Blue Chi’s

Every other discussion I have these days seems to revolve somehow about Twitter, Facebook, blogging, or something of that sort. I am not always able to justify why I am on these things other than having them as a window for me to express myself and that I simply enjoy sharing the daily happenings of my life online. I know it doesn’t necessarily make sense, but I am having fun and a few people seem to like to follow the random updates I make around the clock. I feel connected and at many times liberated by saying out loud what I think. I am quite comfortable not being anonymous, but – believe it or not – it restricts what I can say online. Tweeting throughout the day became part of my lifestyle which I do not think about doing anymore.

Talking about other changes in my lifestyle, I am so happy I have been able to continue going to the gym while I’m in town. A serious issue with all the travels I’ve done in this year is that I cannot go the gym while I’m abroad, I’m still very intimidated by the gym and I like only going to the one I know. The result of this is that I only go to the gym when I’m in Muscat. I’ve been going to *my* gym regularly and recently I was fortunate to meet an old schoolmate in the gym who I get to train with (and for which I’m grateful!) , so I’m actually having fun at the gym these days and I feel like I’m progressing. I weight myself yesterday and it turns out I gained more than 2 Kgs since the last time I did my measurements! (I’m trying to gain weight! )

Other than that I still generally feel quite stressed with what I’m doing in my life, but it’s getting better because I started updating the OmaniCuisine and the Republic of Code once again. I am done with that crazy international environment law course that I had to do for work. It was good, but it just came at the wrong time. I do get stressed at times about my Muscat Daily column, I don’t really get any feedback and I’m not sure if I’m doing well,bad, or what. At times I really don’t have any idea what I should be writing about next, I used to keep a list of topic ideas, I don’t where that list went. I still think that I’m doing better than how I was doing a month ago. I hope I can get in top of it all by the end of the summer.

Ramadan should start in a month, I’m really not looking forward to it. I have a feeling it’s going to be crazy hot, and I’m afraid I’ll be thirsty all day long. I don’t how I’ll function when I’m low on sugar, and I have no idea what’ll happen with my gym schedule. I don’t know if I want to take time off to stay at my parents house for a bit or not. I’m just not looking forward to it.

I’ve been reading Shantaram for a while, it’s too long but I quite like the book. In page 136, the character Lin talks about how he was given the chance to reinvent himself, to follow the river within, and become the man he had always wanted to be. I found to be quite profound. I think we all can also have the chance to reinvent ourselves, to be someone different, someone better. It was just one line in the book, but it really got me thinking.

I have written and talked about the situation of intellectual property in Oman so many times, I am wondering if it is time for someone to take action and try to start doing something about it. I think that society doesn’t have much appreciation for copyright, patents, or trademarks, and I think that this is a serious issue because intellectual property plays a big impact in everything around us, from ensuring that the medicine we buy from the pharmacy is genuine, to the protection of consumers from misleading brand names. The protection of intellectual property is also obviously necessary for encouraging the creation of literary and artistic works – which we obviously do not have much of made by Omanis in Oman (movies, music, or computer software).

The current situation is complex because Oman does have in a decent intellectual property law, it is a member of the WTO, and has signed a free trade agreement with the USA. Yet, this all this legal code remains theoretical as it is very difficult to enforce intellectual property on the internet, and it is unrealistic to ask people to stop downloading movies, music, games, and applications from the internet when there isn’t a legitimate way for acquiring these copyright works.

A great number of people do not also realist that they do not need to infringe copyright when they can use open source applications or creative commons licensed works. The few creators of original works in Oman, such as photographers, are obsessed about claiming copyright protection and do not realise that society could also benefit more by making their works available through creative commons or alternative licenses. Businesses, in Oman and abroad, also still do not realise that old business models do not necessarily work in the age of the internet as people want to have what they want instantaneously or otherwise they will get the first free download they find.

It is such a shame even with the growth of micro-payments and independent developers and content producers, we still do not have proper Omani iPhone applications or anything of that sort – because the majority of users in Oman pirate applications, music, and everything else – making it impossible for developers to be able to invest in creating local products which are representative of our identity and culture.

