Thursday, November 20, 2008
Charity Climbing Event 2008
Under the patronage of the Austrian Embassy in Kuwait, a charity climbing event will be held tomorrow, November 21, 2008. All proceeds will be donated to CANCER AWARE NATION.
Who: Event open for children and adults
What: Charity climbing, speed climbing, bouldering challenge, beach & fun games
Where: Marina Towers, Mahboula area, Kuwait
When: Friday, November 21, 2008 - 11:00 am - 07:00 pm
Call 23711705 or 25710582 for further details.
(0) Comments | Filed under: Kuwait |
Saturday, November 01, 2008
The Disney Innoventions Dream Home
Microsoft has collaborated with Disney and put together the ”Innoventions Dream Home” which opened its doors in June 2008. The cool thing about it is that you can easily get that kind of technology into your homes today - such as the Windows Media Center, some Xbox 360’s, Surface, the Zune, Digital frames all integrated together. There are a few new toys still not available in the market, but you get an idea of what’s coming.
Girls will love the virtual mirror - which I have seen somewhere on the web a few years back as an idea for some shops. The guys will love everything else! I think the Virtual Wall is exciting, and the kitchen looks like a great place to be! I am already planning a few changes to do around here, though not as far as the dream home has taken it, some natural light is always good!
Laura Foy, from Microsoft’s Channel 10, takes us on a great tour inside the house, check out the video:
Disney Innoventions Dream Home
If you do not have Silverlight, and you’re too stubborn to install it, you can grab the video in other formats from: http://on10.net/blogs/laura/Disney-Innoventions-Dream-Home/
(4) Comments | Filed under: Microsoft |
Friday, October 24, 2008
3-in-1 Candle
While I was wandering around at Mega Mall in Sharjah, I found a little booth/shop hidden in one of its pathways. It was a tiny massage parlor with two rooms that were occupied for the next hour. They had male and female masseuse in service. The receptionist was very friendly and showed me their products. I was sniffing away their small but interesting collection of candles.
What caught my attention was their line of 3-in-1 candles; a candle, a moisturizer (when dry), and massage oil (when heated).
I bought Dreamsicle for 45 AED ($12 USD) after trying out their lit sample on my skin. No allergies thankfully! The oil was so warm and great on the skin. I now keep it on my desk and massage my hands after long hours of computing. It smells so wonderful too.
These candles, by Earthly Body (http://www.earthlybody.com/candles.htm), are 100% Vegan, Non-Toxic and contain eight Natural Oils including Hemp Seed, Vitamin E, Jojoba, Avocado, and Almond leaving the skin soft and smooth.
Um, yea. That’s it. Candle people will love this.
(7) Comments | Filed under: Interests |
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A Microsoft Student Partner Experience
Back in my college daze, I was invited to join Microsoft’s rather interesting program for students and become a Microsoft Student Partner.
In this program, MSPs are basically Microsoft’s ambassadors in different countries. The program’s goal is to encourage and sponsor students who are enthusiastic about technology. So, you really don’t have to be a Computer Science student or an engineer to be a part of this program.
As a MSP, you are given activities to execute in your area, such as giving seminars on a Microsoft technology you are passionate about. Of course, Microsoft provides you with the material required and a few giveaways. You do not get paid to do this, but there are a few promised benefits:
- Welcome Kit
- Certificate of Recognition
- Invitation to local Microsoft Events
- Microsoft Recruiting Opportunities
- Promotion for most active ADE
- Microsoft Internship Opportunities
- Exposed to Latest technology trainings
- Expense Budget on activity basis
- MSDN Premium Subscriptions
- Continuous Reward System
Let’s just say, getting all benefits depends on who your Academic Developer Evangelist (ADE) is and how quick and responsible he/she is. I was assigned to Lana Khalaf, who is the Gulf ADE and working with her was an experience itself. Sometimes your ADE is very cooperative but even they face trouble getting things from Microsoft Corp. Of course I dealt with other MS Employees in our region that were very helpful and supportive. A special shout out goes to MS Office in Bahrain!
Several months after my graduation, I was assigned to become the first MSP Lead in the Gulf area. This has exposed me to a much higher level of the MSP program. I got to administer the Student Partner’s website and was able to reach out to the few MSPs in the Gulf region. I was also planning the Gulf’s first Student Summit which will be held in early November this year.
I have left the program as life has had a few different turns for me.
I love talking to students about the new technologies and then being able to hear out their ideas and questions. This program made it easier for me to do that. For other MSPs that I have met, it just made it difficult because their teachers and Deans were not Microsoft fans. Meeting other MSPs online also was one of the highlights of the program for me. We were able to discuss our problems and our achievements. We also go off topic and talk about other technologies such as the latest Ubuntu distro, installing Windows on Mac or even talk about how cool Leopard is! So, it’s not limited to Microsoft only! I loved how in my sessions I can talk freely about competitors’ products and even recommend them whenever I feel so.
One of the perks of being a MSP is that you get to know about the cool things coming out before they do. Usually, our hangout is the student-partners forum and MSDN Channel 8; a website dedicated to students. I prefer the latter because it was our window to Redmond and the forum, in my opinion, was horribly designed and maintained. It is being upgraded now, so everything is going to change, which is exciting for MSPs. My favorite way to communicate with MSPs is through MSN Messenger.
