my 2 cents

This blog has moved to a new address: my2sent.blogspot.com
It would take me some time to move all my old posts from here to the new location, but from now on, new posts will be made there only. I invite everyone to visit my new blog. Many thanks.

Google Chrome is the newest browser in the web scene. Its fast, probably the fastest browser, at least faster than Safari, Opera, Firefox and of course IE. But does that mean you should dumb your browser and replace it with Google Chrome? not yet. My advise is to keep using your current browser. You can download Google Chrome and try it, but don’t make it your default browser. Here is why..

First it’s still in beta, so it lacks many features that FF users are used to..

• There are no extensions or skins yet for Chrome. FF already has thousands of free extensions and add-ons under the disposal of its users. And when Chrome matures in the future, it is not imaginable for Google to release an extension such as ‘Adblock Plus’ which gives the user the choice to block all kind of ads, even Google text and image ads. Google profits mainly from advertising.

• Chrome forces itself in your C drive. It gives you no other choice. Many people will not like that, specially if you are using programs like ‘Deep Freeze’ or ‘Returnil’ which blocks your C drive against any changes (which in my experience proved to be a much better way to protect your computer compared to antivirus software that many trojans, spyware, adware and malware can infiltrate easily).

• Google logs your online activity while you are using its Chrome browser. This invasion of privacy is too bad. Google records anything that you type in Chrome’s address bar while its auto-suggest feature is on, even if you din’t hit ‘Enter’!. Google has every intention of retaining some of that data even after it provides the promised suggestions. A Google representative told CNET News that the company plans to store about 2 percent of that data–and plans to store it along with the Internet Protocol address of the computer that typed it. This is very strange, because if they were recording that data to help in market reseach or general web user preferences, then why store that data along with your specific IP address of your own computer?

• Chrome doesn’t remember your zoom settings for different websites. This is aa huge disappointment. FF does remember your zoom setting for each and every site you have visited before. In Chrome, you have to zoom again everytime you visit the same sites. And Chrome zooms in/out the text content only, while FF zooms in/out all the elements in the page: text, images, flash movies, etc. Now that’s funny, when it comes to our personal privacy, Google works hard to store each and every character we type, but something as simple and useful for us as our zoom preferences are not yet in their mind!

• There are vary little and basic settings in Chrome. FF users are spoiled with a sea of choices and settings. FF has gives you both the standard options, and the ability to change the default configurations of almost all the browser features and behaviors.

• Chrome is just another browser, while FF can be used in several extra purposes. With extensions, you can use it as your fully featured download manager, fully featured FTP program, media player, web radio, dictionary, wiki.. you name it. Chrome has a very long way to go before it can match FF rich world of Extensions, skins and feature add-ons.

Lately its been a nighmare for many people. IE starts itself in several windows, with chinese websites. New windows keep popping up out of nowhere, and your computer begins to slow down. This happens even if you were not using IE, and even if you never use IE. It happens sometimes when you are using Firefox, and sometimes without you opening any browser at all!

The web if full of discussions about this issue, but so far no one seems to find a solution. I’ve tried the following procedure, and so far it worked for me. I hope to hear from others who will try my way, to let me know if it worked for them.
(This works best if you are a Firefox user)

- start IE
- go to tools > internet options > connections
- if you are using a LAN connection, click: LAN settings
- under ‘proxy server’ tick the box in front of ‘use a proxy server for your LAN’.
- in the address box, type something like 5.5.5.5

If you are using another type of connection, like dialup, look for its proxy setting. The idea is to make IE think that you need to use a proxy to connect, whereas you are actually pointing it to a proxy that does not exist.

Now whatever causes IE to start by itself will never be able to show you any ads or websites.

If at any point you needed to use IE, simply remove the tick you made earlier, and you’re good to browse normally. Remember to tick that box again when you finish your temporary browsing. I’m presuming that you are one of the smart people who have stopped using IE, and turned to more secure, more feature rich and much faster browsers, like Firefox, Safari and now the winner of them all (in terms of speed only): Google Chrome.

