Khalid Alkelabi

كل عام وأنتم بخير

Back in 2006, I gave a class for young bankers on the basics of Information Technology. The course was an introductory one and the aim was to give the trainees a brief overview of the IT world and its history.

Someone reminded me of these documents and asked me to publish them online, so here they are! Enjoy the reading and tell me what you think. (the docs are in Arabic). You can directly download to your computer in PDF format: 1. IT Basics Documentation / 2. IT Basics Presentation.

قمت في العام 2006 بإعطاء دورة تدريبية عن تقنية المعلومات لموظفي البنوك الجدد في أحد البرامج التدريبية. الهدف من المحتوى كان إعطاء الموظف فكرة عامة وممتعة عن أساسيات تقنية المعلومات وتاريخها.

ذكرتني إحداهن بهذه الدورة والمحتوى الذي قدمته، وطلبت نشره ليستفيد منه الناس على الإنترنت. استجابة لهذا الطلب أنشر هذه الوثائق لعلها تفيد أيا كان. يمكنكم تحميل الملفات بنسق أدوبي أكروبات مباشرة إلى أجهزتكم: 1. أساسيات تقنية المعلومات (مذكرة) | 2. أساسيات تقنية المعلومات (عرض تقديمي) .

Download Presentation

Download Document

Twitter

After trying many plug-ins for WordPress to publish my site’s posts on both Twitter & Facebook, I came to a simple conclusion: 3rd party plug-ins are useless! The best way to go is using plug-ins that truly integrate with WordPress. The ones I used were: Wordbook (integrates with Facebook) and WordTwit (integrates with twitter). The result is satysfying and practical: both plugins submit new posts directly to Twitter & Facebook.

Now, the only problem I encountered was with Wordbook: It requires PHP5. By default, my host (1and1) uses PHP4, you have to choose PHP5 when you create a new MySql database. To overcome this problem, I used a very simple solution that I found on  1and1 FAQ site (Link to original page):

By default Apache uses PHP 4 for .php extension. If you don’t want to rename all your
scripts to .php5 you can do the following:
Create a .htaccess file and place the following line AddType x-mapp-php5 .php in it.

Now I enjoy true integration with my 2 favorite social sites

Gravatar

Managing multiple profile on tones of websites, forums, blogs, social services, etc. is becoming more and more difficult as your digital self grows on the web!

One service that might help you cope is Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar). This service helps you publish your avatar (symbol, image, or icon that represents you) on almost any forum, blog comment or post, etc.

By signing up with Gravatar you’ll be able to upload your avatar (or multiple avatars) to it and associate one or multiple emails to it. Thus, whenever you post a comment on a blog or interact with any website, your avatar (or Gravatar in this case) will appear automatically without you having to create a profile! Magic isn’t it!!

The service explains:

Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?

if you looked into the comments left on some posts in here you’ll appreciate the power of Gravatar:

Gravatar Example

Finally, here are some links to understand the service more:

• Gravatar’s official website
• Gravatar on Wikipedia
• Gravatar’s Blog

Linked In

In my quest to explore more social networking sites, I thought of exploring “Linked In” – a website where professionals link together to create greater communities. I heard about it years ago but never considered it until a friend talked about it recently.

I encountered a surprising error that almost blew my mind: I could not register because the service claim I already did, yet I can’t retrieve a password because I apparently do not exist in the service records! Laughed a little but then shot this support request to the Linked In team:

Hi, I’m a bit puzzled here:

1.  tried to create an account but the register form gives me the following error (The email address you provided is already registered)

2. I used the “forgot password” option even though I can’t remember ever registering to the service, and it gave this error (The email address you entered is not in our records)

I wonder, is the universe collapsing without me noticing? How can I be registered but not at the same time in this space time continuum

Oh, by  the way, I had to publish this on my site! It’s a must…

To prove this, I attached these screen shots:

Case 1: Can’t register cause I already am!

Case 2: Can’t retrieve account cause I don’t exist!!

Web 2.0

Trying to connect all my online activities and social connections into one place, my personal website, proved to be a challenge. Yet WordPress in addition to various plug-ins made it happen: at last I can rest assured my scattered info all over the inter webs are happily residing in one place!

This little experiment allowed me to connect: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, digg, etc.

Whenever I post something in here it gets published in twitter (as a tweet) and Facebook (as a ststus). When I update my profile on Facebook or update my status on Twitter, my website gets the info! Flickr images are integrated into my site!! And on top of it all, RSS feeds are generated for me!!!

One last thing, I have to applaud WordPress.org for their excellent iPhone app! Now I can update my site comfortably and in a meaningful way from my iPhone. Web 2.0 is a dream come true…

WordPress Logo

I have just upgraded my website to WordPress.org blog engine. It’s easy and elegant.

With lots of plug-ins and easy to customize themes and scripts, I decided to go with WordPress. And did I mention it’s free?

Conducting lots of experiments in the next few weeks, so don’t get cranky if you surfed here and found weird things floating around!

Lastly, please don’t be harsh! not yet!!