I attended TechDays 4 at AUB around developing applications for Windows 8. If you missed the event, here is what you need to know in a 10 mins read.

The main keywords were: Easier, Sexier

• It is “Easier” to develop for windows 8 – this was actually demonstrated by one of Microsoft Lead Devs – but it was funny how the line “you already know everything you need to start coding Metro apps” was inserted in every slide almost ;p – soothing the developer rage I guess
• It is “Sexier” to work Metro Apps – the new exiting User Experience with Metro is the pride of Microsoft in Windows 8 – hearing about nicer,better,sexier, more usable interfaces was the buzz of the day.

3 Links you should know

• dev.microsoft.com
• design.microsoft.com
• preview.windows.com

From there you can download the Release candidate for windows 8, visual studio, design guidelines, see tons of videos, find recommended reading, links and stuff.

In Focus:
- WinRT
- Async/await
- Contracts
- Metro UI
- Creating apps with XAML, HTML5/Javascript and everything webdev needs to know
- Roaming Data
- a UXer in a dev event
- The Store
- Non tech event stuff

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After my previous post on how to scrap data off arabnet’s website and turn it into an interesting database, It’s time to share some basic analytic i did from that same database.

Those analytics are waiting to be turned into an infographic that can go viral. Please feel free to take that data and visualize it – i need some help in blogging in here ;p

You can download the data in a clean format using this link. There are only the info of 150 startup in here from arabnet’s database – so it may not be really representative of the actual startup scene in MENA but rather Arabnet’s outreach…which may or may not be a reflection of reality.

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Finding talent and developers who can get a job done in just 12-hours is ArabNet’s mission during this digital summit. Investors will be keeping an eye on the Open Developer competition to identify the best engineering talent in the region.

This competition will take place during the Developer Days, part of the ArabNet Digital Summit 2012, from March 27th, at 8PM til 8AM the following day. Competitors are challenged to build a simple web application or a mobile app in just 12-hours!
The exciting part is that it is free and open to any developer, regardless of whether they are registered to attend the conference!

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Since I am an arabnet official blogger and all – I was checking out something interesting to blog about and I ran into the startup database http://startupdb.arabnet.me and i thought it would be interesting to actually get some statistics about the start up scene and why not visualize it too.

It is really important data for business decisions and no one can fail to see its value.

This is why I scrapped it off the arabnet website using excel – no, i did not hack into their database and steal it – i scrapped it off – here is a wikipedia link to explain data scrapping and here is how you do it.

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A few days ago, I submitted my application to become an official blogger for ArabNet Digital Summit .

You can translate this into me being a cheapo, saving up some money and spamming you with some adverts posts in exchange of free tickets…bad me!
However this is not really the case because I didn’t really have to become an official blogger to get my free ticket :p I am already participating as a Developer in the Lighting talks aka all i have to do is talk for 5 minutes and get free tickets

So really, why am i bothering so much about the whole official blogger thing while i already got free access?

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In the last 7 days I attended 2 “camps” – I would love to tease you and make you think that i was back to some mountain top with my camping gears but the truth is that both camps where geeky ones (which knowing me, it is an equally awesome thing to do ).

The first one was a 2 full days Windows Mobile DevCamp organized by Microsoft at Berytech

The second was an open Barcamp for civil society organized by SMEX.org in AUB .

Thinking back to those last 10 days, here is a quick wrap up of those events, some pictures and personal thoughts.

Windows Mobile DevCamp

The idea was to get around 250 geeks, give them all the tools they need to start developping windows mobile apps, motivate them by hosting a competition and of course provide all the help they need like a good internet and experts from Microsoft to help them in coding.

Ghassan Chahine and Nicolas Rouhana kicked off the session, introduced us to Dave , the lead geek – and then to Microsoft  MEA VP who gave a really inspiring speech about the exciting times we are living in (the correct part of the keynote) and how microsoft is leading the way in mobile (the cheesy part)

More blabla, intro presentations and off to coding.

For a pro and nice into and recap about the event, you can read about what happened on Berytech blog,  Microsoft Feed or read Arabnet  http://goo.gl/we9t2   and Wamda http://goo.gl/lSChR – but here is my less formal take from a dev. and attendee point of view :

