But the honeymoon ended a long time ago. See, while Tweetie was a joy to use, its simplicity killed it mainly because Twitter grew and Tweetie didn’t. Twitter added official RTs, Lists, Geotags, and much more options, none of which got supported by Tweetie. In March of this year, I bought the Mac Bundle only because they offered a full version of Tweetie and an exclusive access to the Tweetie 2 beta in about a month, which I was super excited about.

Unfortunately, in that timeframe, AteBits, the developers of Tweetie, got bought by Twitter themselves. The focus was shifted on re-designing Twitter for iPhone and Tweetie on the Mac never got a new beta. There was even a time where it showed tweets originated by it as coming from “Twitter for iPhone” which isn’t accurate when you’re working from a Macbook. That tag got corrected in a small new release but still nothing else changed.

That’s why eventually, I gave up. I simply can’t keep supporting an app that stays much the same over 18 months, and more-so seems to be sacked to the last-degree priority by its developers. Although I have always been on the prowl for another Twitter client, I never seemed to find one that gets close to the UI & UX of Twitter for Mac, until I eventually came across Echofon, and bloody hell am I happy I did!

Echofon basically brings the best of Twitter for Mac: simple one column design, multiple accounts, easy switching between tabs, and get this: the SAME keyboard shortcuts. If you’re used to Tweetie’s way, you’ll be up and running with Echofon in no time with no learning curve whatsoever. It’s magical. Even more magical is Echofon’s second column expansion that shows more information (user, conversation), as well as its support for Lists, Geotags, RTs. They even updated it today to add real-time streaming. Every one of those options is also keyboard-shortcut friendly: it’s almost a heaven for shortcut junkies like me.

So yes, I made the switch to Echofon and I’m not looking back. I’ll keep the eye on Twitter for Mac, but let’s just say that for now, I’ve lost hope in it becoming anything more than it is now.

That’s why I’ve always looked for a service that tracks those favorite artists and tells me whenever they release a new album. Obviously, I didn’t want to sit down and type the name of every artist I can think of, instead I wanted the service to pull that data from my iTunes or my Last.Fm account. After years of looking for that, I finally found it last week: AlbumReminder.

AlbumReminder is dead simple. After you register an account, you head to the Artists page where you can add artists manually, or import them from iTunes (by giving it the .xml file of any of your playlists), or from Last.FM (your top artists overall, or in the past 7 days, 3, 6 or 12 months. It will crunch through the data, match it with its database and come up with a list of artists to monitor. You can then check all of them or manually select those you want to monitor, approve and that’s it.

AlbumReminder will send you an email every time there’s a new album by one of your monitored artists. There’s also an RSS page with your own tailored RSS feed if you prefer that method.

I am basically in love with AlbumReminder now. This is exactly what I wanted, implemented in the simplicity that I imagined it. If you’re a music and albums fan, then there’s no reason for you to still be reading this here. Go. Register. Now.

One problem I have faced though, the first few days of this setup, is partial RSS feeds, you know, the truncated kind that shows you 2 lines of text and forces you to go back to the full website to read the rest of the post. Normally, if I was on my computer, I’d click on for the full website and all would be well, but you see how this wasn’t practical when I was mobile on an iPod Touch and with only a limited-bandwidth tethered WiFi connection. That’s why I needed to have the full feed in my Google Reader and that’s where WizardRSS came into play.

I simply type the address of the partial official RSS feed for the website I follow into that big chunk of a text box, and WizardRSS transforms it into a full feed with all of the article’s text. I can then subscribe to that feed on gReader like I would do with any other one. Fast, genius, and free. My favorite price.

The catch? Well, there’s two of them. One is that you’re stuck with a Powered By WizardRSS link at the end of each post, which isn’t a problem unless you’re really picky.

Second is that WizardRSS sometimes goes crazy over certain posts and won’t show any text, just the title and the footer even if it works magnificently for other posts of the same blog. It’s not my favorite bug, but given that without WizardRSS, I’d be stuck with 2 lines of text for each and every post, I’m willing to trade that for no-line of text in only a few posts.

