My new blog

I've just moved my blog to Wordpress becasuse it has more rich features than blogger service. The new URL is http://mstdev.wordpress.com/. The blog now is under construction, and I'll work in my spare time to finish it. Meet you there...
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Between Opermini and S60 Browser

I used to use the built-in brower to surf the Web in my E61i smartphone. Although I tried the new Opermini 4 on both E61i and my old 6630, and it provided me with good Web experience, but the S60 browser has richer Web rendering.

Now after I back to Egypt (I stayed in Saudi Arabia for a year), the mobile internet here is retsricted and more costive than it was in KSA. 3G connection is only available in Mansoura, while I'm limited to EDGE connection at home in my village. I still can surf the Web using the S60 browser. But Opermini gave me the option to save data usage, and is faster in low network conditions and slow mobile connection.

What I liked in Operamini over the S60 browser?

• Fast page loading and saving data usage when using low-quality image mode.
• It renders pages faster than the S60 browser. The difference may not be that big in fast 3G
• network, but in 2G it worth.
• When you go back, it goes directly to the page as you left it, no need to load it again. That is not the case with S60 browser.
• Operamini is easier to navigate. Using 2, 4, 6, and 8 keys, you can take long steps in the page either in preview or normal page modes. Also when you move the mouse pointer over a text block or paragraph, the application recognizes it, and auto-scroll to fit text with display width.
  

What I liked in the S60 browser over Operamini?

• Pages in it are closer to the PC than Operamini.
• Client-side Javascript execution jut like the PC. It can open menus, which is not possible in Operamini.
• Being a native application. It has wider permissions in the Symbian OS than the Operamini Java app.

Now with the release of Operamini 4.1 beta, it has some imperovements, and it worth trying. I installed and tryed it. Hav your chance here.
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Back to My Blog

It was a long time since I posted my last post in this blog. In fact, it was because some changes in my life and because of laziness sometimes. During this period, the following main actions happened to me:

• I left Jubail suddenly on 28/9/2007 because the contract between the Royal Commission and our company was broken.
• I traveled after that to Jeddah, where my company retains, and stayed for 1 week for Umrah (during Ramadan).
• After that I returned to Egypt, and had a vacation for one month corresponding to the period I stayed in Saudi Arabia. All this period, starting from leaving Jubail was idle for me.
• I returned to work in Mansoura in half of November, and continued until 16/12/2007.
• I traveled on 16/12/2007 for Hajj, which was finished after one week of that. I stayed in Jeddah waiting to return to Egypt again.
• I returned to Egypt on 18/1/2008, and continued my work in Mansoura.
  

I'll return my blog activities. Happy New Year. And happy new Hijri year for all. I wish it to be a good start for all with Allah, and wish success for all of us.
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شمر عن ساعدى الجد، إنه رمضان

الليلة أولى ليالى شهر رمضان المبارك، ذلك الشهر الذى نترقبه من العام إلى العام، فأنا أعتبره أول شهر فى العام. نستمد فيه طاقة العام كله، و على قدر العمل فيه و الجهد، تستمر طاقتك الإيمانية فى سائر العام. كالعادة لم أستعد له جيدا قبله بفترة كافية، لكن لم يفت الأوان. سنبدأ السباق لرضا ربنا، سنبدأ سباقا ما أشرفه من سباق، فمن أهم العبادات فى هذا الشهر قيام الليل، و هو شرف المؤمن.

إضافة إلى ما يرجوه كل عبد مؤمن يرجو رحمة ربه و يخشى عذابه من هذا الشهر الكريم من رحمة و مغفرة و عتق من النار، فأنا أرجو أشياء أخرى أيضا. فبعد أن انتابتنى حالة من الملل و الركود العقلى خلال فترة وجودى هنا فى الجبيل منذ عشرة أشهر تقريبا، أرجو فى هذا الشهر أن أحقق الالتزام بالعمل، و علو الهمة حتى فى شئون الدنيا، و حسن التخطيط و تنظيم الوقت و الالتزام به، و إن كانت العبادة أولى فى هذا الشهر، لكن حسن تنظيمها و الالتزام بها أكبر تدريب على ذلك. و هدفى من ذلك تحقيق النجاح فى الدنيا الذى أمرنا الله به، و أرجو أن أقصد بذلك وجه الله. أيضا سيكسب رمضان طبيعة جديدة للحياة من حيث الأنشطة المؤداة، و روتين الحياة التى مللناها، و ما يصاحب العبادة و القرب من الله من نور فى القلب و نشاط نفسى، يرفع من المعنويات و يرفع من مستوى الطاقة النفسية التى يحتاجها المرء لمواجهة شئون الحياة.

أرجو من الله الكريم أن يبلغنا رمضان، و أن يعيننا فيه على الصيام و القيام و تلاوة القرآن، و أن يعتق فيه رقابنا من النار.