Things I noticed/liked 

• Very few devs listen to music while coding – this is coming from someone who switches between classics and EBM Music (rock+techno in one song). It was a shock to realize that humans can survive 2 days and some didn’t listen to any music :s
• a nice thing was the tech gossip between geeks about who is developing where and what
• co-cursing at tech and comparing notes/ideas about tech concepts, tools and hardware
• Meeting the geeks from different types of companies in one place (head-hunting anyone?)
• I have been freelancing for almost 1.5 or 2 years now, i haven’t been in such a geek-community for long time – so seeing others sit for a long time staring a screen is kinda comforting in a weird kinda way
• good internet – GOOD INTERNET even tho we were like 150 devs checking tools/watching video tuts,etc..we had GOOOOOD internet (thanks berytech)
• Lot of space – 3 levels – well equipped with plugs and everything a geek would need – some are sunny, some are less cool, a nice view… the cool thing is that this space was invaded by tech equipment – imagine 3 floors of laptops, mobiles, tablets and tech gears
• Some geeks were too serious ;p – There was only one sponsor : arabnet – as the lady rep was going around only one time to explain about arabnet dev program and entrepreneurship – she would get answers : sorry i am coding – i mean it is only a minute or two and eventually you are gonna have to look into selling your apps ;p
• Mini-phone flame war between andro/iPhone users at a windows phone event – which is kinda sarcastic – creates competitive and productive atmosphere – it is not very often that i can dedicate 2 days to experiment with something away from work,friends plan, etc
• Last and most important, the organizers put a lot of effort and time into the DevCamp – CEO of berytech didn’t really have to stay both days till late – same for Omar from Arabnet, Dave, Ghassan and the team had too many devs to help and many things going at the same time… so hats off for the effort, hope next an android DevCamp ;p

Downsides

• Not enough coffee for a DevCamp – i mean, we need to inhale, drink, inject coffeine – one cup of coffe in the early morning is not enough – even if you get your “stash” – there is no hot water available (or i couldn’t find)
• Only one MS Phone dev dude who was doing a great job, but it would have been totally kick ass to have many who can help in debugging/optimizing/demostrating best practices
• No one had windows phones, only a few devices – using the emulator is fine – but sometimes you need to real test n stuff.
• Staying sunday at 9, after 2 days coding and 7 days at work in previous week to hear the result competitions was not nice
• The “publish your app” no matter what and “create a demo app just to increase ur chances” also was not nice and was just a silly marketing tactic

Finally here are some pics :

 

 

SMEX Open BarCamp

After the Devcamp and after not having a nice rest in 21 days, all i wanted was to take a nap – I already heard about the BarCamp on twitter and from SMEX Mailing list but i was not really planning to go.

Yet abzzyy told me it is gonna be so interesting, that too many people are participating and she promised me loads of fun and told me she is going all day and that she will pick me up… Memories of my first Barcamp also organized by SMEX a few years also came back to mind. It was a really really good Barcamp(read for yourself), so those happy memories heped and I caved in and decided to go to a barcamp at 8:30 on a saturday morning. (what was i thinking)

However, I ended going to a client to finish up a diffusion matrix and could not join the BarCamp till noon.

Of course i kept an eye on the timeline – the interesting thing was that there were many people from outside the typical beiruti activists bubble.

People from different areas like North, akkar, south and such – different people from different NGOs and companies… it was pretty diverse as the organizers planned it.

I attended a few awesome sessions, met many new people and hugged some friends – and then I got introduced to someone who’s been trying to bump into me for a few years now because he thought that i am a bold blogger ;p

Manners and having a tech-overdose after at least 2 weekends with no break made me end up with a group of friends at le Gustav <<< and this was the happy ending!

oh wait – there is a happier ending to this , here is a video of a Hassan who did a stand up comedy at the barcamp

 

Enjoy the laugh

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I know i am supposed to copy/paste one of those nice and well written posts about TwestivalBeirut and breast cancer awareness and post it to my blog – but heck – this is quite boring for me to do so since you can easily figure out what twestival beirut is by looking here and here and here oh and here too !

Instead I am gonna share what it is like to geek it up in Twestival team and things i have learned.

It all started when Sana Tawileh contacted me asking some weirdo techy questions about retrieving and restoring MySQL backups from WordPressMu into a custom made CMS – I was like euh – what ? I need to research that – but yeah can be done somehow in theory – but easier if I do it, not you – After I asked, it turned out it was for twestival beirut 2010 backup – i mentioned – hey, if you are doing twestival 2011 and need tech stuff to be done, feel free to contact me – w ya heik l 3al2a li 3lekta ( joking ) - So she added me to the team and I was in .

First of all – we were in touch with twestival global team and thanks to their kick-ass geek – we managed to perform the above restore task.

Then came the turn of the boring and typical task of  having a hosting , creating emails, configuring them, send test emails, call over the phone to check if they received them, configure gmails blabalbla.

Things got more interesting when I was added to a closed facebook group used by the dear Darine, Naema, Lucienne and Sana to co-ordinate tasks and share info (I just noticed ano all members are women lol).

Being in the group was awesome – since we are already friends, collaboration was really smooth – somehow collaborating on facebook gives it a “friends” feeling – the interface is less “serious” than a google doc for example – less pro then those paid solutions from big companies – there is the “like” button – we could show appreciation and encouragement to each other upon completion of tasks. The like button was even used as a “poll” ! When we wanted to chat, we simply used the Facebook Chat option ;p

I can compare the facebook group to somehow a better-google-wave as well – you have many “waves” started on the main wall – people react to them, there is the like/poll button for voting, we got notifications to our emails that we could read. Sharing Media like images and videos is very intuitive – facebook group even has docs you can use for creating task list and such. What I loved about the facebook docs is that it is somehow Notepad but with bold and ordered lists ! I am secretly praying they don’t ruin it by turning it into something bulky and bloated. Notepad is all you need for task lists and info sharing !

