4th Tunisian Bloggers Meetup Ramadan Meetup

Location: restaurent Mida
Date: Thursday september 11th at 7:30

As part of the Tunisian bloggers tradtion since 2005, a new gathering for the fast break is going to be held in the Mida cafe next Thursday followed by a cafe near by the area, be there and have some fun.

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Le Temps speaks out on Facebook

An excellent article published in the local french-written paper "Le temps" by Khalil KHALSI bedating about the censorship of Facebook making more than 53000 Tunisians internautes upset, many expats confused and distugted about the real reasons between ripping down such beautiful web site allowing hundreds of features as communicating with freinds, keeping up with the national events, ...

The real reason behind this ATI weird reaction is there were growing groups supporting local causes such as the cesnorhsip itself or related to some national events (Gafsa / Rdeyf) spreading the message widely enough to make pressure on Unkle Ammar 404 to puch the button.

Via [HouHou]

Below is the a tranlatation of the whole article:

"ERROR 404 not found" 28 miles Facebookers Tunisians denied access to their favorite site It seems that a heinous crime has been elucidated in Italy through Facebook, or at least be used in the investigation. But at a time when we rédigions this article, Facebook is not (most?) Accessible in Tunisia. Already, as from Monday, August 18, 2008, areas have been sporadically denied access to the site the most visited friends in the world, and Tunisia where it has been an extraordinary popularity for nearly d ' a year already, attracting 28,000 members, which can no longer connect since August 23 last Saturday, while several people saw unfounded rumours or threats in the wind. Having contacted the Ministry of Technology Communication We are still waiting for the response that has not been given regarding the deadlock. Is it true then that this is due to potential abuses of instrumentalization extremist, to which the only antidote seems to be closing the site? And what speaks extremism? All this can be quite complicated for those who are not familiar with Facebook and do not even know what it is. This site is primarily a site of friends. Created initially for students at Harvard, he began thereafter to most American universities, and then, thanks to the Internet, the world began to attend. Like many similar sites and its predecessors - such as MySpace (where you can find several artists in all fields) that Facebook has disputed the first place for a long time before he wins with the greatest number of members - Facebook is a vast space where the pages are listed members who can meet, exchange comments, see their respective photos, chat, etc.. etc. The easiest way to have a fuller idea would be to consult the different articles contained therein on the Net, or ask one of his relatives who frequented the site. Facebook is an incomparable cultural tool, thanks in particular to groups that create them. These vary from those gathered around as artist or writer, those "activist" for a cause (battered women, for example), passing by those who merely talk about any subject. But the list may be extremely long. To join one of these groups, just one click, and abide by the rules, the only space where they can find all these members is the "page" containing their list, photos and comments they leave. Since August 23 this year, following the closure of access in Tunisia, Tunisian facebookers are dépités. The bloggers express their frustration, the ones who are familiar with this kind of maneuver, since so many other addresses are disabled in Tunisia, not just those banned sites at least 18 years or Islamic sites; sites a priori harmless, until 'proof to the contrary, and recognized throughout the world, such as Youtube, Dailymotion and Metacafe are also closed. He made his own, "Ammar 404", whoever is behind the blank page on which you can read "404 not found" when a site is blocked access. The grass is cut under the feet of nearly 30,000 facebookers Tunisian, who argue that it is capable of miraculous things, it allows you to find people we have lost sight of and maintain contact with friends and relatives residing abroad. Some people simply can meet, discuss, interact, exchange ideas, intellectually adviser films, books or television programs, via the various existing applications. Links between the four corners of the world weave, people seeking employment are offered suitable posts. The authors unpublished able to find publishers sometimes, and young artists from music labels. The organizers of cultural events keep members informed of their current, and thus estimate the number of people willing to participate. There are also festivals and cultural cafes that have ended up having the document through Facebook and, most importantly, it turned out that the Tunisians were not qu'occuper tables cafes. The petitions were signed online. Some members have even committed to terminate their contract with their Internet service provider where would really blocked access to the Internet site which was their happiness.

Always Same Mania Anxiety

For whome the hearts collision made a fire in the dry grass of our valley of dreams, I think about you holding my tearing beacuse my hand is getting pressure of my my bleeding soul.

Love was set to vanish ...

Flying to the USA

I'm sitting lonely in a Busines waiting area where food and drinks are the only buddies I have, my lucky flight ticket led to a terrible solitude. I'm getting right now to fly to Frankfurt and then to USA, destination Dalls in texas for 10 days trainning.

Thius is the first time I leave the beloved soil going so far at one, my chest is just getting warmer every minute and I got tons of questions and expectations getting out of a mind of a 32 years old guy who just got a heartbreak and a career success.

See ya in Dalls, will try to write from Frankfurt unless have a sleep in the 5 hours waiting for the next flight.

Workplace implications of employee blogging

Recent estimates show that almost 20 million blogs permeate the Internet. While many blogs are inherently personal, an increasing number comment on work-related issues—whether known to management or not. Other blogs are officially sanctioned by an organization, as progressive companies buy into the notion that blogging can strengthen relationships with co-workers and clients.

In some cases, the legal ramifications for what is published on a blog may rest on whether the blog is personal or organizational. But these distinctions frequently are not easy to make. Because blogging is simply another form of communication, it is not likely to create a dramatic new legal paradigm. The bigger question for companies to address is how to communicate blogging policies and deal with fallout from potentially troubling content that is published on a blog.

Via [The Business Ledger]

With hundreds of bloggers and thousands of readers the problem is coming to the local working place, as you know writing an article needs a constant effort as much of time, usually, bloggers post their stuff in working hours in the heat of the action, thanks god, nobody is really aware about that but everybody know that Internet at work is considerably consuming workforce and time thus in many corporations we prefer to limit internet access of even to deserve to a selection.

The other problem is that you can deliver -without intention- relief of your work area as much as some confidential data, hopefully this is far from our blogging arena and most bloggers prefer to talk about their own stuff far away their professional being.

Some foreign companies prohibits blogging and this is coming to the local business with the growing numbers of bloggers.

Blogging day

Every year the 1st July is about freedom in blogging, I have already talk too much about all along the past years so this time I would like to show it in a friend's drawing.

The drawing credits goes to Debat Tunisie.

404 not found or eaten by a carnivore

The censorship in Tunisia owes it brilliant efficiency and cleverness just to a guy called Ammar or badri, but simply to a very powerful and sophisticated software developed by the NSA and used by the FBI called Carnivore to counter and trace phone and internet communications, as this kind of software can't be sold, I presume it has been donated to help the government in the war on terror thus it seems that the only people getting fun with little mosquito are just blogs the two most popular video sharing sites (Youtube and Dialymotion).

I just hope that maybe we can suddenly human, become civilized and little smarter to know that you can't ban internet, if you close one gate tens of others would be set within minutes, I just recommend ATI to ban Google, Blogger, blogs hosted in Europe and US, port 80, 8080 ,... and may be just go back to the stone age by giving up Internet, anyway the fax sounds really great.

New law:Military service mandatory to get married

A recent rumor coming straight from the most trusted sources (In Tunisia only rumors are true) is reporting that the government is going to release a new law that obligate any man willing to marry to have already done his military duty thus the government is putting again gaps to the marriage other the 6% inflation and the several laws surpassing the real right of women.

Usually jobless people have to spend a year in duty, but if you're working the government will be really pleased to retain 60% of your salary for 11 months (leaving you in need) while you'll have to go for 5 weeks only in duty and a restriction for travel for one year, which really sucks! the only way to avoid getting scammed is either to be physically/mentally unable to practice or to be married for 2 years or have two kids (weird law) or just to be 35, what's happening now is that our smart legislators have come to an end to any young man little hope for marriage.

I don’t' know, the future is so much bright that I can't open my eyes, just started filling in some immigration paperwork where the future is less brighter.

Update : It's no more a rumor, the laws has been confirmed by the media.

Afef!

I didn't knew that Tunisia have its own version of Slama Hayek caled Afef Jnifen originally from Mednine, yes guys Mednine and daughter of a former minister, I'm really quite surprise, she seems to gain success in Italy as a top model since the early 90s.

Where is Gafsa?

Everybody knows what's happening down there, everybody is aware of the 3 dead people, the strike and the anger boiling, and then what? a handful of bloggers are writing stuff about people that seems so far that sometimes I feel like Redeyf was located in some tropical lost island overseas and that all our feelings are about "Saving the blue whale" or "Donate to African starving children" while the smoke is coming from a burning quarter closer than you think and than what? we will feel pity about those "people", we will claims to really have a thought about those angry mobs but as usual weak and underpowered we stay.

Remember that the case is unique and that no third party could help, simply because it's an internal affair and that we can solve our problems peacefully, let's just keep writing, spreading the voice and trying to feel real sorriness.

Rewritten in [Pour Gafsa]

www.bac.tn

www.bac.tn is once year popular site that delivers the baccalaureate results (as much as an SMS service), the site got overloaded for the couple of days it's operating every end of June, as operated by the governmental agency INBMI, it lacks chance management, load balancing and clustering, it even lacks DNS management (if you type bac.tn you're lost!).

The design is ugly, the site is deadly slow and it not even optimized for anything else a rubbish page thrown on the net to make a dig deal about face information technology behavior, the service is so poor that people usually rely of the alternative SMS service operated by a third private party getting 50% of the whole business where people don't care about how much as much as how fast they can get the information.

I just hope that we get the things done the way it should be, not just a stupid propaganda as much as many sites and stuff in the country, we have to go forward and stop spoiling our life with down quality non efficient rubbish.

Religion On/Off

For an agnostic, any debate about God and religion is useless, even futile. Debating the unknown, is trying to solve an equation with infinite settings. The human brain is too limited to comprehend.

Via [HouHou]

Since the last head ache blogging wave about religion last week, I felt so uncomfortable that I didn't been able to write a single word thus I preferred to keep my opinion for myself as fast as I saw Husein's lasted post I felt live back again: why trying to stand in one side and throw rocks in the people of the other side? and why should we just try to wear colorful shits in order to show our belonging?

Just let it go, forget about and be proud to be yourself and not being the opposite of the others.

Tunisian wine won silver medal in 2008 China Food Expo

Tunisian wine produced by Union Centrale des Cooperatives Viticoles (UCCV) won two silver medals in 2008 China Food Expo which was held from May 14 to May 16 in Shanghai.

UCCV which is composed by 12 cooperations is the biggest manufacturing enterprise in Tunis. It owns a 10000-ha. vineyard and it produced 20 million bottles of wines annually, accounting for 80% of that of whole Tunis. Besides producing red, white and rose wines, it also produced sparkling wines in recent years.

Because of enough sunshine, good soil structure and technics, Tunisian wines' taste is excellent. In addition, it has a competitive price becasue of its low cost.

Via [China Wines info]

Damn why did they tried to win medals with Mornag! why they didn't take a couple of Magon fine wine?

Checkpoint 303 in Tunisia

checkpoint 303 is inspired by the sounds that pace the daily lives of millions of people in the middle east. screeching sounds of bullets. echoing injustice. uproar. revolt. dispair and sadness. and still amidst all this the soothing sounds. of hope. of normality. trivial acts. life like everywhere else. this is not a video game. violence is not a moving image on tv. it's the daily nightmare of millions...

The talented Palestinian underground techno music will be in Tunisia next June 28th in the FEST ACROPOLIUM (Hotel Le Palace Tunis; Complexe Cao Gammarth) a real event worth getting in, I won't miss such an opportunity for a live show with such band.

Take a taste of [Checkpoint 303]

CS meeting - Jamica Cafe - El hana

Yesterday I was in the monthly CS (Couchsurfing) meeting as usual with many lovely friends in a very lovely atmosphere, there was no big talk bout courchsurfing as much as it was a real relaxation time.

Cs Meeting