Blue Chi’s

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!

Twitter is the hottest thing on the Internet right now, yet people either do not understand, think it is silly, or are addicted to it. In Oman, Twitter is steadily gaining popularity as more people and companies join it. For those who still do not know what this is, Twitter is a service that lets you send very short messages (140 letters or less) to people who follow you. If you are on Facebook, think of it as a website dedicated to status updates, and instead of being restricted to friends you know, it is public.

The short messages of Twitter can be used in a number of ways. The most commonly understood method is to simply use it as an answer to the question “What are you doing right now?”. Your answer could be anything from “Having my famous cereal for breakfast” to “Running late for work as usual”. These are updates that enable your friends to know what you are doing at any moment.

The second function for Twitter is to use it as a chat platform. Twitter enables its users to reply to each others messages instantly using a myriad of devices. If you need a quick answer to a short question, like the location of a restaurant or an advice on something to buy, you can make an update on Twitter and get a short answer from any of your followers quickly.

The third function of Twitter is to use it as a source of real time news, whether it came from professional industries or normal people. The concept of a “Retweet”, which is the equivalent to a rebroadcast of a twitter update, makes news spread across the whole of Twitter instantly, so if you found a tweet with breaking news, you can retweet it instantly to your friends who are likely to retweet it even further down the chain.

For people like myself who are officially addicted to service (I have made more than 10,000 status updates since I registered two years ago), Twitter has become part of the lifestyle we follow. My followers know about my life more than anybody else does, and I know a lot about the lives of those who I follow in return. I have used many different methods of communication over the years, but I had never before made a connection with so many people on such a personal level like I have on Twitter. It might sound unnatural to those who don’t user the service, but I now feel that I am part of a community which I cannot abandon easily.

I have been told that I no longer have any privacy because people know every single move I make from the minute I wake up until the minute I decide to stop reading my novel in bed and go off to sleep. I have to admit that I am no longer sure about the extent to which I should disclose personal information about myself, and I do not advise anyone to tweet as much as I do, but I believe that the whole world is still trying to understand social media and it will take us a while to establish a common etiquette for using such a service. Until that happens we will have to tweet using common sense to ensure that we do not harm ourselves and those close to us by exposing too much information to the rest of the world.

The recent announcement of the iPad and the experimentation with HTML5 by YouTube and others led people argue about whether or not Flash is necessary, or even good at all, for the Internet. Apple has announced that, just like the iPhone, the iPad will not support Flash. YouTube and a number of websites have started testing the use of HTML5 video instead of Flash to playback web video.

Many people are vocally against Flash because it is a proprietary technology that is controlled by Adobe. People think the web should be built using open standards such as CSS and HTML. Images on the internet do not need a special plug to be played and are placed directly on a web page, the new HTML5 will make it possible to embed a video inside an HTML page the same way an image is placed. As Flash is the most popular method for delivering video on the internet, a lot of people seem to believe that the arrival of HTML5 will be the end of the Flash video era. A number of modern browsers such as Chrome and Safari already support the HTML5 video tag and websites such as YouTube and Vimeo started testing it for delivering video.

There are a lot of compatibility issues with HTML5 video tag and it will take a very long time (years) before it can become a serious alternative for Flash video. The HTML5 video tag enables embedding a video directly onto a web page, but there is no actual standard video format for the web and there is no consistency in the support of video codecs by browsers. The majority of video codecs are restricted by use licenses and no format is currently universally supported.

Apple refuses to have Flash on the iPhone because it fears that it will negatively affect the user experience due to its tendency to consume the system resources, however, all other smart phone platforms (Android, Palm, Windows, and Blackberry) have announced that they will support the new Flash Player 10.1 which has been developed for mobile and touch based navigation in mind. Apple also will not support Flash on its upcoming iPad tablet even though it will come with a new powerful processor that is capable of delivering a desktop like browsing experience.

Instead of waiting for Apple to reconsider its position, Adobe announced that the upcoming version of Adobe Flash Professional, CS5, will enable developers to use Flash CS5 and ActionScript 3.0, the same tools used to create Flash on the web, to create native iPhone applications. This means that Flash developers can use their existing skills and easily create smart mobile phone applications that will run on the iPhone, Android, or the desktop web, using a single SDK with very little changed between each different platform version of the same application.

