Hisham Sadek » Social Media

How to Remove Facebook Photo Viewer Theater

Hisham Sadek — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:43:37 +0000

We All Have seen the New Facebook Photo Viewer which is Called “Theater”, While It’s the Worst Viewer I’ve ever seen on the Internet , A Simple Version of Lightbox would have been Better than this ! So, Do you want to Remove/Disable Facebook Photo Viewer ? Here are the Simple Ways to Remove it ( If You’re on Chrome/Firefox – Sorry, No IE -) :

1- Google Chrome

There are Extensions to Disable The Facebook Photo Viewer :

Facebook Lightbox Killer
No Thanks, TheaterBox (Which I’m using Right now)

2- Mozilla Firefox

There is an Add-on to Disable the Viewer, Works For All Versions till 3.6 and No Support For Firefox 4 :

Facebook Lightbox Killer

Enjoy Viewing Photos with no theater viewer !

5 Popular Egyptian Brands And Businesses on Twitter

Hisham Sadek — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:09:00 +0000

In the past two years, Companies started to know how much Social Media is a great part of their success. All Popular Companies & Corporations started to get Facebook Pages and Twitter Accounts like Microsoft, Google, CNN . But what about Companies in Egypt ?

In 2009 Popular Brands started to move on the same way the world goes. Tens of thousands of Egyptians have Facebook Accounts and hundreds or maybe thousands started to use twitter . That was the time for companies to start looking to twitter . So Who are those popular brands on twitter From the land of Pharaohs ?

1- Vodafone Egypt

Previously Known as Click GSM, Vodafone in one of the most powerful communication services provider in the world . In December 2009, Vodafone Egypt has been serves more than 20 Million Mobile Users in Egypt with 3G Coverage, ADSL and Broadband Internet Services .

You Can Find Vodafone Egypt on Twitter : @VodafoneEgypt

2- LINKdotNET

LINKdotNET was the first Internet service provider in Egypt which was established in 1992 .
LINKdotNET is now the largest Internet Solutions Provider in the Region with regional offices in Dubai, UAE; Riyadh, KSA; Qatar; Algeria; and Islamabad, Pakistan.

You Can Find LINKdotNET on Twitter : @LINKDotNetEgypt
(Subsidiaries : Link Development : @LinkDevelopment , Masrawy : @MasrawyFans )

3- NileFM

Nile FM was established in 2003 , One of the two Popular Private Radio Stations in Egypt “Nile FM and Nugoom FM” By Nile Radio Productions . Nile FM is the Cairo’s No.1 Hit Music Station .

You Can Find Nile FM on Twitter : @NileFM

4- Coca-Cola Egypt

Coca-Cola Egypt Started to have an eye on Social Media through its Youtube Campaign to Support Egyptian Soccer Team in African Cup Of Nations 2010 in Angola, Being the First Egyptian Branded Channel on Youtube .

You Can Find Coca-Cola Egypt on Twitter : @CocaColaEgypt

5- Sarmady

Sarmady is an Egyptian internet firm that offers Digital Communication and Marketing Solutions . Recently, It dominates the Egyptian Fixed and Mobile Internet offering services through some effective projects Like FilGoal, a popular Egyptian sports portal . Sarmady was recently acquired by Vodafone Egypt .

You can Find Sarmady on Twitter : @Sarmady

Maybe Most of those services are not really using twitter for how it should be used but that’s a good start into believing in the miracles of Social Media .

UPDATE – More Brands on Twitter

McDonald’s Egypt Has a Twitter account . It’s not that active and I hope they will care more about it . Egypt YellowPages Also Has an active twitter account & I would consider it the most active Egyptian Brand on Twitter .

You Can Find McDonald’s Egypt on Twitter : @McDonaldsEgypt – Thanks @Embee
You Can Find Egypt Yellow Pages on Twitter : @EgyYellowPages

If You know more popular companies or corporations from Egypt on Twitter , Please Share in Comments or on twitter @SadekHM

2009 – A Year of Success and Failure

Hisham Sadek — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:37:00 +0000

( Source : Flickr )

This Year is a year of Success and Failure for everyone. Nobody would get a completely failure year or a complete successful year . Every Year We try to put our resolutions for the new year, We always dream of a better year, a better life which it would or wouldn’t happen but It doesn’t hurt because at last, It’s still a dream.