So despite the second hiccup, I’ve converted all my partial feeds into full ones thanks to WizardRSS and I can now enjoy full-length posts and reviews without having to mark as unread so I can read them later on a computer. Genius. But only partly until that bug is solved.

The End of an Era

Ricky yesterday grabbed his guts with both hands and hit publish on an article that both him and I had been postponing for a few months: Symbian-Guru is Over. The decision to stop nurturing a website that he created and made prosper, and I joined and helped grow wasn’t easy. Throughout the week prior to it, we both went from bitterness to sadness to acceptance and eventually excitement, yes we were excited before publishing. But when it boiled down to the few hours after that, all I could do was sit down as the tornado we created in the blogosphere roared then subsided (we made it to BetaNews, Engadget, TechCrunch, Mobile Industry Review, Mobile Entertainment, IntoMobile…). I was part of this blogosphere that reacted, very strongly, to our post, yet at that moment, I couldn’t help but feel incredibly helpless, out of place, lonely, vulnerable, and unable to relate to anyone else, except Ricky maybe. And every thing I made yesterday, every movement, every breath, felt irrelevant. Just irrelevant.

I didn’t doubt, I didn’t regret, I didn’t flinch, but I was standing there, the ghost of myself, for 5 hours at work, pretending to be ok. I wasn’t. I eventually took a moment off work and wrote a few words to Ricky in an email because I knew that only he would understand. Then I stood there sobbing for 5 minutes. Yes, I cried, over a blog, a bunch of lines of html code, for five minutes. And I hoped that my boss wouldn’t see me, because she would never understand. No one would.

Symbian-Guru is my single favorite website in the whole “www”. It was my favorite blog long before I joined it as a writer then assistant editor, and it will remain long after it’s closed. When you nurture a brand and an identity with as much care and dedicate as much time to it as Ricky and I did (him more than me, especially on the managerial aspects), it’s hard to let go. It felt like taking a loved person off life support. You know they’ve been brain dead for a while, you’ve asked every single doctor you trust whether there’s hope and they denied any, and now you know that keeping this person alive is only resulting in you feeling you have the obligation to come visit every week, except that this is valuable time you’d better spend elsewhere. Yet when you eventually stand near their bed, about to remove the ventilator or disconnect the heart battery, there’s a small part of you that dies at the same time as you move your hand.

Unlike what many people probably believed, my dedication to Symbian and Nokia as well as my work on Symbian-Guru, never made me rich, never gave me free phones to throw around. There was nothing material about it, but on a personal level, I leave with much, much, much more than I ever thought I would gain of it. If only, I worked with one of the most extraordinary men I know, Ricky Cadden, and got the chance to meet him in person after working together for 2 years. I learned from him what no course at any college can teach and about every single aspect in life, not just tech and mobile. The most valuable thing I take from him is how to believe in yourself, and not sell yourself short while still being humble and modest. I will also remember the incredible complicity and understanding we had together, up til the very last chat before we pulled the plug. Believe me, the discussions we had behind the scenes were most of the times even more interesting than the posts we wrote.

Symbian-Guru is also about the friendships I made, the reputation I built, the knowledge and experience I gathered, the people I met, the arguments I had, the thought provoking articles I read or wrote, the smallest achievements I got, the biggest milestones I passed. I loved every single bit of it. And I am a better person because of it.

Unedited picture I took this morning. It’s a new day.

The Beggining of an Era

Yesterday, I also made the ultimate step to opening my own pharmacy. Remember how I was looking for a location using Ovi Maps? Well, I found it. I found my dream spot: an elevated area, well populated and growing, abiding by the 300m rule imposed by the Lebanese law, at a reasonable price. After a few weeks of legal banter, I went ahead and signed the contract yesterday morning, a few hours before the Symbian-Guru article went live, and handed the money to the previous owner. I am now officially the owner of a 71 sqm shop that will, in a few months of more paperwork, decoration and inventory, become my own business, my own pharmacy.