I do not think that having stricter copyright law enforcement would be the solution – you cannot stop people from pirating on the internet, but we need to think of a solution to help provide an incentive for people to create while providing consumers with proper access to content. Maybe copyright law is outdated, maybe businesses need to adapt to new business models, but we cannot remain a society of mass consumption that does not contribute by making anything in return. I think that intellectual property is the key that touches on old and new media, classical arts and modern computer graphics, science and art, and every other aspect of life.

The only body in Oman with a mandate relating to intellectual property is the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, but I think it is clear that what it is doing is not enough at all. So my idea here is to establish a formal association for intellectual property that aims to raise the awareness of the importance of intellectual property, provide information to small businesses on how to profit from copyright works, advise policymakers on how to develop a fairer copyright law that reflects the current values of society, and promote the use of creative commons and open source licenses among other things.

What do you guys think? Would there be any point in attempting to support the cause? How hard do you think it would be to find supporters for the idea and how difficult would it be to form an association in accordance with the procedures of the Ministry of Social Development?

I think that I owe you guys an update, I got the worst jet lag of my life when I got back from DC, I arrived at 10pm on Saturday and had to go the office the next morning. The whole of that week went from bad to worse, it took me seven days to be able to sleep at night and get up reasonably on time for work.

That is not to say that I did not enjoy my trip to the states, I really loved it. DC is an awesome place and my time on Capitol Hill was such an amazing experience. I learnt a lot, met many awesome people, and saw a lot of things. The ironic thing is that my deeper understanding of how the Congress works makes me think that the US system is not exactly perfect (mainly due to how lobbying works and how it is closely tied to raising campaign money), I’ve watched many presentations by Lessig on reforming congress, but I had to see it with my own eyes to realise how skewed the system is.

It was nice to see how the US is really all about the individual, about standing out as a person, and not as part of a group. It’s about being in control of your life and doing what you want to do without having this concept of what society expects you to do. It was amazing.

I learnt to appreciate what I have back home, I’ll never complain about my old tiny office, because it is MINE, it’s PRIVATE and I DON’T SHARE it with anyone. I had to go all the way to the states to experience working in a cubicle in shared office and man I can tell you I was out of my comfort zone, I hated it, I didn’t feel like I can answer my phone, I didn’t feel like I can talk to people, I couldn’t even type on my keyboard cause I felt others would hear when I start and stop typing. It was CRAZY.

Something else that got me was how people just wouldn’t say hi when they walk into the office, it was just weird. I’m not the most social person on this planet, but seriously, can say at least good morning when you walk right behind me first thing in the morning. OK, I did get used to it, and when I got back to MOLA and Ahmed Riyami started again shaking my hand with his disgusting wet hand every morning I hoped I can just ignore him like they do in other places. Maybe that was not a bad cultural attitude after all.

All said and done, I really had fun in the states, I know that I will go back sooner or later, if I ever get to do another degree I will surely try to do it in the US.. but until then, it’s back to reality I guess.

Today was a bizarre day at Capitol Hill, I’ve been assigned for a couple of weeks now to the office of Congressman Mark Souder for the Legislative Fellowship Program I’m participating in. Well today I came to the office and the door was locked, I went to a colleague’s office to send an email to other people in the office to learn about what’s happening. In a few minutes I learned that news broke this same morning that my congressman was having an affair with one of his female staffers in his district office and now he decided to resign!

It was totally random and unexpected. The dude has been in congress for 16 years now and is a very conservative republican who campaigned for family values and such things, now all of a sudden he is exposed to have a sex scandal that leads him to quit. The sad part is that all his office staff lose their jobs if their congressman quits. It was awkward so I decided not to go the office while everyone there was devastated. We only have two more days on Capitol Hill before we travel to Virginia to spend the last week of the program there, I’ll be going to another Congressman’s office in these two days, so I will not have to deal with Souder’s drama. I emailed the two people I worked with in his office and wished them the best of luck, still can’t believe this is happening!!

