Isam Bayazidi’s Blog

When you follow someone like Anas Tawileh, one won’t be surprised of where he will head next. Never I saw of him anything less than determination and hardware to make it work. “It” here is “Open Source, Open Content, Open Standards” or in one word, Openness. The most recent project he is in, is Arab Commons.

Arab Commons project aim to promoting “Creative Commons” and it’s use in Arab world. The site work on indexing and listing creative work, of art, science, and literature, from Arab creative people, who placed it under the open license of “Creative Commons”. Many Blogs in the Arab workds are under Creative Commons license. As well, most of the photographs taken by many of our best photographers are under Creative Commons in Flickr. I will would like to urge you all to list your creative “products” in Arab Commons, and help make this project succeed.

Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

I am currently downloading “Elephants Dream” (http://www.elephantsdream.org), which is an Open 3D movie made using only Open Source tools (Mainly Blender for 3D work). It is the result of about 1 year of work, coordinated by Blender Foundation, community-financed, and supported by Netherlands Media Art Institute. “Open Movie” means that is is licensed under an Open Content license, which is Creative Commons, which basically allows you to “freely reuse and distribute this content, also commercially, for as long you provide a proper attribution”.
What caught my eyes is that the director of the picture is a Syria-born Bassam Kurdali (Link1, Link2, Link3 (not working as I write this) ) who seems to be a seasoned animator. So I was double proud of the movie (first of using Open Source tools, and second for an Arab Director).

As I said, I am currently downloading the movie, and I invite you to do so, but I would like to ask you to download it using the torrent file instead of the direct download. All you have to do, is to download the small torrent file available in Elephants dream site, and use one of BitTorrent clients to open it, and it will start downloading, you can select any of the following torrent clients (BitTorrent, Azureus, BitTorando). When you download the movie using torrent, you help the project by saving them bandwidth, and you might as well get higher speeds there there are enough people “seeding” the file. You can as well buy the DVD to enjoy watching it, along with the special features, and support the project.

I will be reviewing the picture one I watch it, so stay tuned (as if I am a credible reviewer)

Movies & Entertainment, OSS & Linux

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

More than a month ago, I got an email from an old friend, Robin Miller (Roblimo) of OSTG checking on me, and asking me if I might be interested in having an interview for one of my daily visits and favorites, Slashdot. Happily I agreed, and I was delighted and overwhelmed by the questions that slashdotters asked in the question collection post. Today, the answers of the top 12 rated questions were published. One must be glad to see his name in one of his favorite sites. Thanks Roblimo, Thanks Slashdot.

About Me, Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

Well, since I did my RHCE exam last Saturday I had been waiting impatiently for the results. Although I was somehow sure I would get it anyway, it is only official, and for sure, when they say it. I had to wait for 2 days until the results come out, as they are issued from USA, and so, it had to wait until Monday.

Today when I checked my email at 4:00pm, I saw an email from Red Hat Certification Central titled “Certification Lab Exam results”. I wasn’t sure I wanted to open it right away, so I went to the bathroom first.. when back, I opened it, and I passed :) I am an RHCE now. Although the mark I got was a little less than I expected, but who cares.

So, what’s next for me, I wonder now. I think that as this year I got my dream mobile and did the certification I wanted to do for the last 18 months, I think that I should get my dream laptop. When done with my dream list, I think I will compile a new, more challenging list, raise the limits, and go ahead again.

About Me, OSS & Linux

Yesterday I got a Google Alert about a report presented to the World Bank by 13 nations, including Jordan. The news said that officials from those 13 nations met in February in Silicon Valley to discuss technology standards and economic development, and come up with the 33 pages report.

2 things strike me in this piece of news:
First, The piece of news which was in New York Times (and republished in Herald Tribune and Media Channel) said that

government officials from China, India, Thailand, Denmark, Jordan, Brazil and elsewhere gathered to discuss technology standards and economic development.

For some reason, Jordan was mentioned with countries like China and India, and was not dropped in the “Elsewhere” category. I am not sure if this really have any significance.