I can’t help but grin widely at the thought that I will no longer be an employee, and that I will finally be able to make my own decisions and have my own clientele. I’ve spent the past 7 months at my current job learning, enjoying, but mostly thinking “if it was my own pharmacy, I’d do it differently than my current boss”. I will finally be able to step in my own shoes and see what I’m made of.

So,

My life took a massive turn yesterday. I am now in the process of shedding my old identity, embracing a new direction in my life and rediscovering myself, all while trying to remain true to the person people have grown to know and like. It’s not the first time I make a transition like this, I’ve changed passions and occupations several times before, I made new friends, lost old ones, yet always thrived to give my new endeavour 1000% of my dedication and attention.

Exciting times are ahead.

This is what I love about Twitter. Often, I have an idea nagging me that I want to write about, but I feel the picture is incomplete in my head, so I make what you can call a bold statement on Twitter. It’s an eye-catching phrase that’s a bit radical and that fails to show any moderate position. Then I start refreshing my timeline frantically awaiting for the replies to come, agreeing or disagreeing with me. By the time I finally sit down to write the post, I have my full argumentation ready. You could say that I’m cheating because I already have answers to your counter-arguments but grow a pair, I’m pretty sure you can find other points to raise if you think deeply. I use this strategy frequently, because I always love to form a balanced opinion. I can’t help it, I’m a Libra, apparently it’s in my character.

Today, the topic at hand was the Lebanese Blogosphere and its lack of specialized blogs. Here’s what I said to spark the conversation:

U know what I don’t like abt lebanese blogosphere? All of u guys blog abt the same thgs. Differenciate urselves plz #truthhurts

And like I expected, I started a slew of replies and comments. Fun! Forget that radical statement, here’s what I really want to say about the matter.

Grounds I stand on

Before I start, let me make it clear what perspective I’m writing from.

• An outsider: I’ve given up long ago on trying to be an active member of the local Lebanese Blogosphere. I never deny being a Lebanese blogger, nah, quite the contrary, I’ve shouted it on the roofs even when I knew it would slow my progress. But I know I come from a different background and I cater to a totally different audience compared to the rest of the community, so it’s hard to find common grounds in that situation.
• A knowledgeable person: I don’t claim to be as much of an expert as say @aymanitani in terms of social media, but I’ve been here long enough to learn things, not from a university course or a seminar, but mostly from trial and error. I know blogs and social media, from being one active user and following thousands others. I’ve also had a chance to sit down and chat about it with the best of the best: @mtrends, @cschick, @jessdheere (back in 2007-8), @ilicco, @jfourgeaud to name a few.
• An interested reader: I just checked Google Reader to see that I follow 32 Lebanese blogs. Tiny specimen, but then again I only follow 218 blogs in general, so I dedicate 15% of my reading to you. And if I didn’t love you guys n gals, I wouldn’t bother writing this. But I do. I want you to be the best you can. I want to be proud of you, of my country’s people doing a kick ass job and getting their voices heard locally and globally. I think you can do better, much better, this is why I am writing this.

Dry spells, Monotony

If we look around, I think we can easily find Lebanese blogs that date back to the last century. But the “Lebanese Blogosphere” as I refer to it here, is one that is starting to pick up now and making enough noise to be heard. About flippin’ time!

The problem I see is that you do a kick ass job at raising awareness when there’s a topic that needs it, or at making enough noise to have an impact. Look at Arabnet, the Exotica Mother’s Day campaign, the Flotilla debacle. You rock at that! But when there’s nothing else, well, you hit a dry spell. It’s almost like a balloon that inflates and deflates. And it kills me as a reader, to hit my RSS feeds every day and find nothing worth wetting my mouth in the folder I have dedicated for you.

Another problem I see is monotony. When the Exotica campaign issue started, you all jumped ship on it. But, no matter how wrong the ad was, I would have loved for someone to write that it doesn’t offend them, just for the sake of controversy or discussion. I know it’s a bad example, but it seems to me that once one of you has said his/her opinion about something, you all follow ship. No one has a different opinion? Seriously? You have got to be kidding me! That monotony kills it for me. As a reader, I’m trying to stay interested, but sometimes I just snap and dismiss a full post just from reading its title. (Trust me, I know that there are readers who dismiss many of my own posts about mobile phones just from the title, but I always strive to avoid that).

