Archive | April, 2011

Lebanese blogosphere weekly link roundup (2011/04/24)

18 New links for this round.

See you next week!

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Tania Saleh’s new video is out!

In 1943, a few days before the Lebanese independence got written on paper, “the creators” of Lebanon were scurrying to save a detained president and some of his ministers. Their main objective was to finish with the French
mandate. They had little time to imagine a country and a nation and to bring to life a constitution that served both with civil laws for a civil state.

A Lebanese girl, “Wehde” had an idea. The idea developed a dream and “Wehde” longed for a peaceful country, harmonious with its people from all walks of life from all 18 different sects. “Wehde” survived and her dream remained a dream. Today it has gathered dust over the years but “Wehde” still strolls down the sea shore on a sunny day with all the people waiting like her for a new (true) independent nation to
be born. This album tells her story. (available at www.forwardmusic.net)

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Giveaway: 3 tickets to “The Dinner Party” play

Few days ago I was granted 3 tickets to a new play called “The Dinner Party” which will be performed on April 29, 30, and May 1, at Babel Theater, and presented by Haigazian University Actors’ Club

The Dinner Party is based on a one-act play of the same name by Neil Simon, but the guys at Haigazian seem to have added a twist to it.

Six people are invited to a dinner, but only one person knows why. As the guests arrive one by one, they start to realize that they all have something in common. The secretive, ambiguous, cryptic mystery is unraveled through a series of misunderstandings, passionate outbursts and other delightful dilemmas. And what does a tourist from South Lebanon have to do with all of this?

For more information, you can check this Facebook event page.

Since I will most probably not be able to attend, I decided to give them away to the first person who leaves a comment on this post. Yes, that easy! 😛

**Comments Closed**

Congratulations Dalia, I just sent you an e-mail.

Nokia N8 review

Earlier in March Nokia Lebanon lent me an N8 device to try out and write a review about it. I’ve been using the phone for over a month now and I have to tell you this, it’s GOOD.

Camera:

First things first, the N8 rocks a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and auto-focus, and that’s what I loved the most about this phone. The images it produces are just so detailed and natural, and you’ll probably have so much fun with the panorama tool that Nokia offers for free via the OVI store. You can check the N8 flickr group to check by yourself how good can its camera be.

Display:

The N8’s 3.5″ display might not be the best in the market, but you can easily watch a movie on it if you’re on a flight or something, that’s how good the colors look on it, let alone using applications or previewing the camera photos.

Keyboard & touchscreen:

The last touch screen phone I’ve used from Nokia was the N97 which had a quite disappointing resistive screen, so I personally noticed a big improvement with the current capacitive screen on the N8, but unfortunately you still cannot rely on it if you’re the type of person who texts a lot. So I wish the N8 had room for a hardware keyboard like the E7.

Multitasking:

The N8’s operating system, symbian ^3, was built to handle as much simultaneously open applications as possible. You can safely browse the internet while you’re listening to music, having your e-mail open, and maybe a Facebook or Twitter client as well in the background.

Satellite navigation:

While other phones offer a built-in GPS chip and leaves you on your own to search for a navigation solution, with the N8 and other Nokia phones you’ll get OVI Maps pre-installed with free navigation. I’ve been using OVI maps ever since I purchased the E72 last year, but experiencing it on the N8’s 3.5″ display was a treat!

What I also liked:

The HDMI-out capabilities and the ability to connect to a USB flash drive through the dongle that ships with the phone.

N8 vs iPhone 4:

Everyone who saw the N8 with me had the same question, how does it compare to the iPhone 4? I actually don’t think there’s a definite winner, it all depends on what you’re expecting to get from your device. If it’s all about games and entertainment, then you should go for an iPhone, but for everything else I’m pretty sure the N8 is up to the challenge.

Overall:

Would I keep it if I had the chance to? Yes, particularly for its superb camera and display, although I’ll be missing the hardware keyboard on my E72!

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Happy Easter

Special thanks to Lynn Bizri for allowing me to use this photo, Lynn and her sisters decorated all of these eggs by themselves, and through it I would like to wish you all a wonderful Easter time with your families.

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Lady Gaga’s “Judas” banned in Lebanon?

Have you noticed that Lebanese radio stations have stopped playing Lady Gaga’s new song “Judas”? I guess I heard it a couple of time and then they suddenly stopped it.

In case you’re not aware of it yet, “Judas” seems to be one of Lady Gaga’s stunts and is already enraging religious groups in the US because of its lyrics.

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Tania Saleh new album launch

Make sure not to miss this one!

Tania Saleh, Lebanese singer – songwriter and Batoota Foundation would like to invite you to the launch of Tania Saleh’s eagerly awaited second studio album “Wehde” along with the music video launch of the album title, at a press conference and CD signing event in Café Im Nazih, Saifi Urban Gardens on Thursday April 21st 2011 from 5 pm to 9 pm.

I’ve been eagerly waiting for Tania’s new album “Wehde” to be released ever since I started hearing news about it one year ago, and just yesterday I got an e-mail about the launching event. Her first album “Tani Saleh” was released in 2002 and remains one of the very few albums that I still play to this day.

And here’s a sneak peek at the upcoming video.

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Lebanese blogosphere weekly link roundup (2011/04/17)

11 New links for this round.

See you next week!

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Zaatar W Zeit and the missing Z’s

I just got this in my e-mail:

Other than a few photos and short videos of the “kidnap”, missingz.com account contained the following manifesto:

We, the Z liberation cell, claim the responsibility behind the kidnapping of all the Zs from the Zaatar W Zeit signs.

The Z Liberation cell has no affiliation to any political leader, military or religious group.

Our cause is solely to liberate every single Z we find in town.

We want change and we aim to evolve.

More info to the public in due time. #MissingZ

“change” could be a hint to probably new items on their menu… and I expect the whole thing to turn into a competition the find the missing Z’s… Let’s wait and see!

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