New-News.com Speaks English!

New News Speaks English!

I am so pleased to proudly announce the launch of the English Version of my News & Media Website (New-News.com)!

What is New News?

New News is a News portal that is focused on delivering the latest MENA, US, Canada, UK and the most popular International news updates.

I have launched the Arabic New News in November 2007, and after gaining popularity, I have decided to develop the English New News, to serve the western audience, covering the latest news from over 50 trusted sources.

Sleepless nights, hard work, dedication and the most important.. the support I received from the loved ones.

Time to set back and relax for a while

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 BETA is Full of BUGS!

Internet Explorer 8 BETA

I stumbled upon Microsoft website and noticed an attractive announcement about the upcoming web browser “Internet Explorer 8″.

Although it’s in the BETA stage, which means the products is not released yet and still under development and testing… the way how Microsoft announced about the new browser urged me to test it!

I wish I did not. PERIOD.

It was a total disaster, IMHO, although I am always skeptical about installing any BETA version of a product, again, I was owned by the awesome video demo and the features of the new browser

However, I was using “Internet Explorer 7″ which I wasn’t happy about until I have installed the latest browsers service pack, version 2.

It was fast, stable and just working the way I wanted. But the passion for trying something new is always there!

Here’s what I have encountered after installing the new browser:

1. I was forced to RESTART my computer for the new browser to complete the installation process. I hated this.
2. After the restart, I clicked on the icon to start browsing.. but the browser just didn’t load. BOOMER.
3. I the had to use my 2nd weapon (Mozilla Firefox).. which I rely on in the difficult situations with I.E., Anyway, after launching Firefox, Internet Explorer just popped-up and launched too!
4. I was amazed but had to carry on.. I closed Firefox and flipped to the new browser to explore it. I was again disappointed as many features were not functioning as the video demonstration showed!
5. It hanged up on me several times, I had to shut it down through the Task Manager
6. The browser just went CRAZY.. when I tried to open a new Tab, the new tab kept clicking in an Infinite-Loop! again, I had to shut down Internet Explorer from the Task Manager
7. Am not done yet! Now this is really funny as hell.. whenever I typed in a site address and hit enter.. do you know what happened? FIREFOX started up and browsed to the site!!! and again, Internet Explorer hanged up on me.

I tried and tried several times, but the same funny scenario kept on looping.

I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to un-install the new browser and to restart my computer once again.. I am here writing this review, at last!

BTW, this is not something new from Microsoft. I think they should pay some attention to the details and to invest more on the Quality Assurance practices.. even when releasing a BETA version for testing. This will give a negative idea about the product when it’s full of bugs.

Moral of the story:

Give it a second thought before installing and testing any program that is in the BETA stage.. especially when it comes from Microsoft

Keep on debugging.

Yahoo! is dropping Content Match program in UK and Germany

Yahoo! VS Google Adsense = ?

It seems that Yahoo! is giving up with their Publisher Program (Contextual Advertising) competition with Google Adsense.. leaving Google to dominate the Text Advertising market once again!

I personally never liked their service and the match wasn’t as accurate as Google’s

Yahoo informed its advertisers in Europe (currently UK and Germany) that they will be closing the Content Match service, effective on the 31st of March 2009.

Yahoo claims that they need to focus on “Sponsored Search Ads”.. providing quality service and better ROI for the advertisers.

Couple of questions in mind:

1. Will Yahoo extend the service closure to include the US market?
2. How Yahoo Advertisers will act? Will they move to Google?
3. How Yahoo Publishers will act? Will they consider Google for their websites?
4. Should this increase the chances for better earnings for Google Adsense Publishers?

On the other hand, it seems that some advertisers are satisfied from Yahoo Search Network.

Dean Cassady & Jason Phillips, founders of Yahoo! Cash 4 Idiots, are an internet marketers who claims that they are earning more than $1,000,000 (one million dollars) every year!

They say that they are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from a “Yahoo Glitch“.. which has saved them so much money by utilizing Yahoo search advertising network instead of Google’s.

Don’t get me wrong, obviously it’s not an actual glitch in the system, but it seems they managed to find a smart way to Make Money Online through Yahoo which is less costly than Google.

However, it’s going to be a long battle between these two giants.

Let’s wait and see…

Next Travel Destination: Turkey

Mosque in Turkey

I have never been to Turkey, although so many of my family members and friends have traveled to Turkey before, I wonder why until this very day I didn’t spend few days for exploring this great country!?

I guess it’s work

Since I don’t like traveling in the winter time, I think I will wait until next summer.

Boring!

I hope most of the family members will tag along… And I will make sure to take dozens of pictures.

This sounds loads of fun!

