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10 Years of +961 and 10 Days of Giveaways!

By on February 17, 2018 in Blog news

Today is a special day for +961 as it marks the 10th anniversary since I started it!

I can’t say I saw this day coming when I first registered the domain name… at first I just started the blog to share cool finds with Lebanese online community and see how much traffic I can drive to it, but I have to admit that later on I even started enjoying the attention that media and businesses was giving to me. And here it is now, part of my everyday life and celebrating its 10th year online.

A lot has changed since February 2008 and +961 definitely had a lot of ups and downs. I got heavily praised for some posts that received thousands of hits but also heavily criticized for inappropriate or silly stuff that I shared. At times I was posting on a daily basis but also got inactive for a relatively long duration more that once (blame it all on having babies but family comes first!). However, what changed the most is actually how blogging is in general done in Lebanon. Back in time most of the posts contained original content generated by the blogger himself/herself, but nowadays society and lifestyle blogs are more like news aggregators that feed on bits and pieces collected from various sources with a lot of sponsored content in between (a special thanks to the Lebanese subreddit for being a huge inspiration for us bloggers by the way! 😀 ), and as long as this appeals to the people then you just go with the flow! I’m being just plain honest here.

Right now I have no idea if the blog will stay around for another 10 years, but what I’m certain of is that I enjoyed the past 10 thanks to you guys being part of it, and will definitely keep posting for as long as I simply enjoy doing it.

Now on to the really big news!

To celebrate this 10th anniversary, I decided to host a series of 10 giveaways in collaboration with very well known businesses and brands in town. So get ready as of tomorrow for some really cool freebies! The giveaways range from restaurant vouchers, to movie tickets, clothing, toys and gadgets, and fine dining.

To qualify for the draws you will only be required to interact with the giveaways’ posts on Facebook, so just make sure to follow +961’s page.

photo via jerseybites.com

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Know your e-Rights in Lebanon

By on January 14, 2015 in Lebanon

cybercrime

I just stumbled upon this quite informative article published last week in Al-Akhbar about e-laws in Lebanon.

I believe it is a must read for everyone since the Cyber Crime Bureau in Lebanon has not been only investigating cyber crimes, but also interrogating people for expressing their opinions on social networks and blogs (such as what happened to bloggers like Abir Ghattas, Imad Bazzi, Gino Raidy, and Rita Kamel), and sometimes for simply just sharing some defaming article.

The article basically tells you what this Cyber Crime Bureau is allowed and not allowed to do, and whether the police have the right to search your electronic devices without a warrant, in addition to providing tips on maintaining privacy when surfing the internet.

Make sure to check it out.

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RoadTripHacks – Helping you discover hidden gems in Lebanon

By on October 2, 2014 in Lebanon

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A couple friends of mine recently started a cool blog that I really recommend you start reading if you’re into discovering new places in Lebanon and enjoying its nature.

The blog is called RoadTripHacks, and with every post, Rony and Sonia either introduce you to hidden gems around Lebanese regions that you maybe never thought of visiting (like Baakline and Ammiq), or make you see some regular places like Saoufar from a totally different perspective through the awesome photo sets accompanying each post. All while taking the time to tell you how to reach your destination and providing recommendations on eateries and must check places.

So next time you plan a roadtrip in Lebanon, make sure you check their blog for some ideas. And you can also stalk them on Facebook and twitter.

This is also an opportunity to let you know that Rony has already started contributing to the blog here and will be occasionally writing.

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… and I’m back!

By on June 1, 2011 in Blog news

Thanks to a “technical difficulty” my host was facing, you might have noticed that +961 was down for the past two days. Needless to say, I’m now searching for a new host. Any suggestions?

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Looking for a needle in a haystack

By on May 21, 2011 in Lebanon

A guy who participated in the Lebanese Laïque Pride march for a secular state on March 15 2011 started one of a kind blog calling for help, and it’s nothing related to the cause of the demo he attended, he’s actually searching for a person.

