Back from Dubai, New Banner

Weird title? Well, not really. The idea is to talk about two different topics in one post. Makes sense now? ------------------------------------ I am back from Dubai after going there to complete my college registration (like mentioned in the previous post). I would like to say that everything is complete and I am officially a student of the University of Wollongong in Dubai. I am scheduled to start on September. Yesterday was also my Birthday but I spent it on the road. Nothing special has been done but I couldn't complain because I got really amazing gifts the days before and was invited to a dinner the day before we left. All in all, it was good and at least I got to drive to Dubai for the first time. I always enjoy new experiences, no matter how tiring they are. ------------------------------------ If you haven't noticed yet, BeInOman.com has a new banner. If you can't see it then, press on (ctrl+F5) to insure that you are looking at the latest update on the page. This banner has been sent to me by email from a member of KnowledgeOman.com (Arabic Section), named Talal Al-Farsi, as a gift. I don't know why exactly but I am very thankful to that. I really liked the banner, it really fits with the whole BeInOman.com theme, doesn't it? What do you guys say? Thank you Talal for the thoughtful gift.

Renaissance Day

Renaissance day has always held a special meaning to me. And not only because it's the day when his majesty ruled the Sultanate of Oman, although that is a major reason, but also because it happens to be my birthday! I was born at about 12:10am on this day, which means, 10 minutes earlier and I would not have been a part of this tremendous day which I am very proud of indeed. And on that note, I would like to congratulate all of Oman and his majesty the Sultan Qaboos who has done an amazing job in bringing Oman to where it is today from where it was before. I am sorry but, I won't be talking about the whole history behind this because I am not qualified although, I attempted to do that last year. If you need more information on it, do what everybody else does, Google it. So, for the people who know me or even care about what I will be doing today, well... I have just got my letter of acceptance from the University that I applied for in Dubai last night and so, I am headed to Dubai in about an hour to complete everything. It is pretty exciting and I really don't mind not having to spend time with my friends and family today. I do that a lot anyway but I never got accepted to college before. It sounds bad doesn't it? The fact that it is Renaissance day and my birthday and what do I do about it...? I go to a different country. O well... So I would like to say it one more time. Congratulations everyone on this glorious and huge day, the 23rd of July, my birthday! Oops, I mean Renaissance day... ahhum..

KnowledgeOman.com's Behind The Scenes

"KnowledgeOman.com's behind the scenes" is a weekly series that will be published every Saturday on this Blog. Since I am an active member of the KnowledgeOman.com (KO) executive team and a contributor of KO's Home Page Articles and since KO updates its Home Page every Saturday, I will be giving you the latest scoops on the work that goes into creating KO's content and some other related materials on this Blog every Saturday so you can look into how KO really works. Before I start with each segment, I wanted to talk about something that a couple of people asked about last week's 'behind the scenes' series. I had people ask me whether it is a good idea or not to raise the problems that we are facing at KO. And my answer to that is, yes! KO is a community of people from every field helping out each other and solving problems. We want our administration to be a transparent one, one that everybody could be a part in shaping and building to the better. If all our problems were internal and within our selves, nothing would ever be done differently and creatively and no real improvements will ever be made. And so, I say it again, yes! I do think it is a good idea to share some of the problem that we are facing at KO. And for your information, the post timing problem which I talked about last week... it has been solved. Now, instead of having everyone post in one place (one forum) and having them post in a certain order to keep the Home Page articles in the order that we want, we have each person's segment posted in a different place (different forums) and the modules in the Home Page are organized according to our preference. So, we don't really have to worry about who posts first and who comes next since the modules are organized in our preferred order. This is just an example of how problems could be mended by sharing them. I will start from the bottom of the Home Page this week. Tomy, also known as Kubu, has published his product review a little after midnight today. After talking to him before midnight, I found out that he was still at work and that he got some information related to his review a little late in the week. A person asked me about the discipline of people who don't deliver before deadline in the comment section last week. And like I told him, the people who work for KO are doing it out of good will and are not being payed. And besides, we only choose the best to work for our Home Page and Kubu is, without doubt, one of the best. Him being a little off deadline doesn't really harm us much as long as he delivers soon after that, which he always does. Next we have 'Knowledge Lebre' by Qusai, also known as Aquafox. This is his third series in the topic of 'copyleft' and in this week's series, he tackles copyleft in the video and animation industry. I also spoke to Qusai prior to deadline and he didn't have any trouble writing the article. He was very much comfortable about getting it done and therefor, making me very comfortable. I urge you all to go read his articles, it is very interesting. You would be surprised on the difference between copyright and copylef. Now with 'CityTalks', the segment I am in charge in. In the beginning of the week, my article was supposed to be about Edutex which was a Higher Education related exhibition. I had it all figured out and wanted to make a huge coverage. But after I attended and saw how small it was, I was not impressed and thought it didn't deserve much attention. Earlier last week, I also attended the first 'Show Your Potential' workshop (visit KO to learn more about it) and I took a few recordings of the people who attended. And I also got my high school scores last week which I am sure you already know about. So what I did in my segment is, instead of writing one full article on a certain topic, I made several mini articles of different topics and put them as one. And so, I wrote about the three things above. I talked about the workshop and presented the audio file which didn't take much time to edit, upload and publish. I then talked about how the high school scores were released and the difference in the way it used to be released in the past. And finally, I talked about Edutex but tried not to put much emphasis in it because it wasn't worth it. This is pretty much it for this week. It wasn't much of a hard week (comparing to others). Come back for more next Saturday and don't forget to visit knowledgeoman.com.