PS. if you use Google Chrome or Safari, the above procedures will make them fail to connect. Firefox is the only browser that seems to work independant of Windows/IE connection settings.

إكتشفت هذا الموقع بالصدفة
hyperbazar.com
موقع مصرى للتسوق من خلال النت - تطلب ماتشاء من منتجات غذائية فتأتيك خلال ساعتين حتى باب منزلك
معظم معروضاتهم من كارفور - فهم يوفروا عليك عناء المشوار - وحتى المنتجات عالية الإقبال والتى غالباً ما تكون قد نفدت قبل أن تصل كارفور يستطيعون إحضارها لك

الدفع عند الإستلام - فلا حاجة للدفع بالفيزا على النت
الموقع ممتاز تستطيع الوصول لما تحتاج بسهولة - كل سلعة معروض صورتها و تفاصيلها ووزنها وسعرها قبل التخفيض وبعده

كما يتيح لك الموقع أن تكتب تعليق على أى سلعة إشتريتها - وبالتالى تستطيع أيضاً قراءة تعليقات من سبقوك بالشراء - ويمكنك تقييم السلع بنظام النجوم من نجمة الى خمس نجوم - وإن كنت أقترح على أصحاب الموقع أن يظهر بجوار صورة كل سلعة عدد نجوم تقييمها وعدد التعليقات كوصلة بالنقر عليها نستطيع قراءة تلك التعليقات وكتابة تعليقنا الخاص - كما أقترح عليهم التوسع فى عرض سلع أخرى - كمستلزمات الكمبيوتر وإكسسواراته - التى غالباً مانحتاجها ولانجد الوقت لشراءها - والكتب الدراسية والكثير من السلع يمكن شراؤها بالتسوق عبر النت

مشروع جميل يدار من خلال شباب واعى مخلص للنجاح - لمست حرصهم على الإهتمام بالعملاء - لذا أتمنى لهم التوفيق

مصر فى حاجة لهذا النوع من التسوق عبر النت - فالشوارع والزحمة وضيق الوقت والأسعار الغالية والغش التجارى الذى إنتشر بطريقة مرعبة كلها عوامل تحلها مثل تلك المشروعات التى تحقق للمستهلك الشفافية بإمكانية النقد وكشف السلع الرديئة من الجيدة وحتى إسترداد النقود وتوفر الوقت والجهد والمال

هذا الموقع يتقاضى 2 جنيه لتوصيل الطلبات إذا كان مجموع المشتريات أقل من 20 جنيه - والتوصيل مجاناً إذا كان المجموع أكثر من 20 جنيه

أعتقد أن المستقبل سيكون للتسوق عبر النت - خصوصاً إذا كان الدفع عند الإستلام كما يفعلون فى هايبر بازار

http://hyperbazar.com

Its usually better to install your software in a partition other than ‘C’ for several reasons, specially if you use ‘Deep Freeze’ or ‘Returnil’ to block your C drive from all changes (which is far more better than using any antivirus).

But some software are not polite enough to ask you where would you like to install them. One of those is Google earth. The choice is just not there. But here is how you can easily force them to install in a partition/drive of your choice. The following procedure will also default all programs to get installed in the drive that you prefer, instead of C:
(do the following before installing Google Earth. Or if you have it installed already, uninstall first, then follow my procedures, then re-install Google earth)

1- In your keyboard, press the Windows logo botton and ‘R’ together, to open the run command window.
2- type: regedit
3- Click ‘Ok’.
4- Browse to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
5- Double click the ‘ProgramFilesDir’ value.
6- Change the value to the directory you wish to be the default installation location for your software.

Now start Google Earth installation, and it will install in the drive/partition that you have selected in step 6. And from now on, all other programs that you will install will do so in that drive/partition, if you selected the default installation.