Specialization and its benefits

Clearly what I want to see thrive in the Lebanese Blogosphere is specialized blogs. You’re a bunch of knowledgeable persons in different domains, or you have different passions, focus on that, and give us your best.

About six months ago, I wrote an email to all my arabic-speaking friends who I knew are a bit interested in politics and sociology, telling them about Hummus Nation. I explained the blog’s sarcastic spirit and I added a list of about 20 of my favorite posts. During the following days, I got a ton of replies telling me how much they loved it. I also talk about Hummus Nation and even quote a few lines of it in front of my relatives, neighbors, other friends, and I tell people to read it. Why? 1 because the guy rocks, 2 because I know what people will see when they open the page, and 3 because I know which people in my entourage would be interested in Hummus Nation’s coverage.

Another example is Maya Zankoul’s site. A couple of months ago, I recommended Maya’s site to Varun Krishnan, my boss & friend from India. He loved the comics style, he loved the spirit.

See why I want to see more specialized blogs from you peeps? Here are more points in favor:

• Specialized blogs are much more SEO friendly, ie you’re likely to be easier to find through Google or Yahoo! or Bing.
• Specialized blogs get you out of your local Lebanese audience and allow you to target a wider one.
• Specialized blogs help your readers promote you and recommend you to those they think would be interested.
• Specialized blogs take the monotony out, and force you to be creative to fill the dry spells.
• And even more importantly in my opinion, no matter how knowledgeable you are about a topic, when you start writing about it, you learn 10 or a 100 folds more. Don’t trust me? Try it.

What I would love to see

Remember ArabNet? Remember how we said we need to start creating content? I want that, friggin’ badly.

I want to have a few blogs who are dedicated to Lebanese/Cosmopolitan cuisine, I want someone to post about restaurants and cafés 2 or 3 times a week and tell me their opinion kind of like a local Michelin Guide, I want someone who goes to concerts and art exhibitions and knows the local art & music scene by heart, I want someone who follows the green projects around, someone specialized in tourism & hotels, someone who posts about new paved roads, someone who goes to all the tech shops and checks their prices & new releases regularly, someone who is a freak about fashion and clothes… and more… Surprise me.

I know you’re there, I know you have the potential, I’ve met many of you. Raise your hand. Get yourself together. Start a blog. Please.

Correct me if I’m wrong

I’m pretty sure there will be tons of comments telling me that one of these blogs already exist. Sure, but do I know about it? No. Was I able to find it on Google? No. I’m an outsider, a regular reader, remember. I picked my 32 blogs from Google search results, stumbling on them through another blog, or those who make the most noise on Twitter.

If you’re out there and you already cover one of the things I mentioned above, then you’re not doing your job right. #truthhurts again, sorry. You’re probably not making enough noise on Twitter, getting RT’ed and such, your blog is probably not SEO ready too. Fix that. Now.

One doesn’t deny the other

When I raised the issue of specialized blogs on Twitter, I got a lot of people saying that different people have different opinions about the same matter, and that any major event has to be written about in many sites. I agree. I also agree that we need to have personal blogs, places for people to vent about anything and everything. I also understand that there are occasions when blogs have to unite and raise awareness about a certain issue if it’s important.

But one does not deny the other.

A few days ago, a good friend of mine, Jenifer Hanen, wrote a great article: Single Subject or Brand Blogs vs. Generalist Blogs. Go read it now, I’ll wait…

Ok then, Jen makes the point that you should own your stuff and write about whatever entices you. Basically, she makes the point against specialized blogs. Priceless. I just gave you a link to an article that totally shatters my point of view. What Jen doesn’t mention is that:

• you can make a multiple-interest blog
• be special in your own way.

