Archive

Archive for May, 2006

Quranic Recitation by Mishary Rashid El Efasy

May 19th, 2006

Here is a high quality recording of Surah Ar-Rahman by Sh Mishary Rashid Al Efasy. Inshallah I plan on adding the whole quran once I can make sure there are no copyrights on the recordings.

[audio:055.mp3]

Deen

Amazing way to make the front page of DIGG

May 19th, 2006
Comments Off on Amazing way to make the front page of DIGG

diggDigg is all the rage these days with everyone trying to make it to the front page to try and get more traffic to their sites. I’m a huge fan of Digg myself, visiting the site atleast 20 times a day. When digg started, the topics that made to the front page seemed to be very diverse but I have to say that nowadays things seem to be getting a bit repetitive. The stories making to to front page seem to do more and more with a handful of topics that are getting somewhat tiring.

After spending a little bit of time I came up with a list of things one has to do or the topics one can write about to make it to the front page. This is by no means a sure shot way but it does seem to have worked from what the numbers show.

  1. Add “AMAZING” to the title (more than 20 pages in the past 60 days)
  2. Apple related(25 in the past 2 days)
  3. Google related(10 in past 2 days)
  4. Gaming Consoles (PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 combined) related (28 in past 2 days)
  5. AJAX (5 in past 2 days)
  6. Firefox (3 in past 2 days)
  7. A “howto” for just about anything (23 in the last month)
  8. CSS related

Try it out for yourself. See how far you get. But don’t submit any junk articles. I’m sure you’ll get much more than the usual 8 – 12 Diggs I’ve previously gotten.
Digg if you agree.

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Software everyone should have

May 17th, 2006

Everytime I go somewhere and need to use a PC I check to see if firefox is installed. If it isn’t I ask for permission to install it after listing its benifits. And firefox alone without any extensions, as you might know, is only the beginning of an experience. But to go around hoping page to page looking for extensions had become too much of a task installing firefox. So I decided to list them all on a page so its easier to find the ones that I need.

Apart from Firefox, the page also lists some other freeware and opensource software that I have found really useful. Like a replacement notepad, a direct-to-disk mp3 recorder and a couple of media players.

I thought sharing this page with everyone might be beneficial. You can check it out here.

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Qibla Locator has a new home

May 13th, 2006

The Qibla Locator has a new home today. www.qiblalocator.com. It will also be available from its previous location at ibnmasud.com/map.htm till it is fully indexed by google and others.

The new domain was bought from Yahoo but the site itself is hosted on Dreamhost which also hosts ibnmasud.com.

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Stephen Colbert vs John Stewart

May 11th, 2006

Colbert vs John Stewart
Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, host of ‘The Colbert Report’, rose in popularity after his skewering of President Bush at the Whitehouse correspondents dinner. A comparison of the number of searches on google trends between him and Jon Stewart (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) shows him sky rocketing after the Whitehouse dinner. Jon Stewart also had his moment earlier this year when he hosted the Oscars. The number of searches for Colbert though, seem to be twice as many.

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Hi-Res images of Karachi & Islamabad on Google Maps

May 11th, 2006
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Qadafi StadiumGoogle updated its maps with high resolution imagery of Islamabad and the other earthquake hit areas that devastated the region last year. These images and that of Karachi were available first through Google Earth, Google’s downloadable map software. Recently they have merged their dataset for the two offerings giving those who haven’t downloaded Google Earth the same view on Google Maps.

Faisal MasjidThe level of detail is close to the best Google has to offer for any location. In the image of Qadafi Stadium National Stadium, for example, you can see that there is a cricket match going on and you can almost count the number of players on the field. In the image to the left is the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, built by the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia.

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Qibla Locator layout in IE fixed

May 10th, 2006
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Several major display issues appearing on the Qibla Locator in Internet Explorer due to CSS have been fixed. One minor issue relating to the overview pane remains but I dont consider it much of a problem and will look to fix it sometimes in the future.

It must be noted that the Qibla Locator works best in Firefox. Although IE is supported, the experience you may have may not match that with Firefox.

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Saying Salam

May 8th, 2006

According to Imam Nawawl, greeting with the words of as-Salam-u-‘Alaikum is a Sunnah, and responding to it is Wajib (obligatory), but this essentiality is of the nature of Kifaya, meaning thereby that if a few persons out of the whole assembly or group respond to the greeting it will absolve all of the responsibility of response but if no response comes forth from any quarter all are held responsible for it.

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The rider should first greet the pedestrian, and the pedestrian the one who is seated and a small group should greet a larger group (with as-Salam-u-‘Alaikum).

Book 026, Number 5374

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Six are the rights of a Muslim over another Muslim. It was said to him: Allah’s Messenger, what are these? Thereupon he said: When you meet him, offer him greetings;when he invites you to a feast accept it. when he seeks your council give him, and when he sneezes and says:” All praise is due to Allah,” you say Yarhamuk Allah (may Allah show mercy to you) ; and when he fails ill visit him; and when he dies follow his bier.

Book 026, Number 5374

Deen