Don't Say Geek! Say Syntux!

I have been away from this blog for many reasons starting from personal decision to quit the professional programming life so I can go back to my real thing which is Politics ending with the lack of a better option; However I’m sure the years of programming life would have influence on my next step in life but not sure how yet.

I’m still interested in opening vim and coding but probably from now on it’s going to be for fun only; however I hope the theory that says if you code for fun you might end up making a profit more than you planned would work but yet I’m not going to spend lots of time on it as I decided to take a different path now.

The last straw was when I decided to resign from Dot.Jo (Which is an amazing company) to put more efforts on Ubuntu Community in the Kingdom and Arab world. Thankfully we succeed but partially due to the recession hit. It didn’t allow longer breath especially with the lack of sponsorship, we were so close to have National Open Source Office but I’d blame the recession and probably some other factors.

I’ve also decided to hand out access of communities I was handling like Jolug and specifically Ubuntu Arabic team, Ubuntu Jordan to some new blood; The good ones are taken seems to be true in communities case, all qualified people I approached were bloody busy to handle anything and right now Ubuntu Arabic and Ubuntu Jordan on idle mode.

As a amateur programmer from now on I might try to play with Django but not sure how it will go with the limited time for my hobbies but I will do my best to keep this blog updated at least with some general stuff but of course will try to stay away from iPhone VS android war; but don’t take it as a promise ;). I will also try contribute to Ubuntu Community, at least seasonally.

Until the next post.

Tags: programming life, professional programming, iphone, personal decision, last straw, different path, new blood, django, android, arab world, recession, limited time, programmer, sponsorship, jordan, hobbies, open source, blog

Be there or be square

LPI Candidates and Alumni:

In 2009, LPI will mark its 10th Anniversary as an organization serving Linux professionals. To recognize this milestone we will be undertaking a number of new initiatives–including as many of you already know the
launch of our LPIC-3 303 Security elective (February 1, 2009) and the new LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 exams (April 1, 2009).

We will also host a number of informative and educational webcasts. These webcasts will provide information on our certification program and even assist our candidates with exam preparation. On this initiative we will be working with BrightTalk (http://www.brighttalk.com) — a provider of online webcasting services.

We invite everyone to participate in our pilot summit on December 17, 2008. This pilot event will enable us to develop an audience profile which will assist BrightTalk to find sponsors for future such events in 2009. Please
register for these online presentations through our webpage at:

http://www.lpi.org/eng/about_lpi/upcoming_events/lpi_webcasts

We would also appreciate your feedback on these presentations, ideas for future webcasts, or even volunteers who might want to provide their own presentations!. Please contact us at info { a t } lpi [ d o t ] org should you have any questions in this regard.

Again we invite you all to attend our webcasts on December 17, 2008. Please register at:

http://www.lpi.org/eng/about_lpi/upcoming_events/lpi_webcasts

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and a prosperous and successful 2009!

Sincerely,
Scott Lamberton
Director of Communications
Linux Professional Institute

Tags: linux professional institute, pilot event, audience profile, linux professionals, lpic, webcasting services, 10th anniversary, lamberton, happy new year, webcast, new year, volunteers, upcoming events, initiatives

After partially-converting to Ubuntu (I’m still dual booting) and fiddling with MS alternatives, one of the first things that got me frustrated was the lack of immediate native Arabic language support in the word processor or the spreadsheet applications under the OpenOffice.org suit. Granted, the latter recognizes Arabic characters and renders right-to-left documents and spreadsheets of existing files, but what about creating new ones?

Native support means that not only is the user able to type in Arabic, which is straight-forward, but also to be able to type from right-to-left for the characters alignments are in tune. (Example: try to type in the text editor of Gmail in Arabic, you will be able to type but if you place a full-stop or any other ASCII character, it will revert back to left-to-right and only the “arabic” portions of the entered text will be written from right-to-left).

If you take a look at the toolbar, you’ll find that part of the hidden icons that enables you to toggle from left-to-right and vice versa, but they’re disabled. Same goes to the spreadsheet application where under Format -> Sheet -> Right-to-Left which is also disabled. Along with the presentation utility.

What you need to do is from each application, you go to Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages. From there make sure you enable CTL (Complex Text Language) by checking the box below, and then selecting one of the choices of Arabic in the middle section of the screen as shown in the screen capture.

Repeat action in each of the three applications.

Enjoy OpenOffice.org in Arabic…

Basem Aggad (http://dontcallmesheikh.blogspot.com)

Tags: arabic language support, spreadsheet applications, spreadsheet application, ascii character, hidden icons, arabic characters, gmail, basem, language settings, dual booting, text language, screen capture, word processor, alignments, spreadsheets, choices, blogspot, languages

Has anyone tried the Linux version of Google Gears? I installed it like week ago and tried it with WordPress, Google Reader and some other small apps that support it but I felt no effect in speed at all.

Is it just me or did anyone else experience this no speed effect with Linux version of Google Gears?

Tags: google gears, linux version, google, gears, apps, linux

RMconverter is a simple interface for the lame package.

Real Media Converter is a multi threaded gui that takes advantage from the mencoder and lame packages to generate wav and mp3 formats from real media files (ra, rm, and ram) and wav files.

Real Media Converter may become a complete front end for the lame package which is a program that can be used to create compressed audio files.

Requirements:

· Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.6
· mencoder
· lame
· w32codecs

Get RMconverter now

Tags: real media converter, java runtime environment, mp3 formats, w32codecs, that takes advantage, ra, rm, interface