The persistent scrutiny

Orange is Artistically and Desperately Ripping Me Off ??!

2009-06-30T12:46:00.008+03:00

You know what? I must say that Jordanian Telecom Companies are the best in ripping their clients off. My hat off to you guys, or shall i say Mon chapeau.

Your techniques of ripping us off is unprecedented and deserve to be universally honored. I bit you have an R&D department dedicated for finding creative ways to steal our money. This is just impressive!

Look at this SMS i received today June 30th at 11:25 AM : The message says that "starting today June 30th, 1 piaster will be deducted for each delivery report for an outbound message" To me this is clearly a rip off for the following reasons: Why didn't they send the notification earlier; at least one day before June 30th? What about people who sent messages on June 30th from 12:00 AM until they received the notification?. As I know, the day starts at 12:00 AM not at 11:25 AM next morning.

To me, this is such a fraudulent way of treating your client and a TOTAL rip off.

I am willing to delete this post if there's a confirmation that the content of this SMS is effective at least 1 hour after I received it on my Cell. Which i don't think is the case. It's just sad :(

How to Be a True Jordanian and Happy Accession Day :)

2009-06-09T10:17:00.006+03:00

A: they gave me a prize today
me: ?
A: bcoz i put Jordanian songs soo loud in the car
:D
me: who gave you a prize
A: the police
:D
me: what is the prize?
A: A great booklet about Jordan
:D
me: so you take this prize if you put a Jordanian song loud only?
A: no sure
bcoz I am Jordanian
--------------------------------------

I think a lot has been accomplished since king Abdullah II became our king. Happy Accession Day :) this article says it all on how i think we should celebrate this great day :)

Promisng Adsense Performance for the Arab Web Publishers

2009-06-08T10:39:00.012+03:00

Disclaimer: the information mentioned here cannot be generalized. They are based on my personal experience only.

If you are an Arab, and make serious money out of Adsense as I do, you probably noticed a drop in the eCPM lately. Which consequently negatively affected your earnings. Yes to a depressing point :( . And of course the reason is well known to everybody: The economic crises. Well.. it's true that eCPM for arab networks sucks even before the crises :), but now it sucks even more.
But personally i dont think this will last for long. I believe that one year from now, eCPM will improve dramatically in the Arab advertising networks.

If you don't know what eCPM is, in kids talk: eCPM is a reflection of how powerful advertisers are! How much money they are ready to pay for their ads. So the more powerful the advertisers are, the higher the eCPM.
Now, let's talk about he good news: during the last month, i noticed a slight increase in eCPM for one of my websites that speaks only Arabic language. So it looks really good and it reflected on my earnings. So i am going to show you a graph that illustrates this:

What about you? have you witnessed an eCPM increase lately?

RIT is in Amman on May 18th 2009 :)

2009-05-13T12:19:00.001+03:00

RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) is one of the top Technology Institutes in the World! They are opening in Dubai and they are coming to Amman next week looking for potential candidates! and there are scholarship opportunities.

Maybe it's convincing that the 16 years old kid who unlocked the iPhone is an RIT student.

RIT University is visiting Jordan on May 18^th !!

Not any degree, but a key to global opportunities.

Not just professors, but mentors for life.

More than just books, but curriculum that continues to challenge you.

The Rochester Institute of Technology in New York opened its doors in Dubai. RIT University offers accredited degree programs for personal and professional development. With our high educational standards and fast paced learning schedule, you can be on your way to an internationally recognized masters degree in as little as 18 months. Get a US accredited degree in Engineering, Finance, MBA, Service Leadership, IT and more in Dubai, UAE!

RIT Dubai University is currently accepting applications. Join us on May 18^th 5:00-7:00 pm at The Amman Marriott Hotel and find the right program for you! Register now at dubai@rit.edu or call 971 4 501 5566 .

Visit us at www.dubai.rit.edu and start your future Now!

I am on Twitter [follow me]

2009-04-30T11:50:00.003+03:00

I am falling in love with Twitter.

i think it's the best substitute for a lazy blogger like me.

Follow Me Here :)

Google ain't the God

2009-02-24T12:49:00.005+02:00

This is the proof that Google is NOT a God. This happened today at 10:51am GMT

From Google

Kadima Official Website Compromized by Palestinian Hackers

2009-02-14T21:58:00.005+02:00

I am not sure if this is a hoax or not!

Urgent:

Palestinian hackers managed to find some security vulnerability in Kadima Party official website:

This is a snapshot of what the website looks like on February 14 2009 At exactly 10:00 PM Amman time. Click to enlarge

The Power of Google Engine

2008-11-24T14:49:00.001+02:00

I noticed something very cool about Google search engine. Maybe some of you already know it:

1. Go to Google.com (not google.jo or google.de ... etc)
2. Set your keyboard to Arabic
3. Type an English word (while your keyboard is still set to Arabic)
4. Observe what happens.
5. Set your keyboard to English now
6. Type an Arabic word (with your keyboard is set to English)
7. Observe again

Hats off for Google :)

Jameel Shehadeh the first real speed cuber in Jordan!