Most laptops run much faster if powered with Windows XP instead of the heavily bloated Vista operating system.
I tried several times to install Windows XP in a Toshiba laptop powered with Vista, but failed, because XP couldn’t find any HDD! The reason is that XP CD doesn’t have drivers for SATA hard disks.

But I have finally found a very simple solution:
1. During your laptop startup, press F2 to enter in BIOS setup Utility.
2. Choose “Advanced”, and change the “SATA Controller working mode” from “AHCI” to “Compatibility”.
3. Clcik F10 to saved the change.
4. Restart and install Windows XP.

Remember: before you take away Vista, download the Toshiba XP drivers for your laptop model, from their website: here.

I’ve tried Maya 2009 in a Vista laptop equipped with a X3100 (965) graphics card. It works fine and fast. You only need to change the color depth from 32 to 16bit, thats all.

Recently, I downloaded the newly updated intel display driver for the 965, version 7.15.10.1576 , thinking that it may be better in performance. But I was surprised after installing it, to find that Maya failed to even start!

So I uninstalled the new version and installed back version 7.15.10.1472 , which I think is the best driver suitable for Maya so far. Just make sure you set the computer color to 16bit.

I started using Deep Freeze about 6 years ago. Its a very useful program. You can use it instead of all virus protection programs that usually slow down your system and require constant updates. But DF has some glitches. Sometime, its tray icon mysteriously disappear. That is a BIG problem, because you will not be able to restart in thawed mode, and you will not be able to uninstall DF either. You will probably then have to reformat your system drive, This happened to me a couple of times, and it was really frustrating. Then I discovered a nice alternative: Returnil.. (more…)

Installing Maya 2009 on my Toshiba Satellite laptop, I faced a problem whenever I try to start the animation graphic editor, I get a black blank window. I tried everything but failed, until I stumbled accross a post that said the problem can be solved simply if you change your display color depth from 32bit to 16bit. Once I did that, the problem was gone!

To do that, right-click somewhere empty in your desktop, and select: Personalize > Display Settings.

I’ve been using Nero burning software for years. Just recently I tried PowerISO, and I was amazed at how much better and faster it is compared to Nero. Starting from the download file, nero is 180 times bigger than powerISO!! Nero eats huge amounts of memory. Version 8 takes ages to simply start, while powerISO starts instantly. PowerISO gives you virtual CD/DVD roms so you can run images without even having to burn them. Nero doesn’t have that very useful feature. PowerISO is ideal for burning PS2 and all kind of images. Nero does that but it takes much more time and steps to achieve the same. Nero occupies around 400 times the disk space that powerISO use. Nero ($100) is 250% more expensive than PowerISO ($40). Nero imposes many wierd tools on your computer while installing. It doesn’t even allow you the choice not to install them! tools like Nero Scout eats much memory and system resources unneccessiraly. It comes with tens of unneeded tools. PowerISO doesn’t impose any of this crap on your system. Nero can handle only a handful of image formats. PowerISO handles almost all formats (24 formats). PowerISO is so simple to use. Nero 8 is complicated and takes many steps to do the simplest of tasks. (more…)

أعلن وزير التربية والتعليم المصرى أن كل الكتب المدرسية أصبحت الآن متاحة كنسخ إلكترونية يمكن تنزيلها من موقع الوزارة غلى الإنترنت

طبعاً هذه خطوة رائعة ومفيدة جداً - وكنا ننتظرها من زمان - فقد سبقتنا إليها دول كثيرة - مثل السعودية وغيرها

الآن يمكن للطلبة إستخدام الكتب من على أجهزة الكمبيوتر فى أى مكان - بدلاً من حملها معهم - كما يمكن قراءتها من اللاب توب فى السيارة - النادى - الحديقة - أثناء السفر وغيره

