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Mashrou3 Leila – Raksit Leila video

By Rami on February 18, 2010 in Music

I’ve been playing Raksit Leila for a while now, and I was delighted to see the official video coming out few days ago. Great music and great work on the video!

Stolichnaya and the girl in the bathtub

By Rami on February 17, 2010 in Lebanon

I was heading towards Gemmayze last Friday when I came across this red truck. Everything appeared normal from a distance until I got closure, there was a bathtub in that truck with a girl sitting inside and apparently enjoying it, at least her seductive legs movement said so!

The whole thing turned out to be a promotion for Stolichnaya’s Stoli Gala Apple, which explained the use of a girl (eve) enjoying the forbidden fruit (an apple), it is just the bathtub that I couldn’t explain!

Anyway I think it was nice, although some people might claim Stolichnaya crossed the line, but you should have seen the traffic around the truck, they definitely succeeded in grabbing the passengers’ attention. Another proof that sex sells!

Update:

In addition to the two photos I took above, I found these photos on twitter from @fadisabbagha. (Special thanks to @MayaZankoul)

ArabNet – Nurturing the Internet Ecosystem in the MENA

By Rami on February 16, 2010 in Events

Highly anticipated and finally here is the first international conference for the Arab internet industry: IBAG, International Business Alliance Group, presents ArabNet 2010: Trends and Opportunities in Arab Web Business. The conference will be held in Beirut on March 25-26, 2010 with the support of Endeavor Jordan, the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, the Syrian Young Entrepreneurs Association and YallaStartup!.

ArabNet is bringing together the internet community to network and help launch the hottest startups from across the region — that means you! Top investors, internet executives and leaders from Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, AdMob and Intel will adress subjects that are critical to the Arab Web Industry including: e-commerce, gaming, mobile, content, online advertising, social networking, new media, and start-up fundraising.

Key to the conference are pitch sessions: Ideathon & Startup Demo. This is the place to match talent with opportunity.

The Ideathon is looking for 10 select entrepreneurs to introduce their fresh startup ideas to eager investors in a rapid-fire pitch session. Similarly, the Demo will select startups with innovative products to pitch and exhibit their companies for the duration of the conference.

We are currently accepting applications from entrepreneurs and startups from all over the region with strong ideas and products.

Visit ArabNet.me to learn more and apply.

Lebanese blogosphere weekly link roundup (2010/02/14)

By Rami on February 16, 2010 in Weekly Link Roundup

Sorry for being late on this week’s roundup! 10 new link for this one.

كرمال هيك مش نازلين
خربشات بيروتية
بيان صادر عن شركة بوينغ
Hummus Nation
Bar Hopping on Saturday Night!
Ivy Says
Passport photo
Maya’s Amalgam
MASHROU’ LEILA – RAKSIT LEILA [official music video by yelostudio]
Mashrou3 Leila
The Lebanese Nationality and Why You Can’t Get It
Beirut Beauty
Beautiful Strangers
Le Coeur à Droite
Bringing Sexy Back!
Beirut Drive-by
Valentines Day
Bazella W Riz
Why iPad is the third generation “social technology” device
Interactive ME

See you next week!

Taking things into your own hands!

By Rami on February 10, 2010 in Lebanon

What to do when you’re just fed up waiting for something to happen? Best thing is to take matters into your own hands! And that’s what fellow blogger Mustapha did while waiting for the Daily Star IT people to renovate their website.

Few days ago Mustapha launched the Better Daily Star Project (BDSP), a website that he built on his own using the WordPress CMS and a theme to fit the content (newspaper style). The new version created a buzz on twitter the day it was published, and while a lot of people welcomed what he did and admitted it is way better than the current DS website, others just accused him of doing an illegal work (copying the articles) and to which he replied by writing this FAQ page inside the project’s blog.

But isn’t this Illegal?

Probably. But I’m not making any money out of it (in fact, I’m paying some in effort and hosting fees), and I promise that as soon as they do something about their site, I’ll gladly bow out. Besides, it will cost them more to sue me than to actually fix their site and let me off their back.

And in the same page, he stated that it isn’t hard at all for the DS staff to upgrade their existing website, at least the new version didn’t take a lot of his time.

Why am I doing it. What’s the point?

Well, I am trying to say this: If one guy (yours humbly) can use freely available opensource software (wordpress if you must know) to create this alternative, arguably better website in two weeks, why can’t a newspaper with an actual IT department do it? In other words, I’m shooting down the argument that it would be too expensive to do. Listen to me well: They’re just being lazy.

Finally, here’s how Mustapha’s version of his favorite newpaper looks like, let’s see how much time will it take until the Daily Star website gets a real upgrade!

I got a rose to decode!

By Rami on February 8, 2010 in Lebanon

Have you heard of Ivy? She has been blogging for 2 months now rebelling against some of the Lebanese society standards by motivating single girls to make the first move and hopefully have a good valentine this year instead of just waiting for guys to approach them!

Ivy's Mission

In no time, Exotica felt excited about supporting Ivy’s cause, and they were ready to team up with her in organizing a Valentine related event called “Decode My Rose!” which consists of distributing roses to single girls to give to the guys they like!

Two girls from Exotica distributing Ivy's roses at Gemmayze

So I decided to go with my fiancée last night to Gemmayze to check on the Decode My Rose campaign, and yes she made a move on me (as if she needed to do that!) by handing me this one.