It must be remembered that Adobe does not make money off the Flash Player, but by selling development tools such as Flash Professional and Photoshop. Adobe creates a number of tools, such as Dreamweaver, that work with web standards such as HTML5. The video tag is very unlikely to have any significant impact of the use of Flash for delivering video on the web anytime soon, and even if it did, it should be remembered that Flash is not just a medium for delivering video, Flash is the most popular method for creating web games and other rich interactive content. Many popular web services such as TweetDeck, Google Streetview, Picnik, are built on Flash and they don’t have anything to do with video.

The fact that the iPhone and the iPad do not support Flash is not the end of Flash, for the real customers of Adobe, the developers, Flash can still be the a good option for developing applications, especially due to the ease at which applications created using Flash can be ported to multiple platforms (including the iPhone) easily!

I have to admit that I am very excited about the recently announced Apple iPad, and just like the majority of people I am not sure if I really need one, but I just want it! I think that it is the best couch/bedside computer, it is just a device you keep at home to check your email while laying in bed or on a coach, maybe carry along when chilling at Caribou while having a cold drink…. damn that sounds cool!

I can’t say that I’m super upset about multitasking, I’ve been using the iPod Touch and iPhone for a while now and I am really not bothered about it all that much. I think that not running Flash in the browser is a drawback, but not a deal breaker for me because I don’t play web Flash games, and because YouTube has its own application.

Strangely my most favourite feature of the iPad is the new calendar, it looks really awesome and makes me think the iPad could be used as a serious office organizer, especially if you sync Google Calendar using Exchange the same way I do using the iPhone.

All of that said, I am going buy one the second it comes out, I am looking forward to read the reviews and see what the developers do with it.. and then I will seriously have to think about whether or not spending money on a coach computer is really a good idea!

I’m currently in New Delhi attending a training program on legislative drafting at the Indian parliament. The best advice I got was from SangitaSri who told me to make sure to keep my expectations low to be able to enjoy it, and boy I’m just amazed by everything I’m seeing. First of all my hotel is really nice, even though the place is under renovation, but the rooms are really fancy (IMO nicer than hotel rooms I recently stayed at in Abu Dhabi and Vienna) and there is even free wifi in the hotel. (I told you I’m keeping my expectations really low! ) But seriously, the hotel is super clean and that’s the most important thing!

The roads of the city are pretty dirt, there are beggars everywhere, and the driving is INSANE. The littler restaurants and places where they sell food on the road are also super dirty, but there are loads of nice places to go eat at. Yesterday my Indian friend took me a really nice restaurant at Khan Market, and today we went to Select Citywalk, which is like a massive proper shopping mall just like the stuff we have in the Gulf. I event went to check the Apple Store (yes they have one unlike Oman), but unluckily they did not have the Magic Mouse – which I’ve been trying to buy for a while.

I’m going to stay here for a whole month, so I’m hoping I’ll be seeing a lot more of India. We also have a trip within our program to go visit Taj Mahal – I can’t wait to go there!

We all know that Wikipedia is not really a scientific authority – any person who visits a page on Wikipedia can click on the edit button to change what is written on that page without even having to register. Yet even though there is a great opportunity for abuse, the majority of the users of the web seem to, whether consciously or subconsciously, take information written Wikipedia seriously and blindly rely on it without ever checking if the page has a list of references. Wikipedia should never be taken as an authority by itself for the obvious fact that any person can edit it, but I think that Wikipedia is a clear indication of the opinion of the majority of people on any given topic, because a fact that is not commonly believed to be true would be edited by someone else.

One of the main reasons Wikipedia has become such an authority is the fact that it is highly ranked by Google, meaning that it is very likely that any search made on Google for a topic on Wikipedia would most likely have a Wikipedia page as the first result on Google, this makes it very likely for Wikipedia to be visited by the person making the search.

