Isam Bayazidi’s Blog

It seems that as Nader got cured from his Draft-but-not-publish syndrome, I caught it up. I discovered that my latest post was more than a month ago, and what’s worse, it was about IE7 :) Now, since then I wrote many drafts for posts, about several topics: Google Arabic translation, how excited I am about my new laptop, about my observations for the interview with slashdot a couple of months ago, the latest meeting for JP, and so on.. but they never got published because I was either too lazy, or found them not good enough.

Which brings me to another related “Syndrome” that I caught from some bloggers. The “I-can’t-write-because-I-am-so-exposed” Syndrome. For those who didn’t notice, some JP members contact us everynow and then asking for their removal from the planet. It seems that the exposure that Jordan Planet gives to them, makes them think more than once before hitting the publish key. While there are always the brave of us who are always willing to hit “Publish” regardless, other think twice, and then save as draft or delete. While this was a known issue even before the exposure that JP might give, it seems that JP only made it worse. I am not sure if I do have such issue, but I am sure that many do, so why not me :)

Last, but not least, I have the can’t-follow-up-with-everything syndrome. Probably this comes from bad personal organization and management. I know that many of my readers are waiting or expecting something from me: Ohoud on the Bookclub, Laith on another matter, Ammar, Lina, Salam and the list go on and on.. not counting those who submitted their blogs to JP, and wait for the slightest indication that their blog submission was read by someone :)

Now, I will be working on having my long draft list published, and the queue of people waiting for something from me shortened. And hopefully this post will make me overcome such fear-to-publish issue if it exists.

About Me, Apple, Blogging, Jordan Planet

A couple of weeks ago, we got a very interesting email from the “Contact Us” in Jordan Planet site:

Topic : RSS Feed issue with IE7
Message : I’m a Program Manager for RSS on the Internet Explorer team.  I’m contacting you because we have received a report that your website’s RSS feed is not compatible with Internet Explorer 7, and we’d like your cooperation in resolving this issue.
The feed in question is: http://www.jordanplanet.net/rss20.xml

On investigating, we discovered that your feed contains a reference to a DTD (Document Type Definition) used to help XML parsers with validation of the document.  However, DTD validation is a potential source of a security issues for XML parsers, and they are not required for RSS feeds, so Internet Explorer’s parser rejects all feeds that contain references to DTDs.

The DTD reference is not necessary for your feed to work in either Internet Explorer or any other aggregator. To enable users to subscribe to your feed in Internet Explorer 7, simply remove the reference to the DTD.
Please feel free to contact me about this.

Now, I was surprised that anyone from Microsoft would bother to check or send me a report about the feed of Jordan Planet.. So, in appreciation of thier time, I spent some time researching about it. I didn’t find any mention of that “security issue”. It seems that all Drupal-based sites (including the popular news site The Onion which uses Drupal as well) have this DOCTYPE/DTD declaration in their feeds.. So, basically, IE7 (according to the Program Manager for RSS in IE7) won’t work with Drupal feeds :)

As non-sense as this seems to me, I removed the DOCTYPE/DTD declaration from JP feeds.. I might return it soon though, as thinking more about it, the feed is XML/RSS valid, and it doesn’t make sense that IE7 completely ignore the feed just because it have a DOCTYPE/DTD declaration.  They can just ignore checking the DTD they are very worried about security.

On another note: 59.9% of Jordan Planet visitors use IE, 22.1% Firefox 1.5, 7% Firefox 1.0,  3% Mozilla 5.0..

Blogging, Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet, OSS & Linux

The last weeks had been crazy for me. During Eid, I got a job offer to join a company here in Amman, so I dropped my plans to accept an offer I got in Dubai in favour of staying in Amman. Some of my friends called me “habeeleh” or something for turning down a very good offer from Dubai, but for me, nothing beats waking up to a nice weather, no AC noise, walking outside to get the newspaper, no humidity, reading it, then heading to work where the most lengthy traffic Jam is 3-5 minutes (I’ve head stories about traffic in Dubai, No thank you, not interested).

The last month had been crazy for JP as well. We had been almost holding the voting process to add new blogs, reason is that we are currently discussing the voting, and proposing other ways than voting to have blogs added. We currently have a loong list of blogs that are to be added or decided on. Don’t worry, everything is kept in a record, once we decide on the voting process, it will move on. No need to resubmit your blog.

