Posts filed under 'Tech'
After being bombarded with FOREX ads all over the internet, it seems you cant dodge those ads anywhere you go even if you have any kind of Ad Block, I finally caved and decided to try this FOREX thing using virtual money (Practice Account).
One of the easiest and friendliest user interfaces seemed to be ETORO, having both novice and advanced modes. So long story short I tried it for few hours and gave it a long thought and I decided that its an interesting thing to learn more about before jumping on with real cash. Yet I later caved again and wanted to deposit some money but not to go crazy and try to take it slow.
The next day I get a phone call from ETORO middle east customer support, and I was amazed that he spoke Arabic, although talking about FOREX in Arabic was awkward but I had a long chat with him, and he kept going on and on how etoro is the best invention on the net (ya right), I didn’t mind it as I was eager to know more although I knew he just wants to make a sale.
Everything was fine until I asked him a question about money transfers via credit cards and PayPal and if they support it and so on, the second I mentioned PayPal he went crazy, and asked me what’s my nationality I told him “I am Jordanian”, so he went mad again and started insulting all Jordanians!!! that we are cheap and etoro is not for “my” kind of people!! So I taught him a lesson on how to treat future customers and ended the call.
Just minutes before his call I was thinking seriously to deposit $500 dollars to try it out, and also to try the “Islamic” accounts, but after that unprofessional rude unacceptable treatment how can I do so?? Few days later I am chatting with a friend and FOREX came up and he told me nearly the same thing happened to him too!!
What is wrong with these people? Are they expecting FOREX professionals to talk to them? or are they expecting new users to deposit thousands of dollars from the first try? Their whole pitch is that they are user friendly and that their system is “EASY” for beginners?! Actually their minimum deposit is $50 US Dollars. Although I think etoro is an attractive and simple system yet they really need to seriously filter their customer support employees for the middle east and employ those who are pro and who knows how to effectively and respectfully communicate with their customers.
July 24th, 2009
A while ago Facebook allowed their users to choose usernames which is going to be used in a url linking to their profile, after the username was chosen it cannot be changed. So just like when you buy domains (at least for me) sometimes people can go crazy and choose usernames that they might regret later.
Facebook is now giving its users one last chance to change their usernames, no more changes after this time (ya right), so if you want to choose a new username you can do that by going to “Settings” then “Account Settings”.
But after millions of Facebook users already chose a username, finding a good one might be difficult, and I advise you to choose your name rather than any other thing you might think is clever or funny.
July 24th, 2009
Since the rise of the internet I always heard of projects of online universities, virtual universities, online only universities and even FREE online universities. But every time the end result was disappointing, with some of those projects either ridiculously very expensive, not accredited or the project simply gets cancelled for funding issues.
So that is why when I heard about the UOP “University of the People” I was not that shocked, and I just thought it will be the same old story, big idea with disappointing implementation. And don’t get me wrong it still might lead to that result, who knows? But this time this feels a bit different.
Few years ago many universities made their course materials available online for free, video lectures, audio lectures, slides, notes and even assignments. The leading university who took this bold move was MIT “Massachusetts Institute of Technology”. Many other universities followed MIT’s lead such as Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, UCLA, Yale, Washington and many more.
The University of the People is a non-profit university, its main goal is to give the chance of higher education to all people around the world for free or very low prices. The university is mostly comprised of volunteers, professors, librarians, master level students, computer programmers and professionals.
The university is still not accredited, but this is normal as it is just starting and it needs to follow number of rules and get evaluated to be able to get accredited. The university is going to be offering two undergraduate degrees, a BA in Business Administration and a BSc in Computer Science. More bachelors degrees and masters degrees such as MBA is expected to be added in later stages.
The university is accepting now applications from students around the world, but in the start they will only accept 300 students, the plan is to reach to 10 thousand enrollments within 5 years. The fees are minimal, for enrollment it will range between $15 to $50, and for exams between $10 to $100, it all depends on where you are living.
On the 24th of April 2009 the UOP started accepting enrollment applications, and on 14th of May 2009 a new website will be launched. 30th of June 2009 the enrollment deadline for the fall semester. 20th of July 2009 the notice of acceptance to UOP orientation courses. 9th of September 2009 the Fall Semester starts.
At the moment the best way to contact the university is via email, although they provide a phone number but you will have to be very very very lucky to get a human to talk to you, 99% of the time you will be forwarded to voice mail. You should get a quick reply to your email during the weekdays.
One reason a lot of people are optimistic for this to work is that the peer-to-peer learning experience actually exists online, according to a survey by the Sloan Consortium (a nonprofit group devoted to integrating online learning into mainstream higher education) around 4 million students in USA took an online course in 2007. The founder of UOP sensed the power of peer to peer learning while working on www.cramster.com which is an online study community that offers help for students on their college homework and assignments.
Of course if the right tools are available and the community is well built and the professionals are there to help, this could be a dream come true, this could revolutionize online education. But for this to fully succeed a lot of factors should work together perfectly to reach to the kind of success this kind of idea deserves. Many people who are eager to study and get higher education will be happy to hear this news, people who missed out on education, this could be their second chance. This could change lives, we just have to wait and see.
May 8th, 2009
Twitter, the pioneer in micro-blogging which now have hundreds if not thousands of clones all around the globe, was always blocked in UAE, don’t ask me why, while other clones like Pownce and Rejaw stayed available. Twitter is not the only blocked website that puzzled people, many other websites that got blocked had alternatives which was accessible and not blocked/banned such as Flickr and Photobucket.