It was the first time I really use facebook for collaboration – when it comes to volunteering and the way we used it in the team really it kicked ass ! Beats email, beats google docs, beats separate image sharing, beats chat , beats wave :) and it has this social aspect that i loved.

Anyhow, enough on the facebook part.

Since it is twestival – it was really shameful if we don’t put the word “tweet” in it – so thanks to Lucienne Hanna – we got in touch with Terranet – they granted us our internet wish/dream.

In a country known to be the slowest in the world – when an ISP told me make a wish for covering twestival and we will grant it – a really really wide smile shot up my face !

So I told them we will be doing the following :

- Live Streaming on the global twitter channel (ouh yeah ! )

- Live twitter panel

- Live pics from PhotoBooth

- Live pics aggregated from attendance

- Uploading of videos and interviews with attendance

- Tweeting for the attendees

We estimated that live streaming minimum reqs are 700kB/s upload – we calculated and crunched numbers – and decided to ask for a 1.5 MB up and down.

Trust me when i say – you better ask someone for his soul then for good connectivity – but TerraNet granted us our wish and put internet and tweets in our twestival.

Then came time for logistics – get the video cams, cams, someone to shoot at booth – Abzyy will be at the booth shooting people and funkyozzi trusted me with her 2 video cams (those cams are now pretty familiar with leb tweeps ;p )

Setting up the website was really easy – the blog takes custom HTML – the donate buttons and tickets online sale are modules provided by twestival global – it was Sana who set them up. I tried to help the lady – but it was mind boggling for me to go through some of the processes – specially the donate button ;p

Twestival really provides with all the tools and platform needed , they send tutorials, provide a person to follow up with in problems – so it is super well organized when it comes to tech ( yeah, i am impressed) – It was really fun and easy doing the tech work – I can’t say the same for the PR, design, social media , traditional media,content writing work – since they require way more energy and effort - for once i am really glad I got the easy part ;p

All those efforts is to fund raise for a good cause and most important celebrate the twitter community around the world and the change it can help bring around.

Before I bore you more – just one thing I would like to say : in beirut we have a twestival – a twitter festival – how geeky is that ! and to top it off – Elie Saab – yes THE elie saab is bringing fashion to the geeky world ! *there is a really wide grin that goes on my face each time i read this*

I will leave you with this pic as a last inspiration :) Enjoy it

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I will be boring the hell out of you later with techy posts inspired by the exciting discussions i’ve had at the internet governance forum in Vilnius.
As the ones on twitter might have noticed I have suddenly gone all polite, totally lost my sense of humor and started flooding everyone with tweets on internet governance , freedom of expression , accessibility and most importantly gender issues.
I have assured the “extremely” worried friends that no one hacked my account and I promised an explanation later as a blog post – so here it is :
Couple of months ago, Nadine Moawad hired me to help investigate the existing censorship tools used by the Lebanese government (if any) and evaluate the risk of possible or future threats or “plans” with a special focus on censorship from a women sexuality and queer perspective.
Of course I was eager to work with Nadine on this and many of you maybe recall that i was asking and poking everyone on twitter about this.

The findings got incorporated into the EROTICS research (something on the lines of exploratory research on ICT and sexuality) – and thanks to Nadine’s awesomeness and efforts I got my ticket attend the Internet Governance Forum and of course team up with Tamara Qiblawi to do research and mischief .

So what the hell this Internet Governance thing is about ?
In one sentence : It is a space organized by the United Nations where governments , companies, NGOs, Official bodies, civil society, individuals, activists and geeks sit together and discuss the governance of the internet, plan its future, share their worries and challenges, express different points of view on hot topics and establish social networking connection that would allow them later on to collaborate and all this in a multi stake holder like system.

In other words, it is a place where I got to meet THE people who help set policies in every single major company, the most engaging and hard working NGOs were there, all the freedom fighters and kick ass activists, the most awesome feminists, the sharpest young people from around the world , govt. reps.
So I leave you to imagine the level of energy, excitement, interesting-ness and the intensity of the conversation that was happening there.

I have tons to share – Hope I teased you enough, now I am off to get some sleep – eat some home made food , meet some friends and drink those wicked bottles of Lithuanian alcohol i got with me.

Note to Nadine: I owe you
Note to Tamara : Come on – seriously !

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Introduction about the event :

Arab Techies and SMEX organized a meetup of about 34 women from ten Arab countries to talk about technology, empowerment, entrepreneurship, development, and whatever else they want to put on the table. Participants are programmers, web developers, artists, teachers, professors, PhD students, bloggers, social media experts, activists, NGO coordinators and come from Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, and Oman.

The gathering is being held at the lovely and welcoming Youth Cultural Center in Zouk Mikael, Lebanon, from May 11-14. Funding for the meeting was provided by Hivos and Heinrich Böll Stiftung.

My personal take on the event

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