لكن هناك مشكلة بسيطة: هذه الملفات الإلكترونية لا وجود لها على موقع الوزارة

فإما أن الوزير كان يتحدث عن أمنياته المستقبلية - أو أن موظفيه خدعوه وقالوله إن الكتب حاهزة غلى الموقع

ولكن ياترى هل يدخل الوزير على موقع وزارته ويتصفحه؟ أم يكتفى بتطمينات موظفيه؟

ومن ناحية أخرى - يصيبنى دائماً الإشمئزاز والقرف من صحفييى مصر - فهم يتمتعوا بكم غريب من التخلف

إقراً أى خبر فى أى جريدة يأتى فيه ذكر موقع على النت - تجد دائما عدم ذكر عنوان ذلك الموقع محل الخبر

المذهل أن هذا يحدث حتى فى الصحف الإلكترونية المنشورة على النت

تخلف يصيبك بالشلل

عاملين زى واحد أعطوه سيارة بورش أحدث طراز - فوضع فيها قدرة فول وحزم بصل وطشت غسيل ووقف بها على الناصية يبيع للناس فول بالدقة

ملحوظة: إذا حدثت معجزة وعثر أحد على تلك الوصلة على موقع الوزارة - ياريت يقول لنا

وأنا سأواصل البحث وأبلغكم هنا بمجرد العثور عليها

———————————————————-

إضافة

أخيراً ظهرت صفحة تنزيل الكتب المدرسية من موقع الوزارة

(more…)

سوبرر ماركت سبينيز - سيتى ستارز - القاهرة متجر جميل وأسعاره وتخفيضاته رائعة - ولكن يعيبه شيئين

أولاً - مدير الأمن فى سيتى ستارز شخصية عجيبة ذو عقلية متحجرة - يعامل الجمهور وكأنه قطيع من الغنم فبالرغم من وجود حوالى 12 باب للمول - إلا أنه يتحكم فى العباد بمنع الدخول ألا من بابين إثنين فقط و منع الخروج إلا من باب واحد فقط من الإثنى غشر باب

باقى الأبواب عليها متاريس كما لو كنت داخل وحدة عسكرية ممنوع الدخول أو الخروج منها

حتى رصيف المشاة ممنوع إستخدامه  فى جزء كبير منه- ويجبروك على السير أنت وأطفالك فى عرض الشارع وسط السيارات المسرعة كما لو كان البشر بالنسبه له عبارة عن كلاب أو حيوانات

إننى أناشد أصحاب هذا المول أن يتخلصوا من هذا الشخص الغريب و يوظفوا مكانه خبير أمن سبق له التعامل مع البشر و يعرف كيف يحترم البنى آدمين

ثانياً - موقع سبينيز عبارة عن نكتة - فهو يخلو من أى معلومات تهم المستهلكين - كما أنه لايوجد أصلا موقع مخصص لفرع مصر

أناشد أصحاب سبينيز مصر أن ينشئوا موقغ للمستهلكين يعرفوا من خلاله الأسعار والعروض والتخفيضات - لا أفهم كيف لم يفكروا فى ذلك من قبل

منذ فبراىر 2008 أعلن النادى الأهلى عن أنه سيتيح انترنت لاسلكى مجانى يغطى كل أرجاء النادى بعد 3 شهور

لكن الخدمة الجديدة تأخرت وبدأت بعد 6 شهور

وملاحظاتى على الخدمة أنها بطيئة على غير المتوقع - فقد قرأنا عن إستثمارات تفوق ال 6 مليون جنيه - لكنى قمت بقياس السرعة فوجدتها فى المتوسط

upload speed: 720 Kb/s

download speed: 170 Kb/s

وهذا أقل من سرعة إشتراك منزلى عادى سرعة  2م ب

وأيضاً الشبكة غير مستقرة وبتقطع كثيراً - وفى بعض الأيام تتوقف تماماً

الغريب أنه بالرغم من بدء الخدمة من 20 يوم - لم تكلف إدارة النادى نفسها وتعلن عنها فى أى مكان بالنادى - ومازال معظم الأعضاء لايعلمون شيئاً عنها حتى الآن