He found himself extremely attracted to one of the girls in that march, and it was his second time to notice her after last year’s march, so he took that as a sign and decided trying to approach her one way or another, and he got really close to his aim until she disappeared!

That’s why he’s now calling for the help of the internet people in Lebanon in an attempt to find her. And in a country where everyone knows everyone, I guess there’s a good probability for that man to find her!

You can read all about his story and the updates he will be posting on his blog Finding Dulcinea, and below  is the description of the girl he’s trying to reach:

  1. She has chestnut color hair, natural color not dyed. (Couleur Châtaigne)
  2. Blue eyes
  3. On that day, she was wearing a black tight biking pants and a white jacket.  She was carrying on her back a red sports bag, I think it was an Adidas (not sure)
  4. She had 2 silver rings on her left hand; one of them had a purple stone. (I didn’t notice a wedding band – Geez that would be a bummer if she turns out to be married – but hey let’s keep it positive for now)
  5. All I know is that she works in the protected area of Solidere where the parliament is. So that area stretches from Costa/Blom bank on the upper level facing the Grand Theatro building all the way down to the area past parliament building/Abed Clock area.
  6. I am speculating that she must have left her bike in the office that day and was returning to get her bike and leave the sign at her desk.

I can’t but wish him all the luck!

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Lebanese bloggers meetup at T-Marbouta

By on September 16, 2009 in Blog news

RFI

It’s all over the Lebanese blogsphere now… Yesterday night I went to T-Marbout along with several Lebanese bloggers to meet with Philippe Couve, Pierre Haski (www.rue89.com), and Eric Scherer from Radio France Internationale.

The meeting purpose was for the French journalists and bloggers to get to know more about the Lebanese blogsphere and its status. We discussed several issues such as why blogging isn’t very popular here in Lebanese, and why do some bloggers post very frequently when things heat up in Lebanon and then dump their blogs when everything calms down. They were also interested in knowing if anyone of us had a problem with the authorities because of some content (I wasn’t surprised with that question, at the end we’re an Arab country!).

In addition, while discussing the Lebanese people in general, we all agreed that they hate to read and write, they’re just good at grasping already processed information. Which explains why they’re all active on Facebook, and very few of them thought of starting a blog. Lazy nation!

w heik..! by the end of the meetup I was glad I had the chance to finally meet Maya Zankoul & Tarek Chemaly.

Here’s a list of the bloggers who were there:

20minutes.fr
beirutntsc.blogspot.com
choueichoueibeyrouth.blogspot.com
qussa.nl
diaryofahalfandhalf.wordpress.com
mayazankoul.wordpress.com
29letters.wordpress.com
klekeesh.blogspot.com
hanane.me
onoffbeirut.com
rue89.com
atelier.rfi.fr
kibot.blog.com
bloggingbeirut.com

And finally, here’s what others have posted about the meeting:

Maya Zankoul
Tarek Chemaly
Samer Karam
Pierre Haski
Hummus Nation (a blogger I really would like to meet someday!)

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+961 getting new outfit!

By on April 25, 2009 in Blog news

Just started to install a new theme on the blog… hope nothing goes wrong!

Update:

I am almost done, everything went fine except for some compatibilty issues with Internet Explorer (I HATE IT!).
The main advantage of this theme is the 3 tabbed widgets to the right (Recent posts, Recent comments, and Archives), and they appear normally in Firefox, however I noticed they’re appearing under each other in Internet Explorer. I promise I will work on fixing it by tonight.

I will also restore the missing widgets (Beirut photos & Eyes of Lebanon) later today.

Still, I’d love to have your feedback, what do you think about the new theme? Anything to improve?

Update 2:

Woohoo! I fixed the tabbed widgets! They’re working fine on Internet Explorer now.
The contact is now gone for a while since its background doesn’t match the new theme. Gotta go find a better one.

Update 3:

Be careful what colors you choose next time you plan the change your website theme, I just got a question asking if I am a aounist since the color of “961” in the header above is orange!!

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