Thanawiyya Amma Results: Update

You know how I said in my last post that there are rumors that the results are being released tomorrow (which is technically today since it is after 12am)? Well, I was almost right because the result were released a couple of hours after I made that post! Text messages were sent to us and told us to send our seat number to 90200 and we will receive our results. I did as instructed and waited for about 15 minutes, which felt like a life time, until I finally got my results. I quickly went to the subjects that I felt that I failed in and I was please to find out that I passed them. I happy to announce that I have done much better than what I did in my first semester and that all my fears were for no reason. I would like to thank the people who helped and supported me during the whole ordeal and that includes the people who commented on my Vlog in which I asked for help. I couldn't have done it without you. Now, I won't reveal my grades because that is kinda personal and plus, my grades suck even though they are higher than the first semester and enough to get me to collage. This is one faze of my life that has just ended and it was no easy one. I am looking forward for what's in store for me in the very near future. Congratulations fellow Thanawiyya Amma-ns!

Thanawiyya Amma Results?

Thanawiyya Amma is the name of our high school system here in Oman and many other GCC countries. We finished our final exam on the 25th of June and until today, we have no idea when our results are coming out. For you who have went through this system in Oman, you know what I am talking about. It is "the time". The time after your exams when nobody knows when the results are coming out but you know it is some time around these days. So you end up living in stress for about two weeks with rumors of the results being released flying around everyday. I was happy that my exams were over and never really thought about my results much until now. I am in that faze, when I get nightmares every night of failing the exams and getting the worse marks ever. I know a couple of guys who are literally tripping over the results and almost became anti-social because of it. It is indeed a very hard and stressful time for all of us and all we can do about it is wait and rely on the rumors to tell us when the scores are out because the ministry is not good in giving out dates and times. The latest rumor is that the score will be out tomorrow (Thursday). I heard this from a very reliable source from inside the ministry so, there is a high chance that this may be true.

You Care: Creative Learning Center

This is a re-post of what has already been posted by me on KnowledgeOman's Home Page for good reason. I want to spread the word as much as I can because this is very important. So, if you read the post already then please bear with me. This was a story that was published earlier last month in a very popular newspaper but the response that it got as described by Kawthar Al Hathrami; Managing Director of Creative Learning Center (CLC), "We only got two donations and some other people have called and asked us for our bank account number but we didn't receive anything". It is a very sad situation. It is sad how we stopped caring for the needy and stopped thinking about their dreams and their future. It is sad how people with mental diseases are no longer considered human beings and worthy of our time and money. It is sad how people with special needs are not active members of our society. But why? Some might even argue that people with mental illnesses and retardation are better off, not knowing what is going on around them and nothing to worry about. But are they really? Don't they have dreams, aspirations and goals? What about the parents? Parents who have to bare all the hardships of seeing their kids grow against their imagination and behaving in ways that they don't understand and can not deal with. Don't the parents deserve the the joy of seeing their kids' achievements in life? Don't the parents deserve some time for themselves? It is true that they love their kids but we all deserve a break. These are question that could all be answered by watching the video and by us holding hands and making this happen one way or another. I paid a visit to CLC and had a long hard talk with Mrs. Kawthar about this topic and how her center is dieing is debts and hopelessness. We spoke about the issue and the ways that we could all fix them. And it is only with your help that this could ever be done. Be part of the solution. It really doesn't take much. Here is all that you need to start helping out: To Sponsor a child: Download and fill this PDF form then send the form in person or to this address: PO Box 1364 Al-Athabia, Post Code 130 Sultanate of Oman To send your donations: Number: (968)24475055 - (968)95307344 Address: PO Box 1364 Al-Athabia, Post Code 130 Sultanate of Oman Bank Information: Bank: Bank Muscat Account name: Creative Learning Center Account number: 142-402680081012 Branch: Al-Khuwair 33 Swift Code: BMVSOMRX. For more information, visit CLC's website at www.clc-om.com.

