I am a Muslim, an Arab, and a resident of Saudi Arabia for the last 11 years.
I have built an extensive web site that describes how the internet is setup, list of all the Saudi ISPs, comparison of prices, service issues, internet cafes, ...etc.
You can check the Saudi ISPs site for all the details. The Internet Setup in Saudi Arabia page will give you an idea on the setup.
Slashdot is not blocked in Saudi Arabia. However, some links (related to hacking and porn, specially when CmdrTaco does the Quickies) are blocked.
Prior to the internet becoming available to the public (January 1999), there have been rumors that Saudi Arabia will allow access to the internet thru a "White List", meaning that only those sites that are explicitly allowed can be accessed. This turned out to be just a rumor. Only those sites that are explicitly blocked are unaccessible.
I am told that sites are blocked not by an employee seeing that it is inappropriate, but there is an approval process in place (he has to go to higher levels of authority and get approval).
Anyone can recommend a site for blocking or request the unblocking of a site (the links are on the site mentioned above.
My main gripes about the internet in Saudi Arabia are:
It is very expensive compared to neighboring countries, even those with a comparable (see the Arabs vs. West page on the above site.
There is overload on the infrastructure. Proxies just make things slower than they should be. Compared to internet access in (say) Alexandria, Egypt, my home town. Access in Saudi Arabia is slow! Check Speed and Service Watch pages.
In reality, I have not found this censorship to be bothersome.
You should also consider that there are tons of backdoors available for those who are keen to access something that is blocked.
When an Automatic English to Arabic translation service (Tarjim) was made available two months ago, kiddies started to use it as a back door to access pron. The result: it was blocked! (Note to Arabs: The translation isn't any good. Just try it on your own site and sit back and laugh. Bablefish is ages ahead of it!)
The growth of the internet in Saudi Arabia is explosive. Check the Middle East Internet Statistics site for details.
You should also consider that The United Arab Emirates also blocks porn from the net. So does Singapore.
To its credit, Saudi Arabia doesn't block any Voice over IP services (Net2Phone, MediaRing, Dialpad, Yahoo Voice Chat, ...etc.), unlike most of the Gulf countries (Kuwait, Qatar, UAE) and even Lebanon, where the Telecom monopolies are afraid of loss of revenue.
You mean normal evolution in software will take its natural course? Yes, of course. Stating the obvious? I do not think Linux of today will be the same O.S. we are using 20 years from now! Newer paradigms will arrive.
[ It's not about free-speech, free-software, or even the fact that it's better, it's about Power.]
That is a limited view! Yes, power may be the driver for some, but there are other factors to consider. Flexibility is one, free (as in liberty) and free (as in no-cost) are others. Performance is another. The list goes on and on... Just picking up one factor and making the be-all/end-all is not productive!
[About 99% of the *nix system admins that I have talked to are usually big pricks, who can never be wrong.]
I do not agree with the 99%. I assume that you just meant "a large number", rather than an exact figure drawn from scientific studies. You mean that they are human, and suffer from the shorfalls of being human? Yes, so what? You find pricks in atheletes, actors, celebrities, managers, engineers, techies, children, ...etc. So why generalize?
I second your commnet. Twice I have been bitten by Access:
Does anyone know if this includes support for BiDirectional languages? (Arabic and Hebrew).
For languages based on the Latin character set (or even a non Latin set like Cyrillic, Kanji, ...etc.) it is a piece of cake to "localize" an application. Just make sure everything is in a message file for the appropriate language, for the labels, menus, errors, ...etc. and you are home free.
However for Arabic (and Hebrew) the challenge is totally different. Display goes from Right to Left, and characters have different shapes depending on their position in the word and what other characters follow/preceed it.
I am using Windows and Internet Explorer because there is no Linux product that supports all this in full.
There are projects to arabize Mozilla, and the new New KDE/Konqueror 2 has Arabic support. This is all very encouraging, but nothing in production yet. Also, we need Arabic spreadsheets, word processing, calendar and scheduling PIMs, ....etc.
Of all the Linux companies, I am disappointed the most with LinuxCare.
I had originally thought that they have the best business model and would make real money since they are in services and not in selling GPL'd software.
However, it seems that their current dilemma is caused more by lack of execution and bringing in people who did not get what Open Source / Free Software is all about (e.g. Doug Nassaur, ...etc.)
Internally, there has been infighting between pro- (i.e. the founders) and anti- (read: the VC appointed management) Open Source factions.
At least there are lessons to be learnt from all that. I wish the founders the best of luck in the future.
Well, I realized the potential of kfm/Konqi early on. It is very tightly integrated with the KDE desktop, which makes file management, downloads and browsing so easy.
A few days I switched from Netscape 4.72 to MS IE 5.01, for several reasons:
- NS 4.72 is really unstable. Crashes often, and slow.
- No Arabic support.
Well, Mozilla is not there yet (I have M15, and it is promising) but there is no Arabic out yet (although there is a BIDI project for Mozilla).So, I switched to MS IE 5.01, and I like it. It is fast and does Arabic very well.
Now that Konqi can do that, I will consider going back to Linux when this is out.
Of course there are other issues of using Linux as my permanent desktop:
- Not everthing is Arabic enabled.
- Many apps are just Windows, including Yahoo Messenger Voice Chat, MediaRing, Dialpad,
...etc. These things are great for staying in touch.
So, things are promising, but we are not there yet!When furbies first came late 1998, I told my two young daughters about it, and they wanted one. We could not get any of them locally first due to non-availability, then due to the exorbitant high price.
Then, two Made in China clones appeared in the market at one third the price. One called Furbish, and the other called Baby (or similar).
We bought one for the kids after months of waiting, and to my dismay, they only played for half an hour with it and that was it! They never touched it again! What a disappointment!
I think I will not do an autopsy, but will kill the darn thing for the frustrating experience!
Well, I cannot give you actual code or configuration files, but here are some ways others are doing it:
Seconded! I fully agree!
All of my domains (except one) are with register.com. I only have good things to say about their web site and service.
They are not cheap, the price is the same as NSI, but service is awesome!
I am looking forward to transfer that one last domain from NSI to register.com, but there is some paper work they require (notarization, photo ID, legalization - not easy when you have those in Arabic!). But eventually, I will do it!