I had been as well following the stupid cartoons thing, I think that the issue had been greatly oversized when it was not needed. A cartoon that was printed in a local daily newspaper now is printed in newspapers all over the world, even here in Amman. It seems to me that the people were glad to find the peaceful nation of Denmark and Norway to exercise their anger on them, because the same can’t be done on other governments, or own governments, so they targetted anger toward the lands of Lego, Happy Cows, and Trolls.

I will try to blog more often from now on, and keep you and myself on what’s on my mind. Later

About Me, Jordan Planet, News & Politics

First, Visit this. Now this had been around for some time, some of you may had seen it. Problem is that a number of JP bloggers use software or service that does not support categorization (Yes, I am talking about Blogger). Some of the tags you see in that page are only used by one blogger, while others are shared. If you are unfamiliar with Tag Clouds, and Flickr, the larger the fontsize, the more posts are under it. Enjoy…

Blogging, Jordan Planet

First I thought I was the only one obsessed with Jordan Planet, and check the site from his mobile while away from a PC. Then I learned that Jameed tries to check it from his mobile during his long hours in the lab, and last week, Laith told me that he checks RSS feeds from his mobile. So, it was the time for Jordan Planet to be mobile friendly.

For the last hour or more, Iyas and I had been working on http://wap.jordanplanet.net (Well I did most of the work, he did the testing and feedback). We are now proud to present “JP2Go | Jordanian wisdom on the go“. The mobile version is designed to have titles only in the main page, with author names, as well, you will be able to read those posts in Jordan Planet without even the need to have their blogs support mobiles.

Now, As Iyas would like to put it “It is part of 2006 JP Surprises” .. I hope that more people than just me, Iyas, and Laith will get to use it :)

Blogging, Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet, Mobile & Handhelds

I started a thread in Jordan Planet forum (click to follow) about the predictions of 2006 for Jordan Planet, please share your thoughts if you have any.

Blogging, Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

As part of my routine everyday, I woke up a couple of days ago, started to read the newspaper, to find a very unexpected feature of Jordan Planet in Al-Ghad newspaper. It was in my preferred bi-monthly Technology supplement, in the “Your Internet Guide” pages. JP was the first of a list of 6 internet sites that are featured in the supplement. I’d like to thank Ghassan Hozayen, editor of those pages, and Al-Ghad for featuring Jordan Planet. I am glad that media is playing a major role in promoting such projects.

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

Since I first realized that Jordan Planet will be more than an automated self-run aggregation site (translation?), I was sure that I don’t want it to me a one man show. I have an experience with myself when it comes to such things. I could just suddenly loose interest, without a warning, and start to pull out. Although I can’t see this happening with Jordan Planet, I wanted to make sure that it won’t effect JP even if it happens.

Natasha had been helping and acting as a partner with me on Jordan planet for the last 10 months. And the more success JP had, the more people stepped up, and volunteered time and effort into this project. Roba and Iyas had a major role in the site redesign last august, and along with Mariam and Lina, they all are taking care of important content in the site, and providing valuable feedback and initiatives for the project.

And so, without really knowing or planing, a “Team” of volunteers is now taking care of the project’s direction and well being. Iyas, Lina, Natasha, Mariam, Roba and myself are what you could call “Jordan Planet Staff”. I’m really glad and happy for their involvement, and I have to promise them that Jordan planet will stay a non-profit project, with the aim of opening a window to Jordan through blogs, and promoting blogs and bloggers from Jordan.

I ofcourse can’t forget the efforts and help that many other bloggers had been, and continue to provide for Jordan Planet. Linda who provided great help in processing applications to join Jordan Planet, Ammar who gives a hand and an opinion when he is not busy being late on JP meetings :p, and ofcourse Ahmad who’s expert opinion had and will always be of great effect in Jordan Planet.

<rude>PS. Please, no more comments saying “you are doing great isam” or “Thank You”. You can help by giving suggestions or feedback</rude>

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

Today marks 1 year since Jordan Planet started. In 18th August 2004 I registered the domain jordanplanet.net. And 2 days later, I got FREE hosting from EasyHTTP that Jad own. And in August 21st, the site was up with only a couple of bloggers.
Read more…

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

Today we had our 4th Jordan Bloggers meet up, and it was really great, and probably the best. Roba had a nice post about it, with pictures.. a must see.