أما كلمة السر الخاصة بالشبكة فيبدو أنها سر خطير تخفيه الإدارة فى تكتم شديد - إذن مامعنى أنه إنترنت مجانى إذا كنت ستجعله بكلمة سر ثم لاتعلنها حتى لأعضاءك؟

بالمناسبة كلمة السر هى

NOL07777761

وإذا كانت السرعة بهذا البطء ومستخدميها مازالوا قلة قليلة - فكيف ستكون عندما يعرف الجميع؟

على كل حال يجب أن نشكر النادى الأهلى على الخدمة المجانية الجديدة ونتمنى أن يزيد من سرعتها وكفاءتها لأن الإحتياج لهذه الخدمة سيتضاعف كثيراً فى المستقبل القريب - مع الإقبال الهائل على شراء الكمبيوترات المحمولة و أجهزة البى دى ايه

فى مصر كثير من الفقراء - وبعضهم ينام بلا طعام - ويعتبر شهر رمضان فرصة للكثيرين للحصول على وجبة مجانية من خلال موائد الرحمن التى يتسابق أهل الخير على إقامتها فى كل مكان - حتى إذا إنتهى رمضان عاد هؤلاء الفقراء لحياة الحرمان والتضور جوعاً

أود أن أقترح على القادرين و أهل الخير أن يفتتحوا محلات للوجبات السريعة تخدم الفقراء والمحتاجين وعابرى السبيل فتقدم لهم وجبات مجانية طوال العام - وقد بهرتنى هذه الفكرة الرائعة عندما رأيتها منفذة فى إحدى الدول الأوربية وقلت سبحان الله - نحن نقيم موائد الرحمن ببذخ شديد فى رمضان ثم ننسى فقراءنا باقى السنة - أما هذه المحلات الأنيقة فهى موائد مستديمة للرحمن طوال العام

ويمكن تنفيذ الفكرة بأكثر من طريقة

إذا كان فاعل الخير من الأثرياء يمكنه إقامة مايشاء من المحلات بحيث يتكفل بكل التكلفة لوحده

أو يمكن أن يتم الإنفاق عليه بصفة ذاتية - بحيث تباع وجبات للقادرين بسعر يغطى التكلفة مع فاثض يمكن المطعم من خدمة الفقراء - فكأن القادر يدفع ثمن وجبته ووجبة أو وجبتين لإخوته من الفقراء

كما يمكن وضع صندوق تبرعات فى كل محل يتيح للمحسنين المشاركة فى فعل الخير بالمساهمة فى تكاليف الوجبات - بل يمكن نشر صناديق مماثلة فى المحلات والمطاعم الأخرى - وبخاصة تلك التى يرتادها القادرين - تدعوهم لتذكر الفقراء والمحتاجين والتبرع مما أعطاهم الله

وفى نفس الوقت يمكن لتلك المحلات إستقبال بواقى الطعام من الأسر القادرة - بدلاً من إلقائه فى سلال القمامة - ولايخفى عليكم أن بعض الناس أصبحوا من الجوع يبحثون فى صناديق القمامة فى الشوارع على بواقى الطعام - فالأفضل أن نقدمه لهم نظيفاً مغلفاً من خلال تلك المطاعم لنحفظ عليهم كرامتهم ونقيهم من الأمراض

وأعتقد أن هذه الفكرة إذا نجحت وإنتشرت - ستساهم أيضاً فى حل مشكلة البطالة لمن سيعمل بها من بائعين وطهاه ومعدى الوجبات - وإن كنت أرى أن يدير كل محل شخص متطوع لديه متسع من الوقت و محب للخير ولايرجو إلا مرضاة المولى عز وجل