Best thing I like about places like DC is fact that you can just walk to practically anywhere. I love metros and the feeling of the thrill of the city. The weather has been bright, sunny, and awesome on most days. Yesterday was probably the best day I had so far, I visited a local market, went to a baseball game, visited a museum, got invited to someone’s house for dinner, and walked for a while under the sun.

The thing I envy Americans for is the courage they have to take risks in their lives to do whatever they want, I cannot just decide to quit my job one day to go and help children in Africa – we just can’t do that. These days I do not even have the courage to write whatever I want on my blog, I am not talking about legal restrictions and freedom of expression, but just about not wanting to upset people or not wanting to show my vulnerable self.

I love my blog and everything I do on the internet, this weekend a person I have known online for a while now came to see me, he took me around to meet his friends and made me feel really welcomed, it was amazing – at times I find it hard to believe that people genuinely this kind and hospitable stil exist on this planet.

I wish I was this kind to other people.

(Photo Credits: ukslim)

I’ll be attending a legislative fellowship program at the Congress for the whole of May. This program is sponsored by the US Department of State. I’ve never been to the states before so I’m really looking forward to it. I’m checking the forecast and it looks like it might still rain a bit even though it’s technically spring now! I’ll keep you guys updated on Twitter and here.

I’m a bit bummed cause I just started updating the Omani Cuisine again, and now I’ll be away for a whole other month. You guys will just have to wait for me to come back to get you the latest reviews on restaurants in town.

Oh and by the way, for those who didn’t figure it out, my previous post describing a day with my iPad was totally fictional, it was written before it actually came out. The funny thing is that I STILL haven’t got one yet, I will be buying one from the states while I’m there though.

Boys and girls we are celebrating the Twestival with everyone around the world this Thursday! All users of Twitter (active or not) are welcome to join us on board of one of the ferries of  the National Ferry Company for a 2-hour round trip! Snacks will be served and special performances will be made by a local dance group.

Please register via BOTH of these links if you would like to come:
http://tinyurl.com/yfww2h8
http://twtvite.com/4ariqg

For more info please visit http://muscat.twestival.com/

The alarm on my iPad woke me at 6.30am, I pushed my pillow against my back as I sat lazily in bed, pulled my iPad from the bed side and disabled the alarm. I instantly launched the new multi-column TweetDeck on the iPad to see what the guys are up this morning. I exit the application and see that there are no new message badges on my Mail application, thanks to my awesome Gmail filters all the crap people send me gets sorted into various folders and skips my inbox. I jump out of bed, grab my towel and head to the shower.

***

7.00am: I am having my famous Jordans Country Crisp cereal, I work the cereal with my spoon as I read my RSS feeds on the laid down iPad, suddenly an alert appears on the screen saying that I have a meeting today at 8am. I saved this event on Google Calendar, but it of course syncs with my iPad live. I throw my cereal bowl in the kitchen, slide the iPad in its foofbag and ran to work.

***

09.00am:  my meeting is over, I go back to my office to check on my files, as I walk there I remember that I now can check the list of my in-progress files on the iPad using Google Docs, I do that and see that I have left one of the files with the advisor to sign the letter, I make a detour to check on what happened with that, the advisor had already signed the letter, I take it from his office, give to the DG and change the status of the file directly from my iPad.

***

10.00am: I am in my colleagues office and one of her neighbours asks if I can check the letter for the file we are working on together, I ask her to send it to me by email, on my iPad I open that Word file on Google Docs, make changes directly to the letter right then and there and send it back to her in 5 minutes. She is very impressed by the way I work and thinks that I come from the future.

***

11.00am: I have this new proposal to make the DG for making monthly statistics reports that breaks down the performance of each department on its own, the idea is to have visual graphs such as pie charts and bar charts. I have already collected some data from previous months and created the graphs and report. I go to the DGs office and impress him with my presentation skills on the iPad as slides magically flow with gestures of my fingers. He instantly buys my proposal and asks me to coordinate with the secretaries to collect the data needed for these reports.