One of the most successful things I really enjoyed was my work . Having a work since 2006 taught me a lot. I knew about Working from Home & Volunteer work . I knew more and more about Web Design in those years and I still learn . I had my first steps into Social Networks, Created My First Personal Blog and My First Professional Blog about Social Media in Arabic, I got to know more and more about Social Media, Public Relations, SEO, Analysis … etc. Many Interesting Things happened to me in those few years .

Although most of them didn’t have a good end, I had to shutdown both of my first personal Blog and My First Professional Blog because of Studies and Work, but that didn’t let me go down and I had my new personal blog and my new professional blog about Web Design . 2009 had my most successful time at work, creating brands for our company and our clients and re-branding was not an easy job .

In 2010, I hope that this success would remain, and I’m still hoping for better and happy life, more successful projects to work on in this year .

I will not forget to mention what I really enjoyed to do in 2009 which was working with World AIDS Campaign Task Force in Egypt to re-branding WAC Egypt Campaign for this year . Volunteer work is a real joy in life .

And Thanks to all my friends and followers on Twitter & Facebook . You made me smile in 2009 (:

It’s Defenitly Google’s Month (Goo.gl)

Hisham Sadek — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:45:00 +0000

With Many Announces this December from Google, We can say It’s Defenitly Google’s Month. Starting this month, Google announced Chrome OS, then Chrome Browser for Linux and Mac, Google Phone yesterday and Today Google has a URL shortener.
With Google’s new url shortener (goo.gl), This would be a great competitive to Bit.ly which is the main url shortener for Twitter. “Google shortened URLs are automatically checked to detect sites that may be malicious and warn users when the short URL resolves to such sites.” says Muthu Muthusrinivasan in Google Blog .

This would be another 100% successful service from Google which is already combined in Feedburner (Goodbye to Twitterfeed) and Google Toolbar.

Shortened URL for this Post : http://goo.gl/fb/Vfrr

Around Facebook New Features

Hisham Sadek — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:21:00 +0000

I’m not the one who is always against something particular. Facebook has just announced two new features yesterday. First one was about mention, which allows users to tag friends within status updates, just like what twitter do when you reply a tweet “@username” .
The common way to talk about this feature is that Facebook steal Ideas from other websites, just the same as “Like” Feature which is a part of Friendfeed. But the same feature appeared before on other micro-blogging services such as Plurk or Identica .. then why we talk about it now .. Is it just because of Facebook or we just hate what facebook introduce to interact users !

The Second Feature which is really interesting is “Facebook Lite“, The simple version of Facebook which loads faster and optimized for slow connections . It’s really fast with slow connections, However it doesn’t include some features such as Chat Service . With Facebook Lite, there are no more loading errors.

Two Interesting Features have been announced, which makes sharing easier with friends and expanding website for slow connection users .

Facebook Acquiring Friendfeed .. so what !

Hisham Sadek — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:08:00 +0000

I was surprised actually while I read yesterday about Facebook acquiring Friendfeed . It was a surprise for all to see the great friendfeed, one of the greatest networks that got lots of geeks to join it and share everything everywhere from facebook, twitter, GReader, Stumbleupon ..

But today I just thought about it .. so what ! .. What’s wrong if Facebook Acquired Friendfeed .. Why all people think that Facebook will kill Friendfeed and we should look for other alternatives for lots of shared items !

Why don’t people think that Facebook would get help from Friendfeed to improve Facebook more to compete with other Social networks. There must be some changes to happen but as others said it would be like Labs for Facebook to find out what would be the best to integrate with Facebook in the future and help users to share more with the world ..

CloneFeed

It’s even a great idea what people are working on after the acquire to create an open-source Clone for Friendfeed which looks like to be called CloneFeed. Maybe It’s time to start involving public more in the website not just content but There’s a hope It would be at least as Friendfeed or better .. That’s the real revolution towards Open Source .

