Sunday, January 18, 2009

Arab bloggers mobilize for Gaza

Israel’s war on Gaza has been the main news story for three weeks, and it had generated significant activity in the ‘blogosphere’ with Arabs and Israeli’s posting their views on blogs, commenting on blogs and news sites, creating Facebook groups to support Gaza or Israel and even intensive Twitter-ing!

There has also been a lengthy discussion of other, sub-topics, such as a critique of the response of Arab countries- with some defending their leaders and other attacking them- and a discussion of how to best help the people of Gaza.

This all proves that the Internet is another frontier in the ‘public opinion war’ being waged by all sides of a conflict. Israeli propaganda organizations have been hiring bloggers and a regular Internet users to defend Israels’ position, and to counter the tidal wave of anti-Israeli content on the Internet.

Clearly, Israel realizes it’s at a disadvantage in cyberspace, when the sheer numbers of active Arab and Muslim users are considered.

To monitor these ‘blog wars’, go to Technorati.com, and see the ‘hottest topics’ or just conduct a search for the word ‘Gaza’ and you’ll get an idea on how many posts there have been worldwide on this issue in the last day, week and son on.

Another, more analytical and less numerical, source to check is Global Voices (globalvoicesonline) which delivers the most controversial or active discussions on the Middle East, and Gaza tops the agenda this month.

Jordanian bloggers are playing a major role in the conversation, and it’s not possible to mention each one and what they’ve done, but let’s point out the best local effort for mobilization led by 7iber.com- an independent citizen-media news outlet from Jordan. 7iber has generated a ‘blog-buzz’ to gather volunteers to help Aramex in the handling of all the aid that arrives in Jordan, from across the world, which needs to be sorted and packed then sent to Gaza. The updates and blog posts featuring pictures and videos of the response from local youth is truly inspiring, and still continues. Check it out and lend a hand!

In general, news, images and videos from this human tradgedy are circulating the globe, ensuring that the war crimes being committed are fully documented and not forgotten.

In a new world were individuals are empowered through the Internet to communicate, Israeli propaganda in cyberspace cannot win.

If only our numbers accounted for more influence in the offline world!

zanasser@gmail.com

Monday, January 12, 2009

Is the age of the desktop PC over?

It appeared in the 1970s, and was called the micro-computer, and was popularized in its current form in 1982 when IBM released its PC (personal computer).
Also appearing the eighties, were the first portable computers, which were chunky and too expensive.

Portables became notebooks (big ones), then laptops, then ‘netbooks’ and ‘palmtops’.
Today, it’s fair to say that these portables, are killing desktops. Apparently, a smaller percentage of personal users are buying them. Apart from corporations and specific user groups, the desktop is now, officially, dying as a mainstream computing option.

Laptops crossed a milestone in the third quarter of 2008, passing desktop PC sales in the US for the first time, according to research group iSuppli. And laptop makers are eagerly awaiting this era.

Here’s a frightening piece of information that demonstrates the trend continued in quarter four of 2008; not a single desktop model showed up on Amazon.com’s top ten selling PC and hardware list during Christmas, while seven laptop models were in the list.

What’s driving this? Apart from lower laptop prices and higher specifications? The answer is the Internet. The ability to surf the Internet wirelessly at public places and the ability to take your office out with you when you travel. And the variety available suits almost every user group. You can get notebooks at every screen inch size from 5-inch to 20-inch.

Another interesting piece of information is that 80 percent of the world’s laptop PCs and made in Taiwan. So they will be happy for sure!

So, which groups of users may keep buying desktops? Hardcore computer gamers, because desktop systems offer greater processing power for memory-intensive applications.

On the other side of the user spectrum there will be ‘hardware geeks’, who covet processing power, experimentation and ‘modding’.

In our part of the world, or in any poor or under developed country, desktops will retain their appeal as they remain, generally, cheaper than laptops. Especially when you consider the fact that anyone can ‘slap’ a motherboard, a hard drive and a few chips together to get a desktop. However, even that is all set to change though with ‘netbooks’ coming in at under $300 complete with screen!

So, is the age of the desktop PC over? Well, the sun is starting to set on it, but I personally think that desktops have so much more staying power than industry commentators and journalists would have you believe.

Call me old-fashioned, but I plan to hang onto my office desktop PC for a couple of years to come!

zanasser@gmail.com