Now, the downside of the program is that sometimes you do not get what you want, or you may get your materials later than expected which can cause problems. I was upset in many situations about some delays but I guess that’s a part of life. Also, MSPs from different regions get rewarded differently which can cause a few problems. In the gulf region, there aren’t any sessions for MSPs to attend for free as it is one of the benefits. So, they just select the MSP in our region with the highest number of activities reported back and send him/her to TechEd Conference.
I was invited to Microsoft Corp in Redmond to attend a special 2 day conference with 14 other MSP leads. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend as it was bad timing, but you can see how cool it could get being an MSP.
I very much recommend this program to any student who is very active and enjoys extra curricula activities in the IT field. It’s very fun and challenging. Even with the pros and cons, students interested in IT in general are bound to receive a great deal of experience from this program.
(3) Comments | Filed under: Microsoft |
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Action Day 2008: Poverty
Recently, I have joined Direct Aid (http://direct-aid.org), a non-profit organization founded and led by Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Sumait. I work with them on IT solutions mostly, and on a recent project aimed to provide education to children and adults in Africa. I am loving it.
So, I introduced them to ”Blog Action Day” and they signed up their website and decided to write about the new campaign. It was such a surprise when we recieved an email from students (the Vision Club, to be exact) at the University of Sharjah inviting us to speak on campus about Poverty. We bought tickets and flew to Sharjah on October 14.
Here are the highlights of my trip:
- My E-Gate card didn’t work. Turns out they have issues with the machines at Sharjah Airport.
- There are women taxi drivers in Sharjah! Only at the airport though. Her driving got annoying, as she kept on pressing and releasing the brake paddle too many times.
- I hate Rotana Hotel - Sharjah. They kept us waiting for over an hour until we got our rooms, I did enjoy lunch during that time though.
- University City in Sharjah is amazing. It contains all universities: AUS, UOS, and a few more. The campus is just beautiful and HUGE!
- Watched the Campus Police ticket a student’s car because his left rear tire was on the line. He didn’t park correctly. We need Campus Police in Kuwait University.
- Vision Club (http://myvisionclub.com), the awesome team behind Action Day, were so great to us. They did a great job organizing the event and hosting it. I will blog about the program when I get home, inshallah.
- Direct Aid launched their campaign to educate 171,600 children, teenagers, women and men in Africa.
- A rep from United Nations attended the conference and spoke of their activities.
- Dean of Student Affair, Professor Abdullah Al-mneizl, invited us after the conference and we discussed many things, including psychology.
- I checked out their Master program for Computer Engineering and talked to the Dean of College of Higher Education. Nice program.
- Bought an interesting candle from Mega Mall in Sharjah. (this calls for a new post).
- Direct Aid EDU campaign website will launch later today. (Update: launched at edu.direct-aid.org)
- Blog Action Day had a radio show and I was in it (http://blogtalkradio.com/blogactionday).
- Life is like Kinder Surprise. You never know what you’re gonna get. Thankfully, there’s a guide in there too.
- Update: Forgot my USB disk on the table next to our Mac. They packed up everything nicely and gave it to us minus the USB! :/
(10) Comments | Filed under: Interests |
Monday, September 22, 2008
Brick Walls
This post is filled with questions. I’ve been sick with the flu, got some great and bad news on the same day, and I just can’t stop thinking.
What drives people? What is it that gives people determination? Money? Fame? Sense of accomplishment? Passion? Responsibilities?
I was discussing this with a friend and we didn’t get anywhere, really. Every person has his/her own motives of doing what they do - every single day. Some more than others, but why?
Some people knock off those brick walls because they are so determined to get what’s behind it. And that is the point of them standing in our way, I believe. To see how bad you really want it. Would you fight for it? Or just let it go and find something else that is more convenient and requires less fighting for?
The question is, when does determination turn into obsession? How far can you go? How far would you go?
(11) Comments | Filed under: Blogging |
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Time Travel
Here is an interesting geography lesson: The International Date Line (IDL) is an imaginary line on the surface of the Earth which offsets the date as one travels east or west across it.
The earth is split into 24-hour zone lines, but where does it really start/end at? The IDL is not a straight line, it has zigzagged to avoid splitting apart countries into two days - which makes perfect sense of course. The funny part is, Eastern Kiribati and Hawaii, which are located in the same area of longitude, are a whole day apart! Tonga and Samoa have the same time but are one day apart as well.
So, if you travel East across this line you actually lose a whole day. If you travel West across it, you gain a whole day (24 hours). It happens a lot when we travel and lose or gain a few hours, but I can only imagine the confusion on the travelers’ faces when the captain announces the arrival time is a whole day before departure. Okay, it is not “time travel” but its cool. Oh and this was this not mentioned in “Around the World in 80 Days”!
The first date-line problem occurred in association with the circumnavigation of the globe by Magellan’s expedition (1519–1522). The surviving crew returned to a Spanish stopover sure of the day of the week, as attested by various carefully maintained sailing logs. Nevertheless, those on land insisted the day was different. This phenomenon, now readily understandable, caused great excitement at the time, to the extent that a special delegation was sent to the Pope to explain this temporal oddity to him.
“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.” - Cesare Pavese
(5) Comments | Filed under: Interests |