Khaled rambles technology, tea/coffee, consumer rights and other interest from Saudi Arabia

February 27, 2020

جروبات تيليجرام 2020

Filed under: General — Tags: , — Khaled A. @ 12:51 am

هذه قائمة لبعض الجروبات العربية في تيليجرام. بامكانك اقتراح جروبات عبر مراسلتي في تويتر.

جروبات برمجة و تقنية

جروبات العاب و تسلية

جروبات متنوعة

جروبات سيارات

February 27, 2012

Windows Phone Beats Android, Announces Official App Market for Saudi Arabia, UAE

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , , , — Khaled A. @ 8:44 pm

أعلنت مايكروسوفت رسمياً أنه سيتم إفتتاح متجر لتطبيقات ويندوز فون رسمي في المملكة العربية السعودية و عدد من الدول الشهر القادم! وينكم يا قوقل أعطونا وجه!

In a post on the Windows Phone Dev Blog, Joe Belfiore announced that in March Microsoft will launch an official app marketplace for customers in 23 countries, including Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

The full 23 country list includes:

Bahrain, Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Estonia, Iceland, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Saudi Arabia and UAE were ignored by Google’s Android Marketplace for a very long time, forcing users to root to enable purchasing of apps.

While Arabic isn’t officially supported on Windows Phone 7 it can read Arabic just fine unlike Android 2.3 devices. Don’t ask about ICS as it exists on only 2 phones.

Microsoft will launch the market in March 2012 and I should note that Apple launched the Saudi Arabia iTunes App Store in July 2008.

Thanks @mhmd!

[image credit: Nokia Lumia 610 at MWC 2012]

July 11, 2010

Stupid MS Office ad in Arabic

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — Khaled A. @ 2:20 pm

Speaking of silly ads, just what is Microsoft Saudi Arabia thinking with this advertisement for Office 2010.

If you care about Arabic speakers why don’t you make ARABIC OFFICE FOR MAC ALREADY?

Originally posted by @Saudi.

June 12, 2010

Video: Coca Cola for families only

Filed under: Videos — Tags: , , , , — Khaled A. @ 11:11 pm

The family-only madness now reaches bottled soda. Imagine “family size” coke bottles restricted to families, no singles allowed to buy it. Enjoy the video:

Video by Malik Nejer. Thanks keloud for twittering it.

In case you don’t know, “family only” locations are popular in Saudi Arabia.

May 10, 2010

More plagiarism from the Saudi mainstream media

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — Khaled A. @ 6:14 pm

It never ends, does it?

The following photo of Mohammed Abed Al-Jabri (Ar: محمد عابد الجابري‎), who died recently, was taken in 2009 by Fahd Alhazmi (فهد الحازمي).

The photo was taken during Riyadh Book Fair 2009 and posted here. Interesting note about the original photo, Mohammed’s eyes were closed and Fahd has edited the photo slightly.

Now it appeared in the following Saudi newspapers/news sites.

On Asharq Alawsat as well as their web site:

On Alarabiya’s news site:

AlRiyadh newspaper’s website:

Elaph news site:

A Moroccan newspaper did it twice: here and here.

Islam Today as well:

More details (in Arabic) at Fahd’s site.

April 25, 2010

Arabic discussion about intellectual property

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — Khaled A. @ 3:00 am

Good timing especially after the unfortunate things that happened here (Arabic post) but not here (English version).

The issue of Arabic content and intellectual property is serious. We Saudis will never understand or come to terms with copy rights or intellectual properties because we were never taught that in school (thanks Essam). It starts with copying a homework.

That original issue should be resolved by simply saying “this is a quote” cause it’s a full quote from my post. Looks like “through SaudiMac” is enough. kbo.

Anyway, Jassim has started a public discussion in Arabic on his blog about intellectual property. Feel free to join the discussion.

April 2, 2010

Plagiarism is Hilarious!

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Khaled A. @ 7:27 pm

Someone told me that once. I think it’s true.

