ALKHOBAR, 26 August — An ad appeared on Page 18 in this newspaper yesterday. All that was printed in the ad space was www.alnur.org. Since I spend a significant amount of my day surfing the Net it wasn’t a big deal for me to plug the URL into my browser and see what would come up. I wish I hadn’t. That site and its sister site are locations for the selling of Internet domains. The person running the sites was asking $750,000 to $2,750,000 for each domain name. Some of the domains included the Holy Qu’ran or family names and the whole idea of it made me sick. I thought the powers that ran the Internet were supposed to be getting this type of disgusting profiteering under control but it seems that nothing has changed.
Next Saturday the bells will be ringing all over the Kingdom for the first day of school and what do we have to offer our little darlings in the area of IT? Well, no announcements have been made here in Saudi Arabia but Dubai, as usual, has something new and innovative for its high school students.
Under the patronage of General Sheikh Mohammed ibn Rashid Al-Maktoum, the crown prince of Dubai and UAE defense minister, the administrators of the website www.sheikhmohammed.co.ae have announced the creation of an online marketplace to deliver educational material including IT hardware/software books and other learning tools to students attending public secondary schools. The new online marketplace for students is a component of Sheikh Mohammed’s continuing IT education project. Intershop, an e-business software provider, is the technology partner in the initiative and is making its resources available at a cost.
The project was announced on July 2 and just a few weeks later some of the most prominent players in the regional and global IT industry have already signed up to participate. They include Acer, Compaq, CompuMe, Dell, DTK, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft. The eight IT providers will offer their latest products through the education e-store, many at special prices. The Dubai IT Academy and Intershop are in discussions with additional IT suppliers to provide students with accessories, software and books for the online shop.
In the first phase of the new education marketplace hardware, software, networking equipment, books, stationery and other educational tools will be available for purchase over the Internet by more than 15,000 students in Dubai’s public high schools. Phase 1 is expected to be operational in September. By the end of the year 2003 the online store will be able to serve over 300,000 students in the UAE plus an additional 30,000 members of the UAE Ministry of Education’s staff. By shopping for educational material online, participating high school students will be able to familiarize themselves with the latest e-commerce technologies while browsing for the best bargains available from a diverse group of suppliers.
Jamal Khalfan Huwairib, director of www.sheikhmohammed.co.ae in discussing the online store said, “It is incumbent on UAE national students today to capitalize on the benefits of the latest technology, especially as it relates to education. With the creation of the online education marketplace, students can not only invest in the latest technology and training tools to improve their skills, they can also experience firsthand the benefits of e-commerce.”
The www.sheikhmohammed.co.ae education marketplace will be based on Intershop’s Enfinity technology platform, ranked as the No. 1 e-commerce platform by Forrester Research. Intershop will design, develop and implement the new education marketplace, as well as provide training and support for the initiative. The education marketplace will be hosted locally. Top UAE students will be nominated to work as administrators on the marketplace where they will gain genuine on-the-job IT skills.
The marketplace will function by having students log on with pre-assigned user names and passwords. Since students generally do not have credit cards, orders will be cash-on-delivery to promote ease of use for the students and keep security concerns to a minimum. Beta testing for the marketplace’s ease of use and e-commerce functionality has begun and it is anticipated that the local hosting provider will be officially appointed in coming weeks.
Back at Saudi marketplaces of the brick and mortar type, DIT events confirmed that it will be hosting the 3rd COMDEX Saudi Arabia Professional IT Exhibition and Conference in Jeddah from April 1-4, 2002.
COMDEX General Manager Annick Anthierens confirmed that there are advance bookings from Sweden and Egypt for national pavilions and that thanks to COMDEX’s extensive worldwide sales network, groups are already being formed to represent other countries including the UK, Taiwan and the United States. There will also be a COMDEX ISP pavilion where visitors can meet, consult and compare between the ISPs represented there.
The major two-day COMDEX Saudi Arabia IT conference and three days of associated workshops will be held in Saudi Arabia’s newest luxury business hotel, the Jeddah Hilton, located 10 minutes from the exhibition. Speakers at the conference will be drawn from internationally known experts and with the new maturity in the market there will be an emphasis on both broadening and deepening the content of presentations.