Anyway, here is some interesting information about Turkey:

• Name: Republic of Turkey
• Capital: Ankara
• Population: ~72,000,000
• Currency: Turkish Lira
• Language: Turkish

The vast majority of the Turkish are Muslims, and this makes it a good travel destination for most of the Arabs. Its unique location gives it a great blend of Eastern-European culture, which makes Turkey a very comfortable place for most of the Europeans and the Americans.

The Middle side of Europe is located on the western boarders of Turkey, Central Asia comes on the eastern side, surrounded by Russia from the north and by the Middle East from the south.

In the Travel and Tourism world, Turkey occupies a big share in the international tourism industry. The weather in Turkey is in general Hot and Dry in the Summer, Cold and Wet in the Winter.

I have collected few magnificent photos of Turkey; I made sure to provide a high resolution copy of each picture so you can save it as a Wallpaper on your Desktop!

Take a look (click on images to enlarge):

Muslims Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey

 

Waterfalls in Turkey

 

Sunset on Sea Side of Turkey

 

Sea Side View of Turkey

 

Historical Place in Turkey

 

Boat Sailing in Turkey

 

Ancient City in Turkey

MOZY Software – Free Online File Backup & Restore Service!

Free Online File Backup Software

This is my 2nd post about the Importance of File Backup.

And following the tips of a fellow marketer Lyn Terry about this, I would like to recommend a truly amazing service which allows you to Backup and Restore your Files, any time, any where.. Online!

This great Free Online File Backup Service is called Mozy.

Here are few of the great features this service provides through the internet:

1. Flexibility
   -Backup & Restore Single or Multiple number of files
   -Backup & Restore your files 24/7/365
2. Automation
   Schedule when you wish your files to be backed up or restored
3. Security
   -Securely upload & download your files through secured line
   -Encrypt your files and folders during backup
   -Restrict access to files and folders by passwords
4. OS Independent
   Yes, you can install and run this backup program on Windows & Mac computers
5. Speed
   Backup and Restore on the fly, you don’t have to worry about the speed as the allocated bandwidth is huge
6. It’s FREE!
   Get a massive 2GB of free disk space for your files

And much more.

I have personally tested this backup software, it’s extremely simple and fast.

I have encrypted my files and uploaded about 200 MB of data, I then scheduled a weekly file backup, just imagine how easy it’s to restore your lost or corrupted files at any time!

Should this service acquire my heart, I will upgrade my account

I highly recommend using it.

Check out the FREE Mozy Online File Backup Service from Mozy.

Enjoy.

Unattended Dedicated Web Server Setup?

Unattended Web Server Setup

I was watching a new episode of Geek Brief TV, and Cali Lewis (the show host) made an interview with some guys from Layered Tech, a well known US company that offers Professional Dedicated Web Servers and Hosting Solutions.

It seems that they were working on an interesting ‘Secret Project’.. JUST LIKE ME and she kept on pushing until they had to reveal it, well, and I think it worth the try!

As the title of the post says, it’s all about an Unattended Web Hosting Server Setup through their ”Roboticized” Datacenter!

What Does This Mean?

It means that if you place an order of a new web hosting account, no one (human being) will be physically working on setting your account up, configuring your web server and installing the required OS and web applications.. At All.

Therefore, the 3 days work will be reduced to 18-20 minutes time!!!

You see, this is amazing, your server can be up and ready by the time you are done with your coffee maker

To my understanding, the new system is still under development and it’s almost ready to be released.

These guys seems to be so serious about their business, checkout the quick tour with John P. around Layered Tech Data Center to discover more.

But I wonder, although this automated solution is great, it would down size the number of employees.. I mean, their technical staff might start worrying about their jobs anytime soon

Gota resume working on my Top Secret Project too, sorry, I will never tell you, no matter how pushy you are :p

Backup Your Files Now Before It’s Too Late!

Backup Your Files Today

I read today an interesting article about a company called JournalSpace which offers a Free Blog Hosting Service and because of an unbelievable simple mistake or let’s say “Misunderstanding of a Program’s Function By a Mad Employee” lead for losing almost all of the blogger’s pages which goes back to 6 years ago!

According to JournalSpace official report, the manager said:

“It was the guy handling the IT (and, yes, the same guy who I caught stealing from the company, and who did a slash-and-burn on some servers on his way out) who made the choice to rely on RAID as the only backup mechanism for the SQL server. He had set up automated backups for the HTTP server which contains the PHP code, but, insecurely, had no backup system in place for the SQL data. The ironic thing here is that one of his hobbies was telling everybody how smart he was.”

Unbelievable!

It seems that the IT guy of JournalSpace thought that having a “Mirrored Copy” of the database which is stored on a secondary hard drive will always help in restoring the “corrupted database” found on the basic hard drive.

What is Data Mirroring?

Mirroring is a having a duplicate content saved on another drive so both drives stores the exact information, therefore, if the primary location fails, the content can be served and loaded from the secondary location, on autopilot.

