I heard last year about OneCard.net, when they won the 2nd place at the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology Award : Raqmi 2006. The idea is pretty simple but interesting, Onecard aims to replace all cards available in the market. Instead of buying Jawal, mobily, Internet, DSL, hosting … or any others cards, you buy just OneCard and then you can use it for any of the available services.
Mohamed Zagzoog, owner of zwjate.com one of the service supported by OneCard, told me that the service is pretty known and it’s generating good sales for his website. I have a problem with mobily because they don’t offer online payement for prepaid accounts, while AlJawal offer it for everyone, so I registered at OneCard to give it a try. They are using Alahli credit cards processor, which is also my bank, so I paid online with the minimum 50 SAR. After buying credits, they quickly called me to confirm my identity. Then from the website I bought mobily credits, and the card is instantly available. Simply neat, and I will definitely use it instead of growing my card’s collection at home.
Tomorrow will be held a Conference on Web 2.0 at King Abdulaziz University Jeddah presented by Alaa Eddine Halaq. I’ll be probably there from 6h to 8h, just curious to meet some active web 2.0 guys and hear some arabic vocabulary for IT. Below the conference flyer.
Une semaine d’actualité IT, période disons de test pour voir un peu ce que ça donne, se débarasser du rodage de deux ans ou plus depuis que j’ai rien écrits en français ! Ah le bon vieux temps des rapports de l’école (que je faisait jamais) !! 
voici le résumé de la semaine :
- Google, l’été et l’Open Source
- Le Spam, de l’argent ou de la nuisance facile ?
- Le Web Contre le Desktop, Que le meilleur Gagne !
- OpenID, Votre Identité 2.0
Ca viens de se mijoter hier, ça s’appelle ITACTU, tout simplement L’actualité de l’IT. Ce n’est pas assez nouveau comme projet, mais c’est quelque chose que j’avais en tête depuis quelque temps et voilà il a fallu que ça sort hier à la lumière. J’ai un petit problème de clavier qui s’est résolu, mais le prolème maintenant c’est que mes doigts ont pris l’habitude de taper de l’anglais (qwerty) puis autre chose, tellement j’écrivais du français sans accents maintenant je suis plus sûr si j’ai omis un circonflexe ou un c cédille quelque part. Bref, je vais revenir à taper du français !
Revenons à nos moutons ! ITACTU ne sera pas la version française de phpmagazine.net même si ce n’est pas très loin. Cette fois c’est du pur et dur orienté entreprise, y’auras plus de codes comme ici, ni de la programmation, mais c’est plutôt tout ce qui se rapporte au développement des technologies de l’information et de la télécommunication. Voilà, le site est assez simple, très basique pour commencer. J’ai l’habitude de mettre plus de “S” qu’il en faut, comme si quelque chose me dis qu’on n’est pas seul au monde et il faut tout mettre au pluriels, alors si vous remarquer ça sera très gentil de me notifier. Si vous êtes intéressés pour joindre ITACTU, il suffit d’envoyer un petit email, je ne peut vous dire maintenant ni comment ni en quoi ça risque d’évoluer. Affaire à suivre …
QRCode is one of the new standard developed by DENSO(Japan) and which aim to replace the old barcode. QRCode is 2D barcode with a large capacity to stock data, small printout size and High speed scan. I have a barcode Reader in my N80 compatible QRCode, so I’ve written OpenQRCode a one page free QR code generator. The usage is very easy simply enter the text you want then hit the generate box to get your code. You can then download and use it wherever you want, you can even make a badge for your website with your Name, URL, Email … Add it to your prints …etc. The website simply use nifty corner and jquery for fun
Apple just revealed iPhone on the Macworld, the biggest event for mac lovers. iPhone will be available by June 2007 and pricing will be $499 the 4GB, $599 the 8GB model. Combination of a mobile phone, widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device. Still, iphone didn’t get authorization yet from the Federal Communications Commission, so just wait until authorization will be obtained. iPhone size is around 6.1×11.5×1.16 cm, pretty small ! Something new I noticed on the new Macworld is that Apple dropped Computers from the company name, so just call it Apple !
Update : But surprising there is no 3G support in iPhone ! For a mobile phone which will be released in 2008 without video call, without fast internet, this is really very bad. Welcome to the mobile world !
This is something that I’ll be interested to get if my iMac plans fall down. Linutop is a diskless computer very small 9.3 x 2.7 x 15 cm for 280 gr, running a linux as its name indicates and the very minimum software to surf the internet Firefox, AbiWord, PDF reader, Gaim and Totem. LinuTop have the expansion to support USB2 , Wifi connection, Flat pannel. I find it an excellent internet terminal and for storage you can use anytime an external USB drive.
It have been long time that I was looking for a neat way to update Nokia phone software without problems, and finally Nokia make it part of their official software. The latest version of Nokia PC Suite 6.82.22.0 introduce this new feature “Update phone software”, after the first run you’ll be redirected to Nokia Website to download the software required for your phone. There is a small list of supported phones, almost Nokia N Series and E series in addition to few other models.
My N80 have lot of problems and was really slow especially at the start up, so i really needed a software update to fix all those bugs.The update took about 30 minutes, and require simply the phone cable. First a backup of all data to memory card is necessary because all data will be lost after upgrade, and when it finish simply restore it from memory card. Something not really encouraging to update if the internet connection is slow or not stable, also be sure to charge your mobile fully to avoid disconnection during update. Otherwise the procedure is easy, and most important of all you’ll be able to update your software phone and then enjoy !
I was working since yesterday on a Glofish eten X500, one of the new generation of Pocket PCs with integrated GPS, WIFI.I tested almost all available GPS mapping software for PPC, and was surprised to see that a very basic feature is not available. All available software allow you to enter two addresses and show the road between the them, but there is no way to enter directly coordinates of the two points. While it’s a very basic feature, addresses are automatically converted to coordinates, so what’s wrong if they allow to enter directly coordinates ?
After long trials, I have found a suitable solution with Destinator6, but now I have to find their desinator console which I’m not sure if it’s for PPC or PC since they have a proprietary format, and the procedure is really complex : writing coordinates in csv format, convert it using destinator console, then import it from Destinator !! The problem : we have coordinates and just the Glofish, is it too much asking to show a map with the two stupid points ? I need also to sleep for two hours then get back working on this 
Today I had my first VideoConference between our local team in Makkah and another team in Dammam, to work on a new project between the two administrations. The videoconference equipment was very new, and the network team made the necessary settings to establish connections … etc. The quality was amazing, especially that in Dammam they have a 36Gig line, and we have just 1Gig You can imagine the difference ! The meeting took about one hour, where we agree about different technical issues for the project, and we’ll have another VideoConference this Saturday.
The hardware we have is an TANDBERG Edge 95 MXP with the possibility to join up to 4 video sites and 3 audio sites together. Superior video quality incorporating the H.264 standard and also Protection against network interruptions in point-to-point and multipoint calls with automatic Downspeeding and IPLR. Something that we didn’t think about was to bring a laptop for the presentation, because it’s crazy when you talk with developers for the first time, and I was very happy when they mentioned “webservices”, but very confused when they didn’t understood XML and SOAP that my friend here mentioned to be sure that we are talking about the same thing.