Second, is that those Jordanian officials seems to be detached from the on-ground IT infrastructure of the Jordanian Government and Education. The government has a strategic partnership with Microsoft, which is obviously one of the major forces against Open Standards and Technologies. Students in the schools and universities of Jordan are being taught to use Microsoft Products (Windows, Office, Visual Basic, etc..) as part of their curriculum. Teachers are required to take a Microsoft-Centric ICDL exam in order to get promoted, and more than 13 ministries are connected to a centralized Microsoft Exchange Server for email and groupware.. all this tells me that there is something wrong in the picture. Is it that we want to be everywhere in the same time ? ahead with Microsoft adoption, and ahead with Open technology standards embracement ? well this doesn’t work I am afraid.

Jordan didn’t have an Official stand for or against Open Source and Open Technology Standards, and it was thanks to “foreign power” that Jordan had it’s Open Source Workshops in 2002 and 2005 organized by INTAJ. As I was attendant in both events, it seemed to me that Open Source and Open Standards is being used for bargaining by the government and it’s agencies, rather than a real understanding of the benefits of it. This could be clear by having a look in the daily computer/IT related bids announcements in the newspaper, where it is specifically required to use certain closed source applications or systems, although there are alternative open source ones which could have a great advantage when it comes to security and cost (hint. Apache vs. IIS)

Although it aches me to see how things are going when it comes to IT in Jordan, I have high hopes that eyes will open soon to the benefits of Open Source and Open Standards embracement in a developing country like Jordan.

Internet & Technology, Jordan, OSS & Linux

Well, to start with, I tell you there is no such thing. For those who doesn’t know what CMS is, it is “Content Management System” a program used at servers to present dynamic content. Now I use WordPress for my blog, and Drupal for Jordan Planet, and had used Mambo for several internal test sites, and tried Plone once with a failure. Read more…

Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

Yesterday I spent most of the day with the Open Society’s Information Program board who is meeting in Amman. They were discussing Open Content in the session I joined in, and shared my opinions regarding Arabic Wikipedia and Wikimedia in general. As well they discussed blogging as a way for people to express themselves, and its effects in this part of the world. Ethan talked yesterday in his blog about English blogs in Jordan.

I am not sure if those meeting will result on anything. I really hope that some sort of initiative will happen that will help in having more people involved in the process of content building in Wikipedia. Regarding the blogs. I have no doubt that this year will be the Blog Year of Arabia is there is such thing :)

Internet & Technology, Jordan, OSS & Linux

I had been using ScrapBook, a Firefox extention, for some time, and I just love it. Now many of us like to keep notes while they are browsing the internet: Save addresses, Links, quotes, extracts, full articles, pages, pictures, and so .. and this is where ScrapBook comes handy. All you have to do is a drag and drop. Bloggers will be the first people to love it, as well all those who research and try to keep notes. What’s nice about it that it keeps the layout of the original page, as well store information about the source URL (Address) and the date it was added. It allows organizing content in folders, and an easy way to jump to the source page of any scrapnote. I highly advise giving it a try.

Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

Now I know that I had been On and Off in Arabic Wikipedia and Wikimedia in general, but I can’t just quit, it somehow runs in my blood. As soon as I heard about Wikimania 2005, The First International Wikimedia Conference, I rushed in, and registered in it. Now putting aside all the great things about this conference, the name my itself GREAT :) Wikimania, sure I got it to some degree.

Now for those of you who are not familiar with what Wikimedia/Wikipedia/Wiki is allow me to explain for a second. Wikimedia is basically a project that sponsors and encourages the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content.. Sounds Scary, right :) well it is not, as the the method it uses for the development and growth of the content, which is called Wiki, allows anyone to edit anything. Now first thing that comes to the evil minds of ours is that this means vandalists and “Bad” people can make a mess, put lies, and “do bad”. Well, as “anyone” can edit, it means that “anyone” can correct and rollback any vadalists. This basically relies on the fact that the good people in this world are larger than the “bad” people .. so far this fact had proved right, and all Wiki project had more overwhelming growth than initially expected.