I am sad to see that this original post by Youssef on March 31st pictured here:

Was copied (I decided not to put a link to the plagiarized article) in this post on April 2nd. I will just put a picture instead of linking:

I am sad for Arabic content. Really I am.

Both articles talked about Seton Hill University’s plan to give all students an Apple iPad.

small update: the second post was deleted as expected.

January 16, 2010

Top Arabic Web Apps for ’09

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Khaled A. @ 4:19 pm

Make sure to check this list of Arabic web sites, I mean apps, strange, in Arabic it’s مواقع = websites but it’s web apps = تطبيقات الويب. Enough nitpicking. Here’s the list of Arabic Web Apps:

  • Mashahd TV OnDemand network. A good example that proves you don’t need to add YOUTUBE/TUBE in your site’s name.
  • Qabas min Hikmah (to quote from wisdom). A database of wise quotes.
  • WA9.LA (link). iTiny. URL shortening services.
  • Gwasah (submarine, gather your friends and sail in the submarine). Allows you and your friends to have private discussions.
  • Kanashah. Online notes web app.
  • Auto Survey. Arabic survey tool.
  • Zahma o La (is it crowded or not). Monitor King Fahad bridge (between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) activity.
  • Mo3jam (dictionary). A dictionary of colloquial Arabic terms.
  • Kammelna (Complete us, a Belote term). Online Belote card game. Belote is a popular in Saudi Arabia.
  • Arabic Keyboard. Because you can’t find an Arabic keyboard everywhere you go.
  • Bedkash. Classified ads.
  • iconty (My Icon). Arabic icon search engine. For designers.
  • Uzerat (Users). The BugMeNot for Arabic websites. Find logins for sites that demand your registration.
  • Hide 2 Me. Share multiple links in a single short link.
  • Read Now. A stumbleupon for Arabic reading content.

Voting will begin next Friday.

January 7, 2010

Native Arabic support for Google Android

Filed under: News — Tags: , , , — Khaled A. @ 8:02 pm

STC was the first company to introduce an Android based cellphone in the region. The phone was the HTC Magic however native Arabic support is only available for Android OS 1.5 while the latest OS version for the Magic is 1.6 (HTC are working on 2.1 update to be released this year). Arabic support is not available in 1.6, 2.0 and 2.1.

I should contrast this to the iPhone: iPhone OS 3.0 added support for many languages including Arabic. You do not need to download additional software to add Arabic to the iPhone and you don’t need to change anything if all you needed is to read Arabic. Apple did that in less than 2 years and all of their iPhones support Arabic by now. As for Android you should be able to add Arabic by visiting a site such as XDA Developers.

Which brings us to the ArDroid website that specializes in helping the Arabic speaking community use Google Android phones. They started a feature request to have better Arabic language support:

I bought an Android phone and I said since you already made the locale adding the Arabic language will be easy and fast , but now I have the phone for 5 months and no Arabic support still , we have two available Android phones in my country and two are coming in a few months , I had an iPhone but I sold it to buy an Android phone , so I think I’m wrong in selling the iPhone , anyway please Google add the Arabic support and Prove Me Wrong .

Support this by voting for this issue to be resolved which you can do by simply clicking the star on the left (you might need a Google Account for that).

I should remind Google that Nokia is a major market-share holder in Saudi Arabia, BlackBerry comes in second place. So they are the major competition for Android phones here, not the iPhone.

Image from here.

October 13, 2009

Alyaum newspaper steals from a KAUST student blog

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Khaled A. @ 4:33 pm

This article on Alyaum “اليوم” Saudi newspaper was stolen from this blog post by Nathan, a student in KAUST.

Another intellectual property theft by a Saudi newspaper. All I can say is “فضحتونا قدام العالم”.

alyaum-kaust

Via Indie Saudi.

Update: Nathan: “I do want accountability. What Al Yaum did was wrong, but the tone of the discussion is also wrong. Outrage does nothing to solve our problems and does everything to create even more.”

Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress