I came across an article that discusses blogging in the Arab world. It is conveniently titled ‘Blogging in the Arab World’ and yet it only discusses the Egyptian blogosphere as if it is the only active, significant, prominent blogging scene in the region. Hello? The Arab world is made up of 21 other countries.

This sort of fallacy seems to be pretty dominant in traditional media reporting on, and paying attention to, Arab blogs. I have noticed that it is almost exclusive to Iraqi, Egyptian, or Lebanese blogs. Understandably, these blogs hail from areas unique in their political situation, but shouldn’t media reporting on the much-baffling and troubled Arab region also recognize blogs from other countries, which after all, make up an integral and vibrant part of the Arab blogosphere?

I believe that by lending attention to blogs from the less ’stable’ areas in the Arab world, media, specifically European and American media, sculpt an idea of a continuously troubled, challenged, chaotic Arab world — very much like what the movies and other media portray. In turn, what this does is further perpetuate negative stereotypes of either Arabs or their lifestyle. There is seldom any portrayal of regular, non-violent, non-chaotic, non-religious life in Arabia.

I wrote about this before when I noted that it is only when there is significant trouble that Jordanian bloggers garner international media attention. I think that is truly sad, because in each and every country in the Arab region there are bloggers who make change with every post, bloggers who have distinct voices rarely heard in mainstream media, bloggers who humanize Arabs and who affect, even if slowly, public opinions in their countries. It is such a waste not to listen to what they say or to cram them all under the category of one country and yet ignorantly stamp that piece ‘Arab blogging.’ It is a shame.

I emailed Reset asking them to change the title of that piece to ‘Blogging in Egypt,’ and I will keep you posted if and when they reply. Never lose your voice.

I spy with my little eye…
…EVERYTHING you do online!

Do you use: Flickr? Facebook? MySpace? Amazon? Buzznet? imeem? iLike? Flixter? Picasa? Windows Live Spaces? Hi5? Pandora? Digg? PictureTrail? Multiply? Twitter? Stumbleupon? Friendster? etc.?

I have just discovered a way to basically spy on everyone you know online. How, O Wise & Paranoid Tololy, you ask me? Just join Spokeo and it will tell you exactly what everyone you know is doing online by tracking their activities across tens of social networking sites.

The site’s name is eerily similar to SPOOKY, and for good reason. I have just joined, because you know how I am like paranoid and so I am attracted to paranoia-related things, and Spokeo has made me ultra paranoid but also more careful. You’ll only find me on Flickr because I am anti-Facebook & Co. for security and privacy reasons, obviously.

Just remember, you are being watched and you don’t even know it. Chew on that when you socialize online and always be careful. Nobody likes to get punked.

I don’t know exactly why crap just keeps on happening to me in all its possible forms, but it does. I emit, attract, and absorb negative energy.

When I woke up this morning, I mistakenly selected a HUGE chunk of the sidebar design and it got deleted and I did not pay attention to it (because I had just opened my eyes), and then I clicked ‘Update’ and BAM! — that chunk was gone. You can’t undo after clicking on ‘Update.’

To fix the mess, I installed WordPress locally. Of course, I had done that on Windows but had no idea how to do it on Ubuntu. So I found this useful page Install WordPress locally with NanoWeb Server – Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10, and it took me approximately two hours to figure out how exactly to change file permissions or edit files as root. The author basically assumed I knew how to implement commands as root and his layout of the commands was plenty confusing. This page helped me get over my illiteracy, especially the gksudo command at the bottom of it. That command enables you to open and modify files and folders which are exclusive to root while at the same time not jeopardizing your security. I am putting these resources here for the general good of mankind, no actually, I am gambling for some positive karma. Or something.

So, Tololy’s Box is back now. I am sure there are some minor glitches here and there but hopefully I can fix those too.

P.S: Did you notice the new TinyMCE comment editor? I killed that RTF editor which was ultra buggy. Now I have to go back to ALL the comments that have been posted since January and clip out any formatting commands used in them, because if I don’t do that, they will all look very very bad and nobody will want to read them anymore. How fun is that?

Update: How does everyone like the new editor? Is it less of a pain in the arse than the old one?

I kinda messed up the sidebar of my blog just now. I am working on fixing it, so in the meantime, please bear with me as I offend your eyes with WP default theme.

Moral of the story: Never, ever, touch your blog design files when you’re half asleep.

Thanks!

Thanks to Hani, I have now installed a plugin that will let you post comments without having to wait for me to approve them. All you have to do is answer an easy math problem before submitting your comments, et voila! — they will be published as simple as that. Take care not to swear though, because I will get you. Grrrr.

I am excited that I won’t have to delay approving comments anymore, and I think this will help whatever discussions we have going on. If you’re interested, the plugin is called Peter’s Math Anti-Spam for WordPress and you can download it by clicking here. It’s extra kewl because it can also TALK! Wohoo!