For the first, I won’t go far. I’ll give Jen’s own blog as an example. She writes about tech/mobile, she does a photo diary, she writes about design. Never have I seen her talk about fashion, cuisine or politics. She’s not generalist, she’s multi-specialized. And when I recommend Jen’s blog to someone, I tell them what they should expect.

For the second, check my examples above: Maya Zankoul & Hummus Nation. They write about a ton of topics, but they made it easy for us to associate them with their own brand, thanks to comics and pseudo-journalistic sarcastic tones.

There are other ways to be a “Lebanese Blogger”

If there’s a budding blogger awaiting to be awaken in you, then you should know, there are a ton of other ways to be an active Lebanese Blogger. Being a Lebanese Blogger doesn’t mean that you have to own your domain name and write only about Lebanon-related stuff. Naaaaah, far from that. You can be a Lebanese Blogger anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

I’m tempted here to say “look at me”, ah heck, I’ll say it, because I’m narcissistic and because I barely know any other example *sigh*. It’s that bad. If you love a certain topic that isn’t Lebanon-related in any way, but still want to make your way, you can do it. Here’s the easy guide:

• Join the big dogs: you may start small but if you feel you can’t make it on your own, join the big dogs. In any domain, there are blogs that are renown worldwide, hunt them, and make sure you have what it takes to entice them to take you on board.
• Don’t deny your roots: being a Lebanese Blogger is exactly that: Lebanese and Blogger. Don’t deny where you come from, just the opposite, shout it on the rooftops whenever you can. Raise awareness about your country, but be honest. Don’t make it a heaven on earth and don’t criticize the hell out of it.
• Make yourself unique: depending on the topic, being in Lebanon might make things difficult (no related events happening here, products take ages to be released here…) but it does give you an edge, or a different view. Use that to your advantage and provide a unique perspective. When you realize how to do that, your personal brand will thrive and you will see how easier things become. A unique profile is easier to remember for everyone, on the internet or in real life.

So dear Lebanese Blogosphere, thank you for starting to shape up, but don’t spread yourself thin. You have potential, you have strength, you are unique. Don’t be monotone, don’t repeat yourself. Be creative. Surprise me. Entice me. Teach me. Give me a reason to publicize the heck out of you. Make me proud.

Now I’m pretty sure the situation wasn’t as draconian as I make it sound like and that the streets I went through are perfectly safe, but it got me thinking about the need for a special version of Ovi Maps for Lebanon which I describe to you below with my usual tongue-in-cheek style.

There are many religions and many political parties in Lebanon, and despite the amazing peace we’ve been at lately, we always seem to be on the verge of a blow-out, no matter how small or big. Luckily, these religious and political parties seem to be somewhat confined to geographical areas so it’s pretty easy to avoid hostile regions.

Hence Ovi Maps for Lebanon.

The first time you launch Ovi Maps for Lebanon, it asks you to login with your Ovi account which normally has your gender and age saved, but this special version also asks for your religious and political beliefs. The second screen is a Preferences pane that gives you a list of intelligently picked High-Risk, Medium-Risk and Recommended areas. You could juggle these around if you don’t like them then approve all the preferences. From then on, Ovi Maps will generate the drive and walk navigation based on an algorithm that avoids High-Risk zones at any cost, Medium-Risk zones unless really necessary, and privileges Recommended areas even if a small detour is required.

For example, Ovi Maps for Lebanon would suggest a small detour around Hadath for an FPM’er heading from Wadi Chahrour to Saifi so he can bask in the glory of the last municipal elections, it will also avoid at any cost the main road down Zouk Mosbeh to the highway where a huge poster of Samir Geagea can be found near the NDU school roundabout. Of course, the exact opposite would be suggested to a Lebanese Forces activist.

Obviously, the database for Ovi Maps for Lebanon should be updated hourly to take into account the latest political views and alliances (they change *that* often) as well as the latest pictures, posters & political bureaux publicly displayed. For example, the main road in Zahleh where a poster of Elias Skaff is hanging is no longer Recommended for an FPM’er, whereas all of Chouf is no longer a High-Risk (not even Medium-Risk) zone for them. Likewise, some areas in West Bekaa moved from Recommended to High-Risk for Future Movement activists just this Sunday.

