Every so often, a new term takes new dimensions larger than the actual meaning and content of that term.
One such term in recent years is "blogging" or writing regularly to a blog or weblog (wikipedia).

What is blogging?

To me, blogs are just the new terminology for "a home page" from the late 1990s. However, there are a few new enablers that facilitates the so-called blog revolution. Free blogging sites have emerged, allowing people to start a blog in a few minutes. They allow publishing from a WYSIWYG web interface or some client based software, thus not requiring any HTML knowledge. For those with a bit more knowledge, there are many software packages, most of them free, that can be used to create a blog. Among them are WordPress, MovableType, and Drupal. There are also blog search engines too, such as Technorati.

Much has been written about the blog revolution where every person with an internet connection is a media source, often touted to be a rival to main stream media.

Here is an example of how one person can make a difference using determination, time, and the internet.Cory Horner, of Kamloops, British Columbia is an unemployed 24 year old electrical engineer. He is also a computer wiz. He undertook the daunting task of summarizing and tabulating the data from the records of Parliament proceedings.The result is a web site that summarizes how each member of parliament (MP) voted on every single vote. Also, how many times they are absent on votes, how many words they spoke and how many bills they introduced. The results are on the How'd They Vote web site.

Yesterday, I had an interesting and moving encounter with street kids in Alexandria, Egypt.

Street Kids Around the World

This topic and many like it can cause over-sensitive Egyptians to be offended. I should make it clear that it is not my intention to offend anyone, but rather document a problem that exists. I should also mention that the problem exists in most countries on the world. Their problem and plight has been publicized for only a few countries though, Brazil being the most covered in international media, followed by Haiti. Even Canada has some street teens (not really kids though) that have been on TV documentaries a few times.

In Brazil, some members of the police force have been targeting street kids with extra judicial killings.

Street Kids in Alexandria, Egypt

Back to Alexandria: this is not the first time I have seen street kids. About a decade of more ago, I saw a bunch of really young ones (10 or less) sleeping at tram stations. They were smoking cigarette butts they collect of the streets, discarded by others. When I talked to one of them saying that he should not be smoking, he pointed to my daughter, who was just a few years old, and said : "She also smokes cigarettes!"

I've written a new Drupal module to allow users to vote on various types of node, as defined by the site admin.The votes are registered, and an overall average score is displayed, as well as the number of votes for that node. Sidebar blocks can be configured to show the top rated nodes, most voted for node, as well as most voting users.An extended version is available that allows voting for multiple criteria for each node, and not just one vote. More information on the Node Vote project page. 

This is a new Drupal module that I wrote recently for a client.

It allows the site admin to define the number of points a user gets upon taking certain actions, such as posting a page, commenting on a page, posting an image, ...etc.

See the full details on the User Points project page.

After upgrading from Mandrake Linux 10.0 to Mandriva Linux LE 2005 10.2, I found out that there is a serious issue with either Mandriva or with kernel 2.6.11.

This article describes the issues faced upon upgrade, adn how to work around them.

PHP is a free, multi platform computer programming language. It is most used to develop dynamic web sites that are more than static HTML pages. The language is very easy to learn and use, and has an extensive list of add ons that allow it to do all kinds of stuff, from storing data in databases, pulling data from other web sites, sending emails, and more.

PHP is often used with MySQL, which is a free SQL Relational database.

In February 2005, Mandrake Soft of France and Conectiva of Brazil, announced that they merged. Shortly afterwards, in April 2005, they announced that they are changing their name to Mandriva. Then they released Mandriva Limited Edition 2005 (LE2005) which is what Mandrake 10.2 should have been.

Since I have several machines at home, all running Mandrake, it was time to start the annual upgrade to stay current.

This Baheyeldin Dynasty web site, has been on the net since 1999. It started with a simple HTML only design, but quickly changed to a semi dynamic web site using a home brew content management system that used flat files, with includes for menus, statistics, user login, redirects and other functions. Here is how the site looked for almost four years.

Over the last few weeks, Canada's Federal government has been in a political crisis. It started in 2004, when on the June 28 vote there was no clear majority for any political party, thus forcing a minority government: the first in 25 years. This can have a silver lining, since no party holds absolute power and all things have to be negotiated.In April, the Gomery inquiry, charged with investigating the Ad Sponsorship Scandal from a decade ago, made public some explosive testimony about the Liberal Party funneling the money for elections.