CNG (compressed natural gas) is very cheap in Egypt. One cubic meter costs only LE 0.45 (in USD: about 8 cents)! which is way cheaper than gazoline at LE 1.75 per liter (octane 90). Plus, a meter of gas makes more kilometers (mileage) for the car, about double actually. Driving from Cairo to Alexandria, Egypt (200km) costs LE 5 in gas, compared to LE 35 in gasoline, that’s 7 times cheaper! (more…)

Good news for Egyptian adsense publishers. No more lost checks in mail, no more long waits! Cash your payments the next day! (more…)

Through the years, I used many web hosting services. And from my experience, I can now saely recommend the best web host ever. (more…)

If you ever wanted to locate your firefox profile, here is a quick way: (more…)

Firefox sometimes somehow refuses to save your settings. If you used more that one login info for a given site, firefox will stop auto filling your username and password. So, when you want to correct this, the procedure should be to go, from firefox menu, to: Tools > Options > Security > Show Passwords, then remove both login entries for that site. But sometimes, somehow, firefox fail to remove those entries. If you checked again, after restarting firefox, and found that both entries are still there, then you need to do a manual remove. Here is how: (more…)

Here is a tiny extension that saves you lot of space in your Firefox top menu bar. It gives you much larger address bar, and allows you to move the search bar up there too if you want less lines and more space for your browsing. (more…)

Here is a simple way to get rid of the ‘Go’ arrow button in Firefox, which will give you more space for your address bar. (more…)

مع كارت مرحبا بلس تستطيع أن تجري المكالمات المحلية والدولية ومكالمات المحافظات والمحمول من أي تليفون ثابت دون أن تضاف قيمة هذه المكالمات على فاتورة التليفون ، ويتم تشغيل الكارت بسهولة تامة كما يمنحك أعلى سرية في الاستخدام

(more…)

Today, everytime I login to my web sites, my browser freezes after a few seconds. I discovered that a site at iii.832823.cn is somehow sending web surfers a script that delays loading web pages forever. I had to restart my computer several times. Then finally I found a solution (more…)

Here is a handy online tool to calculate the the amount you get, after a given period of years, when you deposit your money in a bank. Just type the amount you want to deposit, the bank’s yearly interest rate, and the number of years that you intend to keep your money in the bank. (more…)

One of the few problems with having a phone with a nice big display is that many games do not display full screen. No problem! It’s an easy fix that anyone can do and you’ll be running full screen games/aps on your phone in no time. (more…)

Don’t install megaupload toolbar, its loaded with evil stuff. It will force your firefox browser’s to use yahoo instead of google, and will load weird pages full of ad links, even when you try to have a new empty bowser page. But if you have already installed megaupload toolbar, here is a quick and easy fix to get your firefox back like it was before .. (more…)

Here are a few tips to help you configure Firefox to how you want. (more…)

There is an awful spammer who calls herself ‘Miss Nathalie Haig’. She keeps sending nonesense emails to huge lists of email addresses. I’ve been suffering from this for years now. (more…)

If you use BitComet or exchange torrents, be warned: version 0.70 is the only stable release to date. (more…)

I used to have EvilLyrics to display lyrics of songs while being played. But the problem was that it displays the lyrics in its own, separate window. (more…)

If your Firefox profile is saved in C, or where Windows in installed, you’re running the risk of losing it. The Windows partition in your hard drive is the one you reformat in many situations, like when it gets infected with viruses or trojans, or when the computer gets too bloated and slow, or when something goes wrong and you find no way to access except reformatting that partition. That;s why it comes handy plan ahead and save your firefox profile in any other partition.