***

12.00pm: I am frustrated by some clauses in this huge construction contract I am supposed to review – I remember that I recently bought a digital Kindle copy of a new Construction Law book from Amazon which I can read on my iPad. I pull the iPad and launch the Kindle App, I open the book and search for the chapter on the same clause I am studying right now, I read up a little bit and note some of the possible variations for such a clause. I make some comments based on what I just read and then mark the file as done on my Google Docs log sheet.

***

03:00pm: I’m done with work and supposed to go out for lunch at a new restaurant, I am not sure of the location, but my friend is already there, so he sends me an email with a Google Earth link to the spot. I have my Mifi with me so I open up Google Maps on it and see exactly where the restaurant is. It sucks a little bit that I don’t have the 3G version which has actual GPS capabilities, but I guess you can’t just have everything.

***

04.00pm: It’s is my first time in restaurant so I think let me to do a Omani Cuisine review, my iPad doesn’t have a camera, so I use my iPhone to take shots of all the dishes and then email them to my iPad. While having our dessert I use the WordPress application to make posts on the go, insert the images in my email inbox to the post, review it one more time and click publish! I really like this restaurant and might come back again to try other items on the menu.

***

05.00pm: I am not going the gym today, I check on Haitham to see if he is willing to chill out in Caribou as usual, he is down for it as usual. He brings along his iPad and we order our drinks, he uses the Photos application to shows me the latest renders of concepts he designed. We chat while we casually tweet and browse the internet. Someone on Twitter suggests a new multiplayer game on the iPad, we both download it and play using ad-hoc mode together. Haitham sucks at videos and I kick his ass so easily.

***

08.00pm: I grab something to eat from McDees on my way back home, I’m pretty sick of it at this stage, but I can’t be bothered to get anything else. I am too lazy to switch on my computer, so I dock my iPad and watch the latest episode of Diggnation as I have my dinner. I wonder why millions of people around the world, including myself, waste our time watching a couple of geeks get drunk and talk about random stuff, thing is it’s really fun to watch!

****

10.00pm: I have no other plans for the day and for some reason I’m pretty exhausted. I decide to read a couple of chapters of the latest Kindle Haruki Murakami book I downloaded from the Amazon on my iPad. I never imagined that I would one day enjoy reading translated literature, but I guess Murakami is really special. I lay on bed and read until I fall asleep.

Just got back from the first digital nation seminar for 2010 and it was nice this time around! Unlike previously there weren’t 5 people on the stage talking about random things and instead we had a speaker who was relevant, fun and engaging! (dude was CEO of a media company in Dubai & spoke about social media).

I really had fun listening to him and had even more fun chatting with other people over dinner afterwards. It’s a really good opportunity for like-minded people to mingle with each other and I hope more fun people cone attend next time! It is totally free and you get to have dinner afterwards!!

I always had a problem with my phone and web-based address books. I have multiple entries of the same people, each with a million different numbers. Very recently I decided to sort this once and for all and have all my address books synced using Gmail’s support for Microsoft Exchange. Using Exchange making any change in either of my address books causes the other one to reflect that change INSTANTLY without doing anything but update the actual entry. As my iPhone is always connected to the internet this really works as advertised and it is just unbelievably efficient!

It took me a while to clean up my Gmail address book and have ALL my contacts on it first, I deleted many contacts of people I have not been in touch with for years and those who I am now exclusively in touch with via Facebook. Once I got my Gmail address book completed, I completed wiped out my phone’s address book and used the Exchange settings to have Gmail sync with it, in a matter of seconds the names started popping up in my address book and the process was done! Whenever I add a new contact to my Gmail address book that person appears instantly on my iPhone, making any change to any entry also appears instantly as well!

OK, what’s even cooler is that after I got both of my address books unified an sorted, I used the iPhone Facebook app to sync the photos of all of my friends with my iPhone address book, so now when any of my friends call me their Facebook profile picture shows up on the screen! AND this picture is later synced with Gmail so I can also see it inside my Gmail address book!

Besides the address book feature, I also use Exchange to push emails instantly to my iPhone so that it email and SMS become virtually the same, and best of all is that my calendar is now synced with Google Calendar live so that any event I add to my iPhone calendar appears in Google Calendar instantly without me doing anything but add the event to the calendar! It is seriously insane I love it!