أحب أن أشير على إخوانى بهذا الرابط من موقع إسلام أون لاين، عسى أن يفيد.

و رمضان كريم.

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Trying VS.NET 2008

Today I'll start downloading Visual Studio .NET 2008 Beta 2 Professional Edition. I plan to give it a try in order to discover what is new in the new 2008. I'll give frequent note posts on this try in the future ISA.

You may download it here.

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N73 Special Edition (Islamic)

Nokia announced the launch of the Nokia N73 Special Edition which will be initially exclusively available in the Middle East and North Africa markets. The device targets Muslim markets in the Middle East and South Africa. Offers built-in applications for Ramadan, prayers, Qibla, Hajj and Umrah. Also contains a Universal Dictionary application which supports English, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and French. Although I don't prefer Nseries phones for smartphone usage, but it's a good work from Nokia.

Read the full post in Nokia NSeries blog for details.
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Community Blog

Yesterday, I had the idea to create a blog that contain all my old companions that I have their email addresses now. The idea is to create a team blog on Google Blogger where I'm its admin. I invite them to it, and they become authors in it. Everyone can post his latest news and events so we can keep in touch. We can also open discussions and post any funny posts in this blog.

Well, I invited near 63 persons, and waiting for replies about the idea. Only one of them replied until now, haha. OK, I'll wait for them for a week, and I hope to increase the participants. :)
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Google Your Life (3): Gmail (Ep.2)

Continuing with our email star: Gmail. I mentioned general information about it. I also described how its page is organized. In this post I'll talk about how email messages are organized in Gmail. In this concern, there are some terms:

• Inbox
• Archive
• Labels
• Star

Between Inbox and Archive

Any email has folders that are used to organize and group messages. Inbox, Sent Items, Spam (Bulk), Drafts, and Trash can are special folders that user cannot modify. Other than that, user can create his user folders where he can organize messages. Message can be put only in one folder.

This concept is different in Gmail:

• Messages are stored in one of two primary places: Inbox, and Archive, except some special cases I'll mention later.
• Any received message is stored in Inbox (if not filtered).
• User can archive a message, so it hides from Inbox and move to Archive.
• To show all messages (in Inbox and Archive), you click All Mail in the upper left nav.

For the first moment, you will think that it's an unorganized email. But wait, I'll tell you how you can organize email in the next section. So no filders, it's only those two places.

Some special cases are:

• Sent emails appear only in Sent Mail and All Mail.
• If a sent message has a reply, it appears in inbox as a conversation.
• Spam messages appear only in Spam.
• Deleted messages appear in Trash.
• Gmail site says that you don't need to delete any message. Just Archive any unwanted message, so you can refer ro it through search.

Labels

That is new. Labels are used in instead of folders. For folders, messages are moved to only one folder, and so hides from the old one. This concept treats Inbox as a folder.For Gmail, labels are different:

• You apply labels to the message while it remains in its place (Inbox or Archive).
• You can apply more than one label to the message as you want to organize.
• Applied labels appears in the message board before the title of the message, in small green font.
• If the message is in Inbox, you can let it there, or just Archive it.
• To access messages that has a specific label, you can access labels in the Labels box (the green bordered box in the left nav). It seems like folders. You can find a message in two different places.
• You can Archive labled messages to clean-up your Inbox.

Starred

You can sign messages with stars in their places by clicking the white star on the left of the sender of the message. A yellow star will apear. You can identify important messges in their places by stars. You can access all starred messages from different places through the Starred section.

Next post, I'll talk about how I practically use my Gmail according to these new concepts.

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Khobar Tour

After 9 months here in Jubail, and without a car in a must-have-car town, I got bored of every thing, of all my life. This affected my work performance. That is because you cannot go anywhere without a car in Jubail, wirh high temprature and moisture. I had the chance to take a vacation on last Thursday, and went with Mohammed Ali (the Egyptian computer engineer we met in the Royal Commission) to Khobar, the nearest city to Jubail. We visited some stores like:

• Jareer Bookstore: a large bookstore that is not limited to books (as you will see in photos).
• S'amaa House Store.

We also stayed on the Corneesh of Khobar having pizza dinner picked from Domino's Pizza. We have taken some photos which I uploaded on my Flickr account on this Flickr set.

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Smartphones Show

This is a periodic video podcast concerned with smartphone world. It contains recent news about smartphones, hands-on reviews of leatest smartphones, also comparisons between them, and Steve's hints and tricks in smartphone life. It's produced and introduced by Steve Litchfield, a smartphone writer from the UK. Most of my readings for him is in All About Symbian website, my favourite smartphone site. He is also my favorite smartphone writer and reviewer. He also writes for PDA Essentials in the UK, and produces his own website, 3-Lib, which Smartphones Show is part of it. I added the URL of Smartphones Show to my Favorite Sites list.
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