Now, suppose that you forgot where your profile folder is!
Here is an easy way to locate it: (more…)

In Firefox, when you click a bookmark, it replaces the current page. To open it in a new tab, you need to press Ctrl while clicking the bookmark. I think a bookmark should open in a new tab just by clicking. I just found an extension that does exactly that. (more…)

Firefox 2 is great, and comes with many useful new features. But one feature annoyed me: If you’re used to opening many tabs, like I do, you may need to use the arrows at far right, or left, to be able to view them. That’s because in Firefox 2.0, tabs has a minimum width setting. To allow more visible tabs, (more…)

Free software, specially open source, are usually much better than paid software. Following is a list of the gems that I’ve found to be very useful over the years, and why I’m using them: (more…)

We’ve discussed earlier how to fix the sound problem in Canon and other digital cameras, where the mic is designed too close to the camera’s moving parts, and the mic is so sensitive that it picks the mechanical noise all the time during shooting your movies.
Now let’s see how to replace the original audio track of our movie, with the track we fixed with Goldwave. (more…)

The Canon A710 is a great camera. You can find excellent reviews about it in several websites, but there is an annoying sound problem that is not mentioned in any of those reviews that I’ve read so far. The good news is that I found a perfect and easy fix for that problem.

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This is one great song. I’ve been trying to find it anywhere on the web for ages, and now that I finally found it, I thought I’d share it with you. Dai el anadeel, by Abdel Halim Hafiz (more…)

If it annoys you, everytime you create a shortcut, that the words “Shortcut to ” is added, here is a simple way to teach Windows not to add it anymore (more…)

In modern wars, air power is maily used to destry everything. In Lebanon, the israeli are causing huge damage, killing civilian women and children, demolishing buildings and burrying innocent people alive. (more…)

Here is a nice healthy diet, that I’ve tried and found great.
You lose weight, while eating healthy food, and without starving yourself like in other diets. (more…)

One download solves all your computer’s audio and video needs! (more…)

.. but I’m restricted (more…)

Listen to Radio Masr Elyoum - Egypt online (more…)

Home-made yogurt is fun to make, delicious and saves you money. Here is the easiest way to make it. It takes only 2 minutes to prepare! (more…)

With the outbreak of bird flu in several countries accross the world, it is advised that we stop eating grilled or fried chicken and raw or soft boiled eggs (more…)

If you’re a fan of internet radio, you’ll find this plugin very useful. It displays the lyrics of almost any song you’re listening to. (more…)

Listen to Radio Casablanca online (more…)

Listen to Radio Tunisia online (more…)

I’ve been using several web hosts in the past 10 years, but never found anything so good like site5 (more…)

Listen to Radio Egypt online (Al-Barnameg Al-Aam) (more…)

It’s wonderful news for school students. Your government will propably start distributing laptops instead of your usual text books soon. (more…)

Here is a list of links to Egyptian newspapers and magazines, including special links for viewers living in Egypt. (more…)

It happens alot, having to re-install your firefox extensions. In some cases, your extensions suddenly disappear. To re-install them, you need to have a record of their names, and the locations from which you got them before. But now, thanks to this smart little extension, called ‘Local Install’, you no more have to worry the next time you loose your extensions. (more…)

If you happened to mis-type your username/password when trying to login to a website before, then you must feel the frustration when Firefox keeps remembering your little mistake forever. I just found out how you can break free and have Firefox behave! (more…)

I keep noticing it. More people on th web are typing ‘to’ when they wanted to type ‘too’. This typo is growing so much that I sometime think like, perhaps the English language changed, and I’m the last one to realize it. Did it? (more…)

You almost wake up everyday in Egypt, to read a new tragic road accident in the newspapers. Yesterday, 11 poor children were drowned in a water canal, when the trailer of a tractor, in which they were packed in, was suddenly detached and went into the canal. 13 people drowned, including 11 children. They were hired to work in a cotton field, a full day’s work for only LE.7 (a dollar and a few cents). (more…)

This smart little tool simply displays your adsense earnings in your Firefox status bar. No more logging in every time you want to check your adsense report! (more…)

I just discovered adsenselogger, a free open source server-side logger tool. It works great, and has the same features you’d get from a paid tracker software I guess. (more…)

Finally, google made it. Google talk is the new instant messenger that will take the world by surprise. Now, gmail users have nothing to envy MSN or Yahoo users for.

