Archive for the ‘Arab’ Category

Microsoft Maren, Competeing other Services ?

July 1st, 2009 Arab, Egypt, Microsoft View Comments

Microsoft Maren is a newely tool released by Cairo Microsoft Innovation Lab which concidered as a service like Yamli, Google Ta3reeb or Onkosh .

According to CMIC : Microsoft Maren is a Windows extension that comes to the rescue, allowing you to type Arabic in Roman characters (Romanized Arabic, Arabizi, Arabish or Franco-Arabic) and have it converted on the fly to Arabic script.

As a Windows Tool, It’s very helpful and interesting as It’s the first Desktop Application to offer this service Unlike other services which is web-based . But the whole point is not about the tool itself .

Promoting Maren was not in the right way. I’m blogging in English and I chat with some friends in Franco-Arab way but I really care about Arabic Content and promoting the proper content to users, But Maren Video Demonstration didn’t show that It’s helping users to use Arabic Letters or Franco-Arab but It just says Screw Arabic letters .. Write in Roman Characters and we will convert to Arabic .

CMIC with this tool is promoting the Extinction of Arabic Language for people who are kind of slow with writing Arabic Letters ! I really think Microsoft should think again how they promote their tools like that.

Never Lie about what you do

June 1st, 2009 Arab, Web Design View Comments

As Full-time Web Designers, We are kinda have to always be in time with achieving work for clients in time, We have to be clear (Although we have to lie sometimes) .

But when you try to lie, you should be very good to be able to lie .. especially if you’re going to lie on another one in the same field you work on ..

In the Arab world, you will find the most jealous web designers in the world .. They even be jealous because you’re not that successful one at work .. One of the main reasons to force them trying to lie or being jealous is that they do not follow the latest .. They don’t understand what it means to be a very good freelance web designer .. They always work with old techniques, They have the oldest strategies to follow up their work ..

Some of them pretend that they are working on very great projects while they don’t know how it is running or who owns those projects .. Why to lie when you can develop yourself, Being better than what you are doing now will help you a lot to have great experience and who knows , You may create one of those great projects in the future ..

It’s like a club over here, There are all kinds of people with all kinds of experience but Not all of them care about Quality and The Long Term of his futuristic plan that he didn’t even put ..

It should be the time to start looking forward to develop, to create better quality of work, to not be jealous because someone is better than what you do .. Forgetting all the jealous inside, and Never Lie about what you do

Very Related Post :
5 Things Arab Web Designers Should Care For

5 Things Arab Web Designers Should Care For

February 15th, 2009 Arab, Web Design View Comments

I’ll just talk about Arab Web Designers and not all Graphic Designers , because most of them are doing great job except web designers .

Arab Web designers have the most complicated issue in the world of web design and which is .. They don’t think .. I’m not talking about all of them but many many of them especially those who work in Groups or oldy freelancers .

I was just in a discussion about our new website design for the next level of our work .. The Design is very cool but the problem was a small little thing that was turned into a crisis .. I will not talk about Details but I will talk about some things Arab Web Designers should really think about avoiding it :

Be Simple

Most of Arab web designers are so complicated in their works . They are very old-fashioned and keep doing that till now with the oldiest ways to do their work, Many don’t know the basics of HTML, CSS or javascript . They still work with Microsoft Frontpage to do their work and they love to Preview their works on IE6 .. In conclusion they love to do all what worldwide web designers avoid .

  • Start Thinking of being simple 
  • Learn the basics of XHTML, CSS and javascript 
  • Start using newer software to help you . 
  • Start Finding New Ideas to work
  • Start using frameworks to get you the best effects that beautfy your design (jQuery is the simplest example) .

Think for the long-term plan

Most of Arab Web Designers are just looking under their foot and not to their shadows .. They do not put long-term plans for what they are going to do and how to improve their experience more and more by time .
Planning your work is the first right step to improve your work day after day and knowing what you are going to do in years .. There are risks you should care for in your plan but it will be much better than the right-now plan .

Keep Learning – Don’t Be Jealous

Don’t think that you’re the most experienced person in the world while in the same time you’re doing the worest work ever . The Negative Self-trust is extremely dangerous for web designers . So Keep learning and finding sources for new Ideas, Inspiration to get the most of what you do .

Know The Right Terms

Most of People Think that Web 2.0 is just a simple design with weird colors . Well, The one who understands will call this crap. Web 2.0 is more than what they imagine and think . Although We’re in a turning point to launch the Semantic web or Web 3.0 but some designers still live in the old ages and he will never know what you are talking about .

Be Positive

As an Arab Web Designer, You should start thinking positivly about your web content in General and how to improve it, either by looking for the Good work from clients or trying to work on Projects that improve the Arabic Web content whatever It was but just to end the Idea of copying the information to lots of websites but at last It’s the same information
.So why don’t you start getting information by yourself to the Arab World ?

The Future of Social Media in Arab Organizations

January 16th, 2009 Arab, Egypt, PR, Social Media, Twitter View Comments

This Post could be a one of series of posts regarding the condition of Social Media in Middle East & North Africa.

I’ve Been following Social Media for more than a year as I started to work with many Organizations. For some reason I could say that It’s not the responsibility of organizations to care about doing PR Campaigns but It’s also the responsibility of Communities itself .

Local Organizations ( I mean not in the capital or main city of the country ) do not even care or know what social media is however It could be a very successful organization but this does not deny the fact that using Services like Twitter, Facebook would be very helpful to allow more to get information and to help clients in the future in simple ways . The Negative point also is the companies’ websites does not offer the helpful content enough for clients or visitors .

Throughout My Experiment with UN Organizations in Egypt, Online Campaigns is a very important part to get to reach more people supporting their campaigns , for example I was responsible for launching the Online Campaign For World AIDS Campaign in Egypt for 2 years, At the first of All we focused on how to get the most out of Internet to support the online campaign, First of all We got head to Facebook . Through Facebook We Managed to create Group, Page, even An Application for WAC Egypt for years 2007, 2008 . Beside Integrating with the website of WAC Egypt, It gained more success than 2006 Campaign, and 2008 was so much better than 2007 while we got more visitors reaching to us from different ways (Facebook & Twitter Mainly) beside Search Keywords .

This was a simple thing that I learned that Our Community still did not got itself involved in more social services like Twitter which neither got Interest from Team work or even The Referrer from Facebook to Twitter.

Heading to UAE, I believe It’s more better than what we talked about in Egypt, The Community itself have involved organizations to start working on Marketing & PR Strategies and there It’s easier to know that organizations is depending on more social services to be on contact with clients and customers . We can even find More Startup companies there that works on useful social projects .

So Back to The general view of Arab Organizations and Social Media, It needs great improvements, Basically It needs more Educational Resources in Universities, It will be great of professors of Marketing started to care more about PR and how it could improve the organization and allow it to get more helpful information and reach to other points they may not did . It will be a great part to be included in the Integrated Marketing Communications.

More Info about Organizations in other Arab Countries will be helpful .