It’s incredible how quickly draconian changes like this occur in the geo-reli-political scene in Lebanon and Ovi Maps for Lebanon should be on top of that.

What do you think of this suggestion? Do you live in another country that could also use some politico/sectarian aspect for their location-based services?

One problem I have run into though is the lack of a way to transfer files from my Nokia N97 Mini to my iPod Touch and vice versa. Now before you start screaming for the disgrace as the iPod Touch doesn’t have an accessible file system and thus can’t really communicate with other devices on this basis, I want to point out that my iTouch is hacker/cracked/jailbroken/whatever-u-wanna-call it. I’m also pretty sure that there’s a way to do this but I’m sort of missing something.

What I want to do
Transfer large files between the iPod and the Nokia N97 Mini, over bluetooth or Wifi, possibly even set up a shared network folder between the two. I want to bypass the need for a computer.

My limitation
I have a very low bandwidth limit on my adsl connection, 3GB/month, so uploading/downloading won’t work. This means that Dropbox, Box.net, sending in an email… all those solutions aren’t really viable.

Methods I tried

• I tried iBluetooth and iBlueNova from Cydia on my iPod Touch fw 3.1.2. iBluetooth wouldn’t launch. iBlueNova launches but when I get to the point where I’m scanning for other bluetooth devices, it doesn’t scan, although bluetooth is turned on.
• I tried iFiles and a few other similar possibilities on the iPod Touch. They work and they work well, except only with my Macbook and I don’t want to pass by a computer. On my Nokia N97 Mini, there’s no way to access that shared folder by the iPod Touch except through the browser. I can download the files shared by the iPod Touch but I can’t upload to it, which is a bugger.
• Another method I tried is SymSync by Telexy on my N97 Mini. I usually use this application to share & sync folders between my N97 Mini & my Macbook. It works like a charm between those two and lets me access shared folders, sync their contents, and basically have a happy wireless life between those two. I tried setting up SymSync to access the shared folder by iFiles (and other alternatives) on the iPod but for some reason, it won’t work, always giving me an error. Now I don’t understand the symantics of WebDAV or other folder sharing protocols, so there may be a valid reason why this won’t work, or maybe it should but I’m not doing things right.

So I need your help, my tech guru friends. Do you own both a Nokia & an iPod Touch? Have you tried to find a way to sync a certain shared folder between them? Do you understand the protocols used by SymSync & WebDAV and what should be done to solve the issue between those two? Any other suggestions or should I just give up on trying to make this work?

If you told me one year ago that I’d be using Ovi Maps (of all other mapping services) for a life-changing decision, I’d have laughed at you so hard I’d have snorted. I was a loyal Google Maps user at the time, and didn’t see myself switching anytime soon.

But Ovi Maps came a long way since then. First with the synchronization of favorites and routes with the Ovi account service, then by making the maps for Lebanon (where I live) available and fully detailed, and lastly by providing all walk and drive navigation free. All of a sudden, I hadn’t just switched to Ovi Maps, I was evangelizing it, to a point where my mom (yes, mom, who actually hates anything related to technology and tells me my passion with phones is a waste of time) kept asking me to demonstrate Ovi Maps to anyone who visited us or anyone we visited. “Show them the map and how it tells you where to go!”, “zoom, zoom… this is where we are”, all followed by a smile and “it’s free”.

Actually my mom is the reason I’m writing this. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

See, I am a recent Pharmacist graduate and I’ve been working as a second-hand help in a pharmacy to gain a bit of experience before opening my own. The money is available, the knowledge is available, but the only thing missing is finding the critical location of the pharmacy, a problem with both a legislative and a personal limitation:

• The Lebanese Order of Pharmacists dictates by law that a distance of 300m by foot has to be established between any two pharmacies, by the shortest route.
• My personal preference goes for a slightly elevated altitude to avoid the coast’s summer heat and humidity, yet a short drive from Beirut where I currently live, and it definitely should be a well-populated area because the pharmacy needs to be profitable.