Now Wikimedia have many projects under it’s umbrella, most significantly Wikipedia the free encyclopedia with over 500,000 article for English version, and 1 million over all languages, as well there is Wiktionary, a multilingual dictionary; Wikibooks, a collection of free content textbooks; Wikiquote, a rich repository of famous quotes (including those of Homer Simpson, Ghandi, and Kramer of Seinfeld :). As well there is the new project of Wikinews, which is a free news source; and Wikisource, a repository for primary source material; and last but not least Wikimedia Commons, a repository for images and sound data.

What really made me love all this is the fact that you “CAN” and probably “SHOULD” make a difference. Many Wikipedian (Wikipedia editors) can tell you stories about how one small couple of lines that he edited or made ended up as a rich and comprehensive articles. I guess that the Wikipedia could be the most successful attempt so far to document the human knowledge.

If you hadn’t already tried it, give it a shot, make a fix, and help make a difference.

Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

A couple of weeks ago I was in the Free and Open Source Software Workshop in Syria as an attendant and speaker. Now this is the second year that I speak in this event, and it had been a great experience for me, as well a good change to meet some of the best people in the field.

Now what really frustrated me in last year’s event, and happened again in this year’s event is deliberately insisting in calling me Dr. Isam… that might sound crazy, but believe me it is not.. Last year I got called Dr. Isam a couple of times, and got invitation cards for lunch and dinner events with Dr. by my name. At that time I found it a “funny mistake” .. but it turned out not to be a mistake.. To set things clear, I never claimed that I am a Dr. or preparing a PhD. or even thinking about doing a Masters degree: I am a simple computer science student, who got 78% in Tawjihi, and had been into computers for most of his short life (since 1990). Read more…

Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

Although I had been somehow inactive in many project that I am involved in, for the past few days I am giving some extra time for the Arabic Wikipedia.. Wikipedia for those who don’t know it, is an Open Content, multi-language Encyclopedia, formed and shaped using Wiki concept. Wiki is about making anyone able to do anything, complete freedom. Arabic Wikipedia that I had been involved in started some time about a year ago, and for the past few months, Arabic Wikipedia had some interesting growth and coverage of interesting topics.

The reason for my interest in the Arabic Wikipedia now is that it is about to be reshaped. In Feb 2004, when I joined Arabic Wikipedia, it didn’t have the needed skeleton to grow and be get shaped, and I set one.. Now after around 9 months, there are some really good Wikipedia contributors that joined in since then, and we are all working now in resetting the base and skeleton that Arabic Wikipedia can grow on.

What makes me sad about Arabic Wikipedia is a couple of things, First, the number of interested people in having an Open Content Arabic Encyclopedia doesn’t reflect the number of Arabic people over the Internet… Human-made (Constructed) languages such as Esperanto, or even Klingon (yes from Star trek) have more articles and contributors than those to a Language such as Arabic. Maybe it is the technological challenge facing those in the Arab world (I just don’t buy this excuse) or it could be the feeling of disgust and shame Arabs have toward their language. It is a shame.

Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

Probably one of the main reasons that I came from Saudi Arabia, to work in a company in Jordan is that I needed to build my technical experience, and so far, within the 40 days that I had been working with the new company in, I had been learning and building experience more than I expected. Read more…

Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

I was reading Ahmed Humeid’slast blog entry about text stealing. I started to write a comment on his blog, then when it got lengthy, I thought I will write it in my blog. To start with, I won’t blame that young man, as templates for such letters are all around the world, and templates for things like cover letters, routine papers and so is wildly used. As for that company :) I know at least other 2 or 3 similar cases, it is sad.

Another thing, I am involved in Arabic Wikipedia, which is about creating a “open content” encyclopedia. A very major concern for us there is copy right violation, we strike it hard, no toleration. Now many arabs come to Wikipedia wanting to help, and they start to copy and paste things. Although we have warnings about Copyright violation all over the place, it seems that people had developed the ability give it a blind eye. Google had been the best tool to catch up those copyright violations, as most people don’t even bother with even personalizing to the text, to hide things up :)

About Me, Internet & Technology, OSS & Linux

I read in Slashdot today about the release of Reiser4 File System. Now I had been reading about it for the past months, and how many believe that the future of file systems in Linux is in reiser4 and so. I did not try it so far, mainly because I am not in the mood for backing up partitions, and reformating and so :) Read more…

OSS & Linux