2008-11-16T14:02:00.001+02:00

In less than 6 months, and with endless hours of training, My 14 years old brother Jameel managed to break the 15 seconds barrier in solving 3X3 rubik's cube.

Watch!

<

Is there any challengers out there?!!!!

You can follow him on his rubik's blog

Tips for SEO Wannabes

2008-11-04T14:58:00.004+02:00

here are some of the SEO tips based on my personal experience!

It’s very important to concentrate on the traffic resulting from Google search. Because it’s Google traffic that makes difference for your target business. And to do so you need first to decide on a keyword. If you have a website that sells cars. A possible keyword can be “cars”, but it would be a bad starting choice as a kick off. Because you’ll never have the chance of appearance on search results, you’ll be eclipsed by other strong website since your site is still benign at this stage for that keyword. It’s necessary to start with relatively weaker words like “car dealers”. SEO works by securing weak keywords then climbing up the ladder to the stronger ones. This is the general rule unless your website is a killer idea like Google or Facebook or Twitter or Stumbleupon. Killer idea websites need minimal SEO and the word of mouth is fairly enough
You can use Google KeyWord Tool to help you decide on the best starting keyword.
Having backlinks from other websites with decent PageRank is the best way to get higher results on Google search. And those links should be permanent on a high PageRank active website.
The referring website should be that of an active and dynamic nature that is updated on frequent basis. Since Google will reduce the importance of the backlink as the referring website becomes older.
Having backlinks from blogs is a good way to increase your popularity. Provided that the referring blog has a decent PageRank. And those blogs have to be real blogs that provide useful content. And they have to be continuously active in order to sustain the value of the backlinks.
Try to contact other people running websites of the same niche. And try to make good relationship with them. And Eventually secure a backlink from them. And do that same in return. This is a time consuming process but very fruitful on the long run and will make your position on the search result robustus and stable .
When creating an entry on Wikipedia, this entry will be deleted by the wiki Admins unless this entry is talking about a well known website. So if you create an entry about your new blog or website now, I guarantee you, it will be deleted in less than a week. And you have to keep in mind that backlinks from wikipedia are of the type "nofollow". So they have no impact on your position at Google search results. They will only increase your visibility which is not bad at all.
Sometimes you have to care about the PageRank rather than the traffic. Especially when you have a very specific niche and the number of the maximum visits expected is inherently low. High traffic does not mean high PageRank. I have a website with 50 unique hits per day that makes money much more one with 600 hits. It's all about the niche :)
Yes you can provide a link on dmoz.org. But make sure that the description of the link has neutral language that is not promotional in nature. So the overarching principle in SEO is Do No Evil :)
Using social bookmarking websites can be useful and can bring many instantaneous hits. Once I managed to get +1000 hits for a website using Stumbleupn.com. But it’s good to keep in mind that social bookmarking hits has insignificant value on the long run and have minimal contribution to your rank on Google search results. Another thing, in order to make your social bookmarking entry valuable, you need to have a good reputation within the social network you’re in. For example, if you’re on stumbleupon.com, you’re entry will bring more hits if you have real trusted friends in the network or if you have other entries that were positively rated by other social bookmarkers. The web may seem loose, but it’s a very intricate and robust entity.

I hope the information I provided is useful.

Now Yamli gets a new tough competitor

2008-10-25T03:59:00.001+03:00

Google has decided to play with transliteration for Arabic language. This is exiting! Yamli Watch out! Or maybe We should say Google instead :)

Just to make things clear, Google did not copy Yamli! This technology is not new at all! I used to have a desktop application that does the same thing! So guys stop bashing Google :)

Try it out!

Rubik's Cube Champion in Jordan

2008-10-04T15:27:00.000+03:00

This is my 13 years old brother again continues smashing his records day after day.

Just in case there are any speed cubers in Jordan, please contact him. He is so desperate to find one :(

مش فاهم aka I don't Understand aka WTF

2008-09-25T11:29:00.002+03:00

Puzzling Red Square on Google Doodle!

2008-08-12T18:26:00.000+03:00

Does anybody know what the hell is this red square on the bottom right hand side of the doodle?

Diwani + Naskh Rehearsal

2008-08-12T12:06:00.000+03:00

The Offspring of a Sterile Meeting

2008-08-04T10:33:00.000+03:00

This what happens when you have a targetless early morning meeting:

Rapidshare Search

2008-07-03T10:53:00.000+03:00

Recently i am addicted to downloading songs, documentaries and magazines from various file sharing websites, like rapidshare, sharedzilla, nineshare, 4shared and many many others. The problem with those websites is that most of them does not have a built in search engine.

There are many search engines that index those websites and they are fine, but you know i am that kind of person who likes making things. So i created a rapidshare search engine that indexes hundreds of file sharing webistes. The search engine uses Google custom search.