So basically, I need a well-populated slightly elevated yet close area with no pharmacy within 300m by foot. Obviously, there also needs to be a building with an empty store in that spot. It’s not too much to ask for, but I know a few of my fellow graduate students who have been looking for more than a year to no avail. It’s also a lifetime decision that you can’t rush because you don’t change a pharmacy’s location like you can change an electronics store’s or a grocery shop’s location: establishing mutual trust with the neighboring patients takes years so you can’t throw it away and start over.

So a few weeks ago, I went checking a few areas, driving through them and it suddenly dawned on me that finding a location at least 300m away from any close pharmacies is like trying to find a needle in the hay, without even adding my personal preference into the mix. Frustration and desperation set in, until my mom had one of what i call *light-bulb-moment* and said “can’t you see it on your phone, with the map?”

Brilliant! Just brilliant! Why hadn’t I thought of it? I was supposed to be the phone girl!

So there I went, establishing my Ovi Maps pharmacy-hunting strategy using the POI database and the dedicated Pharmacy category in them. I navigate the Lebanese territory on Ovi Maps. When I get close to an area I’m interested in, I search for the Pharmacy category and I have them all outlined on the map.

• Since the 300m rule is a limitation by law that I can’t bargain on, I easily dismiss any area where I see a crowded presence of pharmacies.
• If I find a relatively pharmacy-free area, the next thing I look for is how many streets are around the location. I also eliminate any one-street areas with no side roads and only green fields around them.

The benefit of Ovi Maps is that despite my full-time job, I am able to do this screening process anytime I have a free minute, like while laying in bed, watching television or having a small break at work. I don’t have to drive around for hours, consume energy, fuel and exhaust myself only to find that the area I’m looking in is either too dense with pharmacies or way under-populated. Using this strategy, I’ve managed to:

• eliminate a lot of locations my friendly neighbors / relatives suggested (everyone wants to help, but ends up wasting my time) by checking Ovi Maps and pointing out that there is no free spot abiding by the 300m rule
• pick around a dozen good “hot-spots”, save them as favorites and go for a drive on the weekends to check them out.

I have only been looking for 3 weeks and so far stumbled on well-populated areas but either with a newly open pharmacy that doesn’t show up in Ovi Maps, either mostly houses or villas with no actual buildings and shops available for sale. The biggest disappointment came last week when I found all the criteria I was looking for in a zone where there was a new complex with shops about to be built. I called the owner and found out that someone had already bought a pharmacy in it. It was so close I could almost smell it.

So although I haven’t yet found my pharmacy’s location, I’m definitely one step ahead of everyone else looking thanks to the genius that is my mother and Ovi Maps. Without them, I’d be scouting the streets of Lebanon one by one, like all my fellow colleagues, looking for a decent location. Instead, I have simpler and easier screening process that is also less time-consuming and more energy efficient.

Now that I’ve outlined my strategy, I just have to hope that no pharmacist in Lebanon is actually reading this post. It’s a deadly race between us all and I’ve already said too much…

Disclaimer: I’m writing this article from my Macbook, with my iPod Touch on the couch beside me. So you know I’m not a hater. I don’t have an iPhone though, I have a Nokia N97 Mini and I’m an active writer in the Symbian Blogosphere.

Let’s go back, what, 3 years has it been now?! Yes, 3 years I think, and a few months give or take. Rewind to Apple’s positions on the iPhone 1st gen launch.

• Apple claim #1: You don’t need 3G. Edge is fast enough.
• Apple claim #2: You don’t need native apps. Web apps are the future.
• Apple claim #3: You don’t need GPS. Cell triangulation is super accurate.
• Apple claim #4: Menu & Folder organization is over complicated. Make it simple with only icons.
• Apple claim #5: You don’t need multitasking. Our system remembers where you left off when you relaunch.
• Apple claim #6: You don’t need a physical keyboard. The on-screen keyboard is faaaaaast and accurate.