What what great about this meeting, that it was a just a relief. Seeing how everyone enjoyed the meeting, and having the complete anonymous stop by for a minute to say hi, and thanks to everyone blogging, really made me feel that I am not wasting my time.

The recent vote in Jordan Planet really stressed me out, and I even considered closing Jordan Planet for some time to think things out, and prepared a page for it. The reaction I got for the voting idea was not what I expected. Nevertheless, it went on.

Now after that meeting, I guess it somehow gave me the energy to continue, as well, having Jordan Bloggers offering help in the planet thrilled me.. Roba will be taking care of the “Weekly Highlights” Blog in the Planet, as well, Lina will be managing the “Amman This Month”. I really hope that it will work out now.

Regarding the voting and so.. the results of the voting will be reflected on the planet soon, but I guess there will be no other voting.. I will return to making decisions on who’s in, and who’s out. I had much less headache that way :) As many of the bloggers said in numerous occasions “Voting is not the best things Arab do”.. although it is offensive, but it seems true..

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

Well yesterday the Jordan Planet Vote was announced. Basically my hope is that by having the Jordan Bloggers vote on who’s in and out, we will have a much better Planet (Jordan Planet). I couldn’t help think about some of the similar TV shows, where a team decides to cut people out.. such as Survivor, or weakest link. But I hope that the end result won’t be as ugly as it gets with those shows :) Read more…

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

I know I hadn’t updated my blog for a month now, mostly because of lack of time, as well because I enjoy reading others blogs than writing. for the past month many things happened that I would like to share, most importantly, Jordan Planet meeting. We had our second Jordan Planet meeting. And as Roba said in her blog, this meeting was somehow serious. Because the number of requests from people who would like to join is getting higher, and there are some not-so-good and boring bloggers in Jordan Planet now, Natasha and I put on the table the topic of having a criteria for accepting blogs to Jordan Planet. Discussion was long, and having Ahmed Humeid joining us later that evening, made us all consider and look at the problem from different angles.

Currently changes are being cooked.. I will make it public for discussion once a decision is near.

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

Natasha has done it again…. Jordan Planet was featured in Jordan Times the most popular English publication in Jordan. For those who didn’t meet me before, don’t get scared off when you see that photo in the top, continue reading, it is a great piece about Jordan Planet.

What I really like is that it viewed how we react differently to different issues, yet we are introduced within one platform, while each live in his own house. Another thing that thrilled me, is that since she wrote the article a couple of months ago (loong story) the number of bloggers in Jordan Planet jumped up, and I still have a couple of Jordan Bloggers who will join in shortly.

Thanks Natasha for this great feature in Jordan Times.

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

Few days ago, the new site of “Jordan Planet” was introduced. It uses the well-known CMS Drupal. So far, I got positive feedback from Jordan Planet bloggers and readers, there are some points that we need to address, and some extra pages and privileges that should be created to get this thing going.

Now what concerns me is that Jordan Planet may be drifting from having “Quality Blogs”. The thing is, it can not be clearly defined, but at least, I think there should be a clearly announced definition of what kind of blogs Jordan Planet hosts, and would like to have. Basically, Jordan planet is about Personal Blogs, there are some Jordanian Blogs that are limited to either news, Daawa, rebloggging, jokes, tech-talk and so. A Personal blog in my opinion is a mixture of everything mentioned and above, and add to it the personal touch. Read more…

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet

Well I didn’t want to be the first one to write about the meetup yesterday, but it seems that other bloggers for some reason or another didn’t post about it last night. Well the meeting was great .. Nader was afraid that it will break the magic that Jordan Planet is having.. and it seems that we took it to another level.

It all started by practicing the Jordanians’ favorite sport of being late to meetings and dates .. we all came late :) as people started to show up I was surprised by the way we talked as if we know each other .. to some extent. Natasha was able to spot Roba from her jacket color, everyone one was impressed on how did Natasha steer the wheel for the gathering, I am almost sure that no meeting with Natasha will be dull or out-of-words ;) Read more…

Internet & Technology, Jordan Planet