KnowledgeOman.com's behind the scenes

"KnowledgeOman.com's behind the scenes" is a weekly series that will be published every Saturday on this Blog. Since I am an active member of the KnowledgeOman.com (KO) executive team and a contributor of KO's Home Page Articles and since KO updates its Home Page every Saturday, I will be giving you the latest scoops on the work that goes into creating KO's content and some other related materials on this Blog every Saturday so you can look into how KO really works. In this week's behind the scenes we are going to start with the first column that you see when you first enter the Home Page which is about the 'Show Your Potential' initiative by Microsoft (MS). For you who don't know, KO and MS have joined hand to come up with a program to help people pass Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) and Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) exams all for free. Read the article in KO to know more about it. Anyway, we finally are starting the workshops and if have already joined the program, you should have already received an email by today. A lot of work went into organizing this workshop and a lot have things had to be agreed on in order to get the newsletter out. Unfortunately, I can not reveal anything more than that. Just make sure you attend the workshop on the date specified. My segment on KO, which is 'CityTalks', is for a good cause this week. I talk about a learning center for children with mental diseases and retardation. I interviewed the Directing Manager, Mr. Kawthar Al Hathrami, of the center and it is all caught on video. I personally really felt for the woman who is doing this all for a good cause and she is getting no support from the government just because she is a "private" institution and the public is not much helpful even. I paid her a visit at the center last Tuesday at Al Khuwair (Creative Learning Center) and she kindly gave me a tour of the place after the end of the interview. I was not able, however, to get an interview with any of the parents or the children partly because the center is during its holidays at the moment and also because the parents tend to get a little Private about things like this which is understandable. All went well until I was able to get a hold of a woman who was willing to have an interview with me and we agreed on meeting up on Friday. Keep in mind that the video has to be ready on Friday in order for us to publish at midnight. It didn't matter because the woman canceled at the last moment and I quickly started editing the video. It usually takes me a couple of days to edit a video but yesterday, I had less than half a day to do it, not to mention how hard it is to upload a video with our Internet speeds. Luckily, I was able to finish the video, upload it and write a short article on the topic all before the deadline. The 'Knowledge Lebre' which is managed by Qusai Al Shidi was done on time and was created perfectly. Actually, the article was ready since Wednesday which was great. We should all follow this guy's lead because this is how things should be done. The 'Product Review' segment which is managed by Tommy Bosco, AKA KUBU, was pretty much the opposite if the 'Knowledge Lebre' segment. It was already 11pm and nobody was bale to get in touch with him. He was no where to be found. Until about 12am and that's when we were finally able to find him. He started writing his article at the time and took him about 20 minutes to do so. I had a look at his article and it looks great. I don't believe it only took this guy 20 minutes to create it all. I am sure he had his reasons for not being on time but things like these always happen. I am just glad that the article turned out to be great. You see, how we publish our content is first, we post it in a test forum which nobody other than us have access to then, when we are all ready, the moderator just pushes the publish bottom and adds them all to the front page. Now, there is a problem with this system. I like the whole idea but, we want whoever to publish an article, to publish it under their own names which means, I couldn't publish an article for KUBU because it is going to be published under my name. So, everyone publishes their article under their own name. Another thing is, we want the Home Page segment to be in a certain order. So where is the problem? Well, with VBullitine (the software that we are using for KO) when you publish an article in a forum, the latest article will be on top and the earlier ones will be under and there is no way to manipulate that. We can organize things on our own and we can only work the way the system wants us. So we have to make KUBU publish first, Qusai second then me and finally Mohammed. And so, if KUBU is not around, we all can't publish. We are still trying to figure out a better way to fix this problem. If you have any suggestions, please go ahead. That's it for this week. Please come back for more in next week's issue.