Fast forward to when Apple released their SDK for apps. Forgive me, I don’t remember the date, I have more important things to keep in my tiny memory-head, but it was like 3-5 months after the launch of iPhone 1st gen.

• Apple UNclaim #2: Web apps are crap. Native apps are the way to go. Go! Go! Go!

Fast forward to the iPhone 3G announcement, like 14 months after the first iphone announcement.

• Apple UNclaim #1: Edge is SLOW. 3G is FAST. Get the 3G!
• Apple UNclaim #3: Cell triangulation is OK, but true GPS is much more accurate.

And somewhere along the line:

• Apple sort-of UNclaim #5: we’re doing push notifications so that you can sort-of multitask.

Then to the iPhone OS 4.0 announcement, just today.

• Apple UNclaim #4: Folders for the menu ROCK. They let you organize your apps so easily.
• Apple UNclaim #5: Multitasking is crucial to have, but has to be done right. Oh right, so multitasking was always essential, but you didn’t know how to do it, so you told me it wasn’t necessary?!

And I wonder when they will UNclaim #6 and release an iPhone Pro with a slide out QWERTY. It has to be done. Just for the sake of continuing the lie cycle. It’s hard to believe they’d tell the truth, even once.

Now add to those 5 claims their patchy position on Copy/Paste, Video recording, MMS, Turn-by-Turn navigation, Bluetooth accessories… and you have a pretty good idea of the massive public lying that Apple has been doing over the last 3 years.

And they get away with it!

As a matter of fact, they lie and people defend the lie. They change their point of view, and people defend the new position. It’s like a massive global hypnosis. It’s amazing. Staggering. ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY MIND-BLOWING!

For that alone, I respect Apple. To be able to pull that out is nothing short of phenomenal.

Moral of the story: if you’re a company and people don’t believe you when you lie, then you probably suck even at telling the truth. If you change your position and people don’t defend you, then you probably suck at being able to convince people of your opinion, whatever it is.

Put that into perspective and every company in the world, save for Apple, sucks at both of these and always will. The keyword being ALWAYS. It’s irreversible. Once a no-liar, always a no-liar.

I started writing in 1996, at the age of 11, but I eventually threw away everything I wrote in 2000 and decided to start fresh. At the beginning, it was exclusively all French poetry, until 2003 when I noticed I knew enough English words to venture in that area as well. I also have some random Arabic poems here and there. The problem though is that my last poem dates back to October 2007 and it saddens me.

Given that I believe I actually did have some sort of talent, which many of my friends / teachers / random readers on PoemHunter seem to agree with, I think it’s a total shame that I stopped. If you’re wondering whether I didn’t have anything to get out, darn it, I left my country, family, friends for a whole year in 2008-2009! If that isn’t poetry-inciting, I don’t know what is. So reason or no reason, the fact remains that I haven’t rhymed in over 2 years.

I think I need an incentive, a reason to awaken the poet inside, maybe a bit of exposure for my early work to remember how great it felt when I received criticism, or maybe just the satisfaction of knowing that I’m being read, somewhere by someone. Heck, I don’t know what is required to get the beast back up and running, but I’m going to try my best. I don’t want to look back in 30 years and say that I didn’t fight for my gift or that life got the best out of it. Plus, I used to love those highly emotional moments when I ended up suprised by my own writing as the words flew from my hands as if dictated by a superior force. It was transcendingly spiritual.

So what’s a girl to do in order to awaken the poet within?

Well, I’ll make a pact to myself to post one poem as a Note on Facebook every weekend.

It can be a new poem or one of my old writings, which at some point in time will run dry and leave me with the necessity or writing something. I happen to believe it’s a good strategy and it’s not as optimistic as my A Poem A Day venture from years ago, so let’s see how it spans out.

As for the choice of Facebook, it’s only for the convenience of visibility, plus control over comments and privacy. The notes will be public for everyone, and if I do manage to get my poetry juices flowing, I will post the new writing on PoemHunter as well.