Ammar Ibrahim's blog - Business

Sharekna - Video & Photo Sharing for the Arab World. Launched

nospam@example.com (Ammar Ibrahim) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:08:48 -0500

Today we [soft] launched the alpha [and buggy] version of Sharekna.com, The free online Video and Photo sharing for the Arab world.

From a technical point of view, the site was built using CodeIgniter as an underlying framework, I had to modify some parts of the core to ease parts of handling Arabic and to have nice Arabic URLs ala Wikipedia style. CodeIgniter is not the greatest framework, but I would really recommend it for the first MVC encounter, especially if you have less experienced developers working on a project. The way it separates M from V from C is nice and easy to grasp even if the developer has no OOP experience. The thing that we did to a great degree is completely re sturcture the way CodeIgniter handles views. I hate how that was handled, and changed it to a more component/block based templating that proved to be a great time savior for our CSS/(x)HTML dude. The 2 other things I really hate about CodeIgniter are the way (GET & POST) are handled and the freakin disgusting DB layer that comes with it.

Another interesting thing we used was eZ Components (EZC), which to me is cleanest/most stable PHP code I have seen to date. EZC was integrated in CodeIgniter as a helper and it became very easy to load (autoload) EZC from within CodeIgniter. EZC was mainly used for image manipulation, and I'm very satisfied with the results.

Job Opportunities

nospam@example.com (Ammar Ibrahim) — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:41:33 -0500

- Junior Linux admin

- Senior Linux admin

- Client side technologes developer (CSS, JS, AJAX, X/HTML, DOM)

Shoot me an email (jobs@gnuix.com) for further details, no experience required, if you're a geek, smart and willing to work extra hard.

To Dubai

nospam@example.com (Ammar Ibrahim) — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:57:39 -0600

In few hours I'll be traveling to Dubai to attend a business meeting early morning tomorrow, I will be spending 4 days there hopefully I'll get the chance to Ski, I'm really looking forward to doing that and meeting my friends.

After 22 hours of work

nospam@example.com (Ammar Ibrahim) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 08:01:10 -0600

Here's how a human being would look like after 22 hours. The techies @ Albawaba have been working really hard the past two weeks to build a new service. It should be launched in two weeks

Nayef sorrounded with computers

Hafez.... How many cups of tea did the guy have?

Branding Plans( Services ) & Usability

nospam@example.com (Ammar Ibrahim) — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 20:56:03 -0600

Currently I'm helping a client build their website. which is going to offer some digital communication services. We had some sort of a discussion about the way they brand their services, I'm no branding expert( Ahmad Humeid is). Which in this case is subscription plans. They want to put their brand with the name of the service, which i'm strictly against. Let's assume the brand name is ABC.

They want to have the following hypothetical plans:

ABC basic
ABC advnaced
ABC power
ABC ultimate

I think the following scheme is less confusing for users. Yet imagine someone calling customer support, this is by far easier to rememeber.

Basic
Advanced
etc

Ammar's guide to fresh Graduates

nospam@example.com (Ammar Ibrahim) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 02:34:40 -0600

All the following tips are based on true stories, things to avoid doing when applying for a job

Tip #1
When you walk in, and a gentleman( wallahy konet labes formal ) stands up and introduces himself:"Ammar Ibrahim", don't say "3ala rasy, meet wardeh 7abeeby"

Tip #2
Don't mention that you are part of a dabkeh group, and that this is your ambition in life if you're applying for an entry level programmer. Not that only, but never say things like "Wallahy il shabab ma betgasser iza 3endak fara7 aw ishy"

Tip #3
If you designed a website for a friend of yours to impress his girlfreind; a website that has pink background, damar music, flowers & cheesy arabic poems. Please don't use that as a PORTFOLIO! And don't pull out the CD from your pocket as if it was some illegal drug.

*I actually have a copy of what this dude showed me* I'm willing to sell it for $1000, it's worth every penny. I will guarantee you will laugh like you've never laughed before.

Travelling to Dubai

nospam@example.com (Ammar Ibrahim) — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 04:46:10 -0600

I will be travelling to Dubai mid next week. I'm gonna spend 4 days down there, main reason i'm leaving is because of some business meetings. I'm very excited that I'm planning to meet half a dozen of my friends there! it would also be nice to meet Jordan Planet citizens livin in Dubai