Unsurprisingly, this had led all those who care about their “image” on the internet to check and update the Wikipedia entry that covers them, this includes governments, companies, celebrities, etc. There is no doubt that Wikipedia can be used to further promote a product as well as inform the public with all the facts about it because it is one of the most visited websites on the internet. However, the majority of people in Oman seem to be oblivious of the power of Wikipedia and there is barely anything written about Oman on it besides the main page on Oman and Muscat. As a country that considers tourism as one of its primarily economic pillars, it is totally unacceptable that many of the major cities and landmarks are nowhere to be seen on Wikipedia. The biggest contributors to Wikipedia worldwide are scholars and university students, but in Oman many universities and colleges do not even have a Wikipedia page on them!

I do not think updating Wikipedia should be a task assigned to a specific person – at the end Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia that is expected to be edited and updated by everyone. I was upset to see that Sohar‘s page, my hometown, had an ugly picture of a factory and mentioned nothing about the city other than the fact that it has a booming industrial sector. I decided to upload a picture I took of Sohar Fort and wrote a little bit about hotels, parks, schools, and shopping centers in Sohar. Now whenever someone makes a search on Google for “Sohar” the content I wrote myself appears on the top of more than 400 thousands other links.

If every person wrote a tiny bit about their hometown, their school, or their favourite park in the country we would contribute in spreading the word about our country to the world even further. You cannot seriously consider yourself to be existing in today’s world if you are not present online, making sure that you are present on Wikipedia (if you satisfy their notability requirements) and that your page is accurate

The recent release of the Google Nexus One, the new Android phone, got me a little bit worried about my attachment to the iPhone. I am very interested in the Nexus One, it is a really great phone, but no matter how good any other phone seems now, it is very difficult for me to consider leaving the iPhone platform because I have integrated a number of iPhone specific applications into my lifestyle and I do know if anybody ever will make equivalent applications for any other device (iFitness, iXpense, Nike+, etc).

No matter how pretentious it might sound, but the iPhone has really changed my life, the way I use a mobile phone, and the way I interact with the web on the go, and this layer that the applications bring to the mix make it extremely hard to move to another platform, no matter how appealing that device seems. The only option I can consider now for getting another mobile phone would be to have it as a secondary phone – which I really never had even though I badly think I should get another number for work… but seriously, would someone who has an iPhone buy an Android phone as a secondary mobile phone? I can’t possibly pay for two mobile data plans, that’s just not right.

iPhones and other smart phones users, do you feel attached to your platform or can you easily switch regardless of the applications?

I have been writing a bi-monthly column called Cyberia for Muscat Daily since the newspaper was launched in October last year. For some reason Muscat Daily still doesn’t have a website, so people could only read my column if they bought the physical copy of the paper. I decided to post all of my previous columns online as well on my blog from now after they get published on Muscat Daily. I have scheduled it so that a new post will appear each week on my myITLawyer, so posts might appear on this blog also. My latest columns will still come out every other Sunday in Muscat Daily.

Making a post on the last day of the decade! In the last ten years I finished highschool, started and finished university, and got my first job. I had the best days of life, I was blessed to meet a lot of amazing people, been to so many different places, and did all sorts of crazy things. Life was really good in these last ten years and looking back at it I think that I enjoyed almost every single bit of it. Thanks to all of you readers of my blog! I wish you the best of luck in this new decade!

I’ve only subscribed to a mobile data plan less than two months ago, but I already feel that the way I use the Internet on the go has changed forever, tharmt is of course also directly related as well to my iPhone as well, but many other smart phones like android devices. Could’ve done the same.

I spoke with several people about how the transition to a mobile data plan is similar to the transition to a mobile phone for the first time, to some people the mobility by itself does not justify the cost of the plan, but used to say why get a mobile phone when I can just go home and make a phone call, most people are not running vital businesses that require urgent instant feedback, but the same thing could be said about mobile Internet, imagine being able to do everything you do on your PC on your mobile phone, from YouTube and Facebook, to editing an excel sheet on Google Docs, and all of that in a big enough screen and running through a high speed connection. Of course the phone plays s big part of it, but it is the connectivity that makes all the difference. It is truely life changing.

So if you did get my opinion yet on whether or not you should get a data plan, even in Oman, the answer is yes of course – provided you have a good enough phone to make use of it. And just to prove my point, I made this blog post from my phone that is connected through a 3G network!