To pets owners in Amman (Amman's Best Veterinary Clinic)

2008-07-02T10:57:00.004+03:00

A lot of pets owners in Amman complain about horror stories with some of Amman vets. Maybe it's time for you to set back and relax.

Ala Shehadeh happens to be a young and very well versed Amman vet. He has a small vet clinic in Amman 7th circle. What is astonishing about his vet clinic is that it has been there for less than 2 years, and now he is the most recognizable and arguably the best veterinarian in Amman. This claim is based on hundreds of his clients testimonials.

I am writing this post to propagate my brother's excellent reputation through the internet.

Amman veterinary clinic offers the following services:

An experienced veterinary care with a thorough knowledge in animal medicine and surgery.
Cat and Dog Relocation
Preventative medicine (putting in place a vaccination program for your pet, and against different parasitic disease).
Full Diagnostic capabilities (full veterinary lab tests and microscopy).
Experienced surgeon in conventional and non-conventional surgeries that your pet may be in need.
Dental Care
Diagnostic X-ray facility both indoors and outdoors.
Veterinary Reproductive consultations.
Professional grooming.
Extensive regulatory knowledge for relocating your pet to any global destination, with necessary lab work and microchipping.

So stop your beloved suffering and bring him in :)

Location: Amman, Cozmo hypermarket, just off the Airport Road. See the map.
Mob. +962 (0)7 996 999 88
Email: shihada@gmail.com

Jameel Solves Rubik's Cube in 47 Seconds

2008-06-16T09:55:00.000+03:00

This is my 13 yrs old brother. I am really worried about his social life :) hehe

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

2008-06-07T01:41:00.001+03:00

I watched this video 9 times today!

Why Adsense Link Unit Rocks

2008-05-21T19:36:00.002+03:00

I have been experimenting with Adsense link units for the last couple of weeks. And the result was impressive. I almost doubled my CTR that of Adsense ad units.

Link never caught my attention in the beginning of my adsense experience. And i always had this bad fist impression about them. "Who would click a link that will lead to a long list of links? ". It turned out that i was mistaken. And the reason is that i haven't put my self in the new visitor shoes. It's a very important (yet not easy) excersise to imagine the visitor's clicking activity.

I will make this short and list the reasons why i think that link units rock:

Adsense link units are relatively noninvasive if compared to ad units. They could take two forms: a vertical or horizontal list of links that do not have a descriptive text or url. From the very early days of the internet till now, horizontal an vertical lists of links have been the predominant way of arranging links. These shapes are much less alien to the visitor's eye as if compared to Ad Units.
Because of the above reason, the chance that a user will click a link unit is optimized (at least from my observation). One may argue that a user may exit the links list page without clicking an add link. Because he/she will be surprised that he landed on a page full of ads and this may by discouraging.
I have a different more optimistic opinion about this: The user is presented with a page that has diverse collection of trusted ads. And the chance that he will click one of them is optimized because it's more probable that he will find his desired item.
Link units are much more portable than ad units. They are smaller, neater and relatively have more links.

Of course this may not be the case according to the design and the nature of the website. The above may not be true for image extensive websites.

Jameel Solves Rubik's Cube in Under 2 Minutes

2008-05-16T13:41:00.002+03:00

My little brother says that he can do rubik's cube in under 2 minutes. Let's see!

I am Going To Space in 2009

2008-05-08T16:36:00.002+03:00

Isn't that cool to have your name stored on a DVD and sent to the outer space? :) If you don't believe me, click here

Kepler is NASA's first mission capable of detecting Earth-size and smaller planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. The spacecraft is planned to be launched from Kennedy Space Center in February 2009. The spacecraft will be launched into orbit around the Sun, not the Earth, with an orbital period of 372 days. The spacecraft will slowly drift away from the Earth, such that in about 25 years it will be half an Earth orbit away, 300 million kilometers distant from the Earth, passing behind the Sun as viewed from Earth.

Cosmos is vast! so vast to the point that it's statistically impossible to believe that we are alone!

Kepler mission is another bald endeavor to search for extraterrestrial life. That I believe it exists.

I would like to dedicate those words to the great Carl Sagan. Who spent his life in this quest. Maybe his dream will come true one day!

Maybe you want that too? no ?!!

Google PageRank Update April 2008

2008-05-01T01:02:00.000+03:00

Rumors have been roaming the web for the last couple of days about a toolbar PageRank update. This turned out to be true and the update affected all my websites today. Some of them got promoted and others got penalized.

Before you get surprised of your website PageRank, it's important to keep in mind that the number you see on the toolbar PageRank is several months old and it does not affect your current ranking on Google search engine. It's because Google updates it very infrequently and the numbers are actually old exports.

Jordanian Dinar

2008-04-28T11:25:00.001+03:00

Have you ever looked closer to your local paper money and see how meticulous the details are? Today i scanned a Jordanian Dinar with 2000 dpi and here's the result:

You can also download a high resolution Jordanian Dinar here