“Independent research, which we commissioned from Media Matters UK, showed that we are delivering the high quality audience that exhibitors want to meet,” said Anthierens. “In our recent 2001 event, 95 percent of our exhibitors told their researchers that their overall show objectives had been met and 88 percent rated visitor quality and numbers as either very good, good or adequate.”
The family computer show shopper@COMDEX will be held alongside the professional show. In 2001 this show packed in more than 60,000 retail customers and sales met all expectations.
And now from the stuff of facts and figures let’s leap into the world of fantasy — Final Fantasy that is. This summer saw the release of the first film in which all the actors were computer generated. Being a big science fiction fan, I willingly paid $12 to see “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.” In the first 10 minutes of the movie I wanted to leave. The plot was predictable and preachy. The screen was packed with last-minute rescues and lots of spectacular explosions. The only thing stiffer than the film’s dialogue were the characters. This wasn’t sci-fi, it was a horror flick through and through. By the way, the film has nothing to do with the video game of the same name so if you were planning to see it because you’re a gaming fan — forget it.
In the movie the year is 2065 and the Earth is under siege. A meteor has crashed onto the planet, unleashing millions of alien creatures, which roam the Earth. Decimating field and city alike, these predators are threatening to extinguish all life on the planet. By the end of the film you are praying that they will so the credits will roll and you can get up and go.
The central character is Dr. Aki Ross who is supposedly working to save life on Earth. Aki’s hair is the best part of the whole two hours of agony. Every woman I spoke to was interested in getting some digital hair if it would move and shimmer like Aki’s did in the film. But great hair does not a movie make.
Jeffrey Anderson of the San Francisco Examiner gave the ultimate review of this cinematic disaster when he wrote:
“By the movie’s end I was too busy sniggering at the horrible lines to enjoy the visuals.”
My final fantasy would be to never have to sit through a film as bad as that one ever again.
Our final tidbit this week is out in the realm of cyberspace although it’s linked with an America expat working in Alkhobar. John Breton is the driver behind the website, humanwrites.com. Now before the powers that be slap an icky “Access to this URL is not allowed,” notice on the site, it should be quickly explained that the site is about creative writing and not human rights.
Humanwrites.com poses a wide range of questions on matters relating to the human condition seeking original responses from professional and amateur writers of all ages and circumstances. According to the site the best of the inspirational, humorous, and thought provoking contributions will be considered for publication in a collection of journals that will be gender, age, and topic specific.
The commitment is that each will be uplifting, positive, and wholesome in both content and message. Authors selected for publication will be credited for their work and will be included in a royalty pool.
Other information at the site states: “We are now six billion people and counting. Each unique as confirmed by our DNA. But then, as we are nearly convinced that we each stand alone, satellite TV broadcasts the full spectrum of human emotion into our homes each evening where we share the pain, sorrow, hunger, as well as the joy and celebration, on the faces of unknown peoples in distant lands. Our humanity transcends all boundaries imposed by culture, language, and geography. It is our sameness that merits attention as we head off into a new millennium. This site is dedicated to capturing the essence of our common bonds and sharing ourselves with one another.”
At the site is a list of 13 questions. Effective March 1, humanwrites.com began awarding $150 per quarter for the best of the insights to the posted questions.
The money is divided with $30 going to the best response to question No. 1 and $10 allocated for each best response to the remaining questions. Any respondent can win one, two or all question segments based on the decision of the judges. Personal details about the winners will be posted at the site along with the winning writings.
The site’s owner, John Breton, created humanwrites.com as a reaction to his experiences working and living abroad.
“Over the years, I have had the pleasure to meet and befriend many people from very diverse backgrounds,” Breton said. “It was strikingly obvious that regardless of our backgrounds, country of origin, religious foundation and politics, our primary concerns for family, friendship, peace, and health were no different. Why not confirm this observation via the global Internet community?”
So the next time you’re lying awake at night pondering the reasons for your existence, log on and share your thoughts with others at humanwrites.com.
