My name is Ahmed and I’m a big Arsenal fan. This is why my contribution in the first Arabic Wikipedia Day was about the new Gunners’ home, Emirates Stadium. I have also worked on one of the suggested articles, and bookmarked more of these to work on them soon. We have just started, and you still have a plenty of time to participate: just pick a subject of your choice and start writing. I’m also asking those who contributed to post about it on their blogs so we can all share the good stuff. Go Arab Wikipedians, Go!

One of the best coffees Starbucks offer is called the “short cappuccino.” It’s smaller, cheaper and better than the smallest size on the menu, the “tall.” However, Starbucks don’t advertise this drink. It doesn’t even appear in the menu. So, what’s the story? Why would they hide one of their best offerings? They claim that’s because they don’t have room on the menu board, but that may not be true: maybe they hide it because it’s good and cheap, and they don’t want you to buy it, in order to buy something more expensive. The BBC says this is a part of an attempt to aim different prices at different types of customer. I don’t drink coffee, but if you ever go to Starbucks ask for it, and let me know what you think. via dv

This is my new business card. I know it doesn’t exactly say business, because, well, I don’t do business as usual :-) It is more of a blogging card, as it only contains the URL of my blog plus my email. This is the second time I design a card for myself. I’m no designer, and my favorite graphics app is PSP, but I simply can’t find a designer here that would do the job for me in a reasonable price. I used to have my mobile phone number on the old cards, but this time I decided to leave some empty space on the card and only write down my number to people that I would actually want to contact with via phone.

The cartoon on the back is by the one and only Hugh MacLeod. His cartoons are very popular among bloggers, and he offers these cartoons for free under a creative commons license.

Free textbooks with ads inside them? Seems like a pretty good idea to me. Freeload Press, a Minnesota-based startup, has started to push the concept in the U.S., and they will start serving international students in September. The idea is dead simple: Students, or anyone else who fills out a five-minute survey, can download a PDF file of the book with ads inside it, which they can store on their hard drive and print.

When Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia, around this time last year said his next project would be to offer complete free curriculum (in all languages) from Kindergarten through the University level, I thought his idea was simply great. However, Freeload’s model seems more practical and can achieve its goals faster. I think we still need Wales’ idea, in the long run, to provide totally free textbooks, but for the time being, Freeload would work much better.

EP bloggers meetup last night was good. I had the chance to meet some great people like Mashi 97, Abu Joori, Nawaf, and others. I was glad they have chosen Dr. Cafe, Khobar Corniche. The place is very nice, and the weather wasn’t really bad either; I was expecting much more humidity. Too bad I forgot my camera in the car, the event was worth to be photographically documented; hopefully next time. Thank you guys for the great chance, and I’m looking forward to meet you again.

Arab News reports on the latest case of DWF (aka Driving While Female). What makes it funnier this time around, though, is that the cops told the husband to make sure his wife does not repeat such a terrible crime as driving a car, which can lead to immoral behavior. Since when has driving a car become a crime? And not just an ordinary crime that you might commit everyday without even realizing it, but a terrible one, for that matter. Now leave it for the lovely lighthearted AN editors to highlight the irony:

Considering how many men drive in Saudi Arabia (and the lax enforcement of speed limits and other basic driving rules) apparently it’s not quite as immoral to endanger the lives of selves and others by speeding, changing lanes erratically without signaling and disregarding traffic signs. But a woman behind the wheel? For shame!

Reading Al Hayat daily last night, I found that the same hacker who hacked into Al Jazeera Sports Channel website on Sunday, has been also doing his business locally: he hacked into two government websites related to the stock market, namely the Supreme Economic Council and the Capital Market Authority. However, it doesn’t seem that he intended to do any harm, as he did not leave a message similar to the one he left on JSC website, but rather to teach the owners of these websites a lesson in the importance of data security on the web.