They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free. Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free–anytime, anywhere in the world. Google Talk offers you:

* Choice: Get in touch how and when you want to–over email, IM or a call

* Quality: Talk through your computer but hear your friends as if they were in the same room

* Convenience: Your Gmail contacts are pre-loaded into Google Talk so inviting or talking to your friends is just a click away

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The AdSense team just launched their very own blog.

You can look forward to posts around 2-3 times a week from an assortment of Googlers involved in the operation of AdSense – engineers, product managers, product marketing managers, and operations staff. We hope you’ll visit often.

This should be very interesting for anyone who runs a website and displays adsense ads (more…)

Most of us wish if there was a feature in Firefox browser that auto-reloads specific web pages. You can do that with this handy extension ‘ReloadEvery’ (more…)

Gmail service is great, but it is gradually becoming too much of pain lately. Right now, its returning this:

Server Error

Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.

Cross our fingers??? is that what it boils down to? crossing fingers and make a wish, just to read our mail..???
Can you beleive that google would be that much careless about our mail?
This dreadful error page used to be very rare, but the frequency is growing… (more…)

If you’re a Firebox user, you probably noticed how ‘Find’ doesn’t work in text areas. It used to work in older firefox versions. Now, a nice little extension brings back the ‘Find’ function to its original dialogue box, instead of the find bar. (more…)

If you frequent any forums, I suggest you use this handy tool. It gives you perfectly spelled words every time. (more…)

Firefox is tomorrow’s browser available today. Its simply amazing, anyone still using IE should think again.
But it desperately needs a backup tool, because its bookmarks are known to get crazy and be gone, specially if your system was powered off accidentally. I finally found this wonderful backup extension (more…)

Need a Gmail account?
I’m giving away 100 gmail invites, as a courtesy to my readers (more…)

Wow..2081 MB mailbox!
As if 1GB was not enough, gmail has just upgraded all its users’ mailboxs capacity to a whopping 2GB.
When it comes to mail service, Google surely means business!.. This unheard of kind of storage, in the world of free email services, adds to all the great features gmail already has. They are not even stopping at 2GB, according to their latest official statement: (more…)

I just got this in my mail from ikobo:

NOTICE OF TERMINATION OF MERCHANT SERVICES

Please be advised that effective immediately iKobo, Inc.is ceasing to provide processing for merchant services in order to comply with a direct request from VISA International under their processing regulations. (more…)

If you use Google Adsense, this is the tool for you! CSV AdStats offers you quick and indepth analysis of the performance of the targeted advertising for your content pages. The best part is that it’s absolutely free! no, ads, no trial limitations, its totally freeware (more…)

There are a lot of free tools and resources on the web for google adsense users. I’ll try to shed some light on these tools and how I find them, out of my own experience (more…)

Downloading mp3 used to be illegal. Now several websites are offering legit high quality mp3 downloads. The idea is that they charge you pr song download. I found one that charges only 10¢ per song, so you can download a complete album for around $1.40 (more…)

edit: PowWeb is not the best host you can find. I’ve been with them, but switched to a much better host, propably the best. Read my comment here

Looking for a good web hosting service is so difficult these days, with the tons of offers and the emergence of new companies with very low prices. But the more variety you get, the more confusing it could be. Thats why its important to see what customers of these companies have to say out of their experience with those hosting companies. (more…)

Update > Important:

Ikobo closed its service. Do not subscribe with them. This post if left here only for archival purposes.
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If you are looking for an easy way to accept payments online, I recommend Ikobo. Unlike other merchant accounts, there is no charges to get an iKobo merchant account. Setup is free, and no hidden charges. Their discount rate is very low: 2.99% + $0.29 cents for each purchase. For example, if someone paid you $10, you get $9.41
They have unique features over paypal: (more…)