Here’s my review for Banat Al-Riyadh (Grils of Riyadh), the controversial novel written by Rajaa Al-Sanea (Arabic).

Dion Hinchcliffe has compiled a good list for the best Web 2.0 apps of 2005. I have not used most of them, but who knows when one of these great services come in handy?

One of the great things about blogging is meeting with new interesting people. Earlier this week, I was supposed to go to London to participate in the second annual Global Voices summit, but due to some complications with getting a visa, that trip was cancelled. So, I missed a great chance to meet with many great bloggers.

However, I was lucky enough that this week did not pass by without meeting a blogger. Last night, I had the pleasure to meet with Ibrahim Owais, a Jordanian blogger who works with a big advertising agency here in Riyadh.

We chose to meet at Water Lemon, Al-Tahlia St., and we had such a great time. We talked about blogging, freedoms, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and much more. I remember when I decided to start working on Saudi Blogs, Ibrahim was one of the first people to offer help, which was really nice of him. Thanks Ibrahim, and I hope we’ll meet again soon.

If you think that going out with your wife in Riyadh is safe, just because, well, she is your wife, then think again. You might be wrong, so wrong. I said it on several occasions before, and I hate to say (no, wait, maybe I like it) that I was right: the problems with the religious police will never come to an end. This week, not so far from where I live, they allegedly assaulted a couple, seized property, and detained the husband.

Ironically, the special committee formed to investigate the incident has included members of the religious police. How come they are a part of the investigating committee when the religious police are supposed to be on defense at this case? The religious policemen who did that were on duty, right? They were not just two regular guys having some fun in their spare time. This is a dangerous violation to freedoms and personal privacy, and something has to be done to stop these lunatics.

Several months ago, I was so fed up with the Windows OS that I told a geek friend of a friend of mine (I’m not a geek, and I don’t have geek friends) that my current IBM Thinkpad R32 laptop would be my last Windows machine. “Next time I buy a computer, it will definitely be a Mac,” I said. The geek told me that if he ever thought of moving from Windows, then he is going to go with Linux.

At that time, I had already read a lot about Linux and the open source movement, and I really liked the idea and the concept behind them, but I was convinced that these stuff are for geeks only. I mean, I may be a tech-savvy boy and everything, but I’m so far of being a computer geek that knows all about all. I was not satisfied with Windows, but I was trying to put up with it until I get a fortune to buy a Mac.

However, I don’t think I can take it anymore. Enough is enough. I have been thinking about it for sometime, and I have finally come to make a radical decision: I am moving to Linux. The first step is to list the applications that I use frequently, and check if they provide a version for Linux, or if there is available alternatives. So, let’s see.

Most of the applications I use are either compatible with Linux, or there are good alternatives for them. But I’m still looking for a good media player to play music and movies, a light graphics editor (I know there is GIMP, but it is usually compared to Photoshop. I use Paint Shop Pro, which is light, easy-to-use, and has some nice advanced features, and that makes it perfect for my basic needs), and a good application for writing CDs (I currently use Nero). If you know any good apps for these tasks, please let me know by leaving a comment here, or by email: saudijeans at gmail dot com.

The decision of Serdal to move to Linux has encouraged me to take this step, and I think I’m going to use Linux Ubuntu. I would like to hear any advice or suggestions you have on this topic. Thank you.

Update on the Taxi post: I went to Al-Tahlia Street last weekend, and it was a shitty experience. That street can be nice in other times, but it is highly not recommended on weekends. The street was so crowded with boys, and the cars were moving so slowly that I thought I was going to commit a crime or something. The whole atmosphere of that street was filled with testosterone. Finally, here is a special advice to all girls, and also to boys who would like to maintain some mental health: Do not even think about crossing that street on weekend evenings.

The latest addition to Gawker Media is The Consumerist, a shopping blog with the tagline “Shoppers bite back.” Another good shopping blog is Mighty Goods. Shopping online is still not big in our region (Thank you Arab governments and Arab companies), but if you really like what you see, you should consider the Shop & Ship service from Aramex. I have not used it, but a friend of mine has been using it for sometime, and he highly recommends it.