It has been reported few weeks ago that more than 1000, yes ONE THOUSAND, websites will be unblocked/unbanned, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) will be instructing Etisalat and DU to unblock the websites as part of a new “Internet Access Management” policy. For full info on this matter you can check this article from The National. Until now there is no list of what websites will be unblocked but I guess eventually we will be having a list either official or non-official during the next few days.
August 26th, 2008
If you are a politics junkie like me or just a regular follower of news you will always try to find easier ways to access news networks. I watch a variety of channels and on different times, I watch CNN, Aljazeera English, Aljazeera Arabic, BBC World, France 24, MSNBC, Sky News, Alarabiya, and only for laughs I watch FOX News. For a while I used to use P2P programs such as TVU Networks, SOPCast, PPLIVE, PPMate and PPStream to watch various of news channels. Lately I am using LiveStation to watch some News channels, LiveStation provide high quality streaming of a number of news channels and radio news channels too.
For the time being LiveStation provides the following channels:
Some channels might not be available in your location, for example in my location “UAE” the “iTELE” channel is not available, but I guess most of them would be available. The streaming is fast and in great high quality and easy to switch between channels.
LiveStation also allows users to add channels in the website by adding the streaming URL of the channel. You also can add “user added” channels to your LiveStation channels list. Until writing this post 579 channels were added by users, you will find some of those really useful but some might not be in a good video quality like the channels officially provided by LiveStation.
August 20th, 2008
Redlasso which allowed bloggers to search and clip footage aired from the major American networks like NBC, FOX, CBS and Cable Channels such as MSNBC, Comedy Central. so basically if I wanted to show a clip of a part of an episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, I can just go to Redlasso search by date and channel and keyword obviously and then edit the footage and create a clip where I can embed on my blog.
While most of the channels now do have most of their shows videos online, and embedable on any blog but its not editable, Redlasso gave control for you to crop the segment you want from any show. NBC and FOX have filed a lawsuit against Redlasso on the 23rd of July 2008, and on the 25th of July 2008 Redlasso suspended their service. You can read their Press Release for full details. Although they still say they will try to come to an agreement with the networks, I really don’t see that happening.
The thing that really confused me and I would be thankful to anyone out there who can explain this for me, they say that the clips created by paying customers will still be working fine, so isn’t that adding more risk on Redlasso showing that they are profiting from others copyrighted materials? I donno but does this have any other meaning?! please help and enlighten me.
I got my beta account on Redlasso back on March 2008, and only started using it for my blog on July 2008, and only for two of my posts, why? I HAD A FEELING THIS WILL HAPPEN 
July 31st, 2008
When I accidentally saw this video on Youtube I was sure it was fake, after few seconds I just typed in the name on Google and realized this is real, very REAL. It feels as if I am watching a Sci Fi movie, the thing that made me wonder if this is real or not is how small it is. This is a dream come true to all those who have paralyzed legs they can simply regain their life. The man in this video was confined to his wheelchair for 20 YEARS!!! Yes imagine how he felt when he just stood up and walked, I am confined to my wheelchair too but I have Osteogenesis Imperfecta and this device wont work for me, but this gives me hope that one day who knows what could be invented
I can see this going easily to the next level, making it even lighter and who knows maybe integrating it into the body.
For full info MedGadget have profiled this device back in March 2008. The video was added to Youtube in 30th of June 2008.
July 22nd, 2008
To those who do not know, Stumbleupon is a website that allows users to rate websites and share them with their friends and with other users who have the same interests as them. Just by installing the Stumbleupon toolbar on Internet Explorer or Firefox the user sets his interests and by just clicking “Stumble” he will be able to jump from one website to another, so for example if one of his interests is gardening he will come across gardening websites, then he can rate it and like that Stumbleupon will understand what the user likes and dislikes to refine choice of websites to be stumbled.
Web surfers in the United Arab Emirates got the bad news two days ago that Etisalat the largest Telecom Company in UAE have blocked access to StumbleUpon and users were getting errors when clicking on their StumbleUpon Toolbar. People were angry, mad, and all kind of bad feelings you can think of, all sort of people from your regular web surfer to the Web Developer, all did not like the news and tried to contact Etisalat and ask why is this happening, but you always would get your regular answers. Some Web Developers and Bloggers actually use StumbleUpon as a way to promote their websites.
But today morning, and like every morning (I know am addicted ) I clicked on “Stumble” button of the StumbleUpon Toolbar and was shocked that it worked, I tried again and again and it worked, then just to confirm it I went to www.stumbleupon.com just to check if the homepage would load fine and it did. So I hope this comes as good news to all stumblers in UAE .
July 8th, 2008
Kaz Hirai the president of Sony Entertainment confirmed that the new PS3 will be smaller and quieter, the reason is because of the new 65nm cell processor which will be used rather than the older, more expensive and less efficient 90nm silicon. He also mentioned that they are cutting costs by using a lesser amount of components, and that the plans are set that by autumn the graphics processor of RSX “Reality Synthesizer” which is developed by Nvidia will be changed from 90nm to 65nm.
June 30th, 2008
I saw a lot of videos showing employees going crazy. But this is really funny video. The Great Office War by Runaway Box is really funny and nicely directed. Enjoy.
June 18th, 2008
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