Facebook, Twitter .. Around Surprises

Hisham Sadek — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:59:00 +0000

Each of both social networks Facebook and Twitter had surprises to show for their users . Twitter released its new home design to users which is more “blue” and better than the older one while defining what it means to tweet . so It’s not about Just Blogging or “Micro-blogging” but It’s now sharing everything that happens :

Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world

Twitter is more than a fun tool to share “What are you doing” with your friends, It’s more likely to be a source of information to visitors, users and Media .

It’s not just about the new design but showing some new way from twitter to sort trending topics which is popular right now, popular today or this week . Twitter is introducing its new media to public and Media to start to know that media is not the only way to know the news, people are the source of news and whatever happens on earth .

While Twitter was celebrating its new home page, a Facebook bug allowed some applications like Twitter and Friendfeed to post status updates that had access before to send to Facebook . It was really confusing that you are awake at 5 am or something like me and find your tweets are going to be updates on Facebook and you are through mobile and cannot get to reach those apps and remove them till bug is fixed .

Maybe Facebook would start looking for something new instead of just working on the design and get some features as “Like” which I still don’t use it a lot like Friendfeed .

Twitter next step : More Languages ? I hope so

The Love of .. Cloning

Hisham Sadek — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:12:00 +0000

There’s still another crisis when we talk about Clients, Which is ” The Love of Cloning “. Clients in Many Different fields especially when It comes to a Designer field (Web Design, Graphic Design, Interior Design …etc), We find the issue of cloning things .

A Client wants a website like this, A client wants the same view of this place, A client wants this exact design for his work. Everything is related to cloning .. Even when It comes to Social Networks, When there were many clones for Microblogging Networks after Twitter became the top of Microblogging websites .

I wonder why we always want to clone, while we can get inspired and do something new. For Web Design, We can find Many Sources for Inspiration to give an idea to how the project will need, colors, resources, techniques to work on with.

Yammer was such a great idea to use Microblogging in another new way which is Connecting with People in Your company or organization . Brightkite is another interesting social network using the location based idea and Microblogging .

There’s so big difference between Cloning and Getting Inspired . We should look for more Innovating in our fields of work and stop depending on the client’s view . You are the expert, then you can Convince your client with new ideas to do his/her work, whatever it was but It will be a remarkable thing you can mention in your portfolio, that you don’t clone but Innovate .

Are We Going away from Real Life By Online Social Life ?

Hisham Sadek — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 02:03:00 +0000

It was actually an Interesting Question Got on my mind while I was on twitter and read this reply . Are We really going away from the fact of real social life By online social life ?

I’m not talking about a general view , I’m taking the example of such countries or communities like in Middle East where It’s restricted for some reasons (politically, or by the effect of community itself …etc) , It could look some kind of hard to build successful relationship in real life where at some point ,no problems can be found between people .

Everything around us affects our real life more than ordinary where youth, some journalists find in that online social life the only way to speak up and complain and make better relationships with better kinds of people than we meet and find the suitable mind to think with and to spread the truth that can be hard to publish it in newspapers.

And even if we’re going away to this online social life, Do we use it as much as we communicate in our real life !

The point is, many people who will start to join this online social life will think It will be perfect life to stay online 24/7 with The twitter thing or facebook , It could be right with some situations when you actually need it for some reason or you’re the source of spreading information most of time, and vice versa, It could be a big mistake if you go away from that real life and got yourself involved in that online social life.

An Example for The Mistake

6th April Movement (Strike) is a look to the real face of the big mistake of this social life, The whole Idea was a Group on Facebook to Stay at Home and don’t go to work on April 6th, 2008. I still say although we need a change and we need such organized events and so on, This was the stupidest idea ever which caused a great damage . Those people may have thought that It’s something easy like a trip or something and Let’s go We can do it with nothing to organize it .

While In real Life, Workers who manage strikes most of times get what they want at last, like the train drivers strike few days ago in Cairo.

We need to think more in our actions and our life and how it look like , Not everything is an easy move like a send button we click on in our online social life . We have to be fair with ourselves .

Also Read :
TECHNROLLA : Social Media Revolutions – The Egyptian Style
Embee’s Corner : Ignoring the Rule: To Support Gaza or Not to Support Gaza?

The Future of Social Media in Arab Organizations

Hisham Sadek — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:22:00 +0000

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 .