..But with disregard to the integrity of information

So if the content is corrupted on the primary drive, it’s corrupted on the 2nd one.. because it’s just an image!

So what is Backup?

Backup is different, backup is the process of retaining several copies of the information on a secondary hard drive, so in case the primary disk fails or the information becomes corrupt, you will have the ability to restore your files from the most recent copy which you find fine.

So let’s say that you woke up some day and found that all of your files on your hard disk have been infected with a Virus that you can’t remove, and all of the MS. Word documents you were creating since ages could not be repaired, what would you do?

You would check the latest copies of your file backups and to restore from the most recent and yet most perfect copy, right?

Now what happened with JournalSpace seems that the smart guy NEVER performed a regular backup of their data, and he thought that the Mirroring Process was enough.. A simple misunderstanding of the software function lead to great damages!

They were forced to SELL out the company because of that mistake! The good news is the new owner made sure to perform a regular data backup

What Should You Do Now?

I personally use an awesome Backup Program for my home office computer called Acronis True Image Home.

I highly recommend downloading a trail copy of that File Backup Software and to test it out, believe me, it saved my life couple a times.. and you don’t want to lose yours

Backup!

Importance of Online Social Networking

Social Internet Networking

It’s very important to be socially active, the more people you know and share the same interests with, the more popular you become.

On the web, this is described as “Social Networking”.

Social Networking is the process of establishing relations with other people, groups and interconnecting with other websites and sharing with everyone your interests, your thoughts, your knowledge.. the sky is the limit.

Social Networking plays a crucial rule in the marketing of any website, service or product online. Since the birth of Web 2.0, Online Social Networking has become one of the most important online marketing techniques of the effective marketing on the internet.

People love to exchange and to share information on the internet, millions of pages are being published online on a daily basis, therefore, the more people you know, the more you can share with them.

Joining online communities that shares same interests and activities of yours is a great way for promoting your services on the internet as you are more likely to receive traffic from people who loves what you offer, with time, you will receive high amount of targeted traffic that will be translated into more customers.

In future posts, I will explain this important marketing technique in more details with example.

Until then.. Activate!

Always Checkup Your Car

Maintain A Regular Car Checkup

It was freezing outside, I mean your fingers would get frozen just for touching the window.. It was also late, I was tired and sleepy.. and all in the sudden my brother called me and said: “Maher, could you come OUTSIDE please?”.. I was like “WHAT!?”, “ok” I said.

I must admit, I truly hate hearing the phone rings at night, anyway.

I went outside and he looked upset because his car wasn’t changing shifts. I felt bad too, the car is less than 1 year old and that was just annoying!

“What was the last thing you did?”, I asked.

He said: “Nothing, I just changed the engine’s oil yesterday”.

I smiled.

It’s not really the perfect moment to smile, but when you live in Jordan for a while and you deal with local workshops to fix something in your car, you would understand.

He looked at me and said: “Com’n, this guy is good, do you think he have done something wrong?”

“Yaa!”, I shouted.

I asked him to open the hood and I checked the gear oil level.. I was shocked to see that it was almost empty! and that was enough to put the gear into sleep for good.

If we didn’t discover that earlier.

I then realized that the mechanic must have flushed most of the gear’s oil out by ‘mistake’ before flushing the engine’s.

Oops! My Bad, Sorry!

Mistake?

Yes, it’s a common word here when it comes to cars workshops!

“Don’t worry pal, it’s your lucky day, jump in,  and let’s get some oil”.

Did I mention that I love cars? I think I inherited some skills from my father.

I do. See, my father was one of the most famous and most successful car electricians long time ago in Kuwait, until Gulf War. We were forced to leave to Jordan, but life was really tough here back then, so he decided that we should get back to the Arabian Gulf, but this time to Dubai. After moving, he decided to change his career and to establish his own ”Logistics & Freight Services” company in Dubai. Sounds weird, I know, it’s a 360 career change! But he had a dream and he worked hard for it, am so proud of my dad.

Back to our story…

We went (my brother and I) to Safeway Shopping Center, it’s one of the largest centers in Amman that opens 24/7. We got the oil and drove back to his car, filled it up and everything went back to normal.

The Moral of The Story:

1. Never 100% trust your car’s technician (except my Dad). Always observe what he is doing before it’s too late
2. Always check your car, make sure you perform a regular checkup
3. When it’s almost 11 pm in the winter evening, when you are sleepy and tired THINK TWICE before answering the phone

Must hit the sack!

Hello World!

What Is Up?

This is so exciting and yet Ironic for an online marketer who blogs for the first time!

Don’t get me wrong, I am so familiar with blogs and blogging and I use them all the time.. but not for personal purposes, just for business.

You see, most of the people doesn’t like to share their thoughts and personal issues in public and I was one of them.. until recently.

So, and on my behalf, I would like to take this opportunity and to congratulate myself.

There is more to come, just keep an eye on me