While surfing the mighty World Wide Web, I came across a really interesting post written by Noor from the UAE. Here are some excerpts from her post:

“What effect did the printing press have on Europe? How?”

This was one of the questions i had on last year’s history final. I remember sitting in the examination room, racking my brain for an answer. I found an answer all right, but got a little more than i bargained for in the process.

The invention of the printing press led to the Reformation. Printing gave all people access to the Bible and other books; access to information. Printing also allowed people to record their own thoughts and send them out for the rest of the masses to read and discuss. People within these masses could in turn write their own views or comments, and print them. Here we had the exchange of ideas. This allowed reformers like Martin Luther have their voices heard, leading directly to the Reformation. …

For the past two centuries, the Arab and Muslim world was living its own Dark Ages. …. So what’s our way out of this Dark Age? Europe got the printing press. What about 21st century Middle East? What do we get?

And that’s when it dawned on me. The internet.

This new technology, barely a decade old, was the answer. With the internet, people on all sides of the world could communicate quickly and efficiently. Once an idea got out there, no group could attempt to shut it down, because it was part of the intangible world called cyberspace. ….

A Revolution is bubbling underneath the shrouds of ignorance. It will not happen overnight, but everyday is a step closer to it. I recently discovered an Arab blog network called Toot, yet another step towards our “Revolution”. This network is a window into the new world of Arab blogging, in which Arabs from all over the world can interact, reading each other’s blogs and publishing their own. (Ah, the power of globalization.) And not only does the site have great packaging, but, can you believe it, substance! Its stuff like this that the Arab and Muslim world needs to move forward in today’s world. ….”

Read all of the post here.

I don’t know if we ever mentioned this before, but we here at toot are not only interested in providing the best content, but we’re also interested in making sure that this great content is represented in a visually pleasing manner- you know, eye candy!
So, we decided to run a competition to choose the best designed blogs on toot, and there will be some cool and valuable prizes to snag. So go ahead, tweak your blogs, sugarcoat them and add a little razzle dazzle before the competition starts!

Update: Here are some tips from tooter and design guru Ahmad, “To the toot bloggers I say: throw out the “fancy stuff”. Clean up your pages. Organize your content. Get your fonts in shape. And make it legible and visually interesting.”

This is amazing, who would like to have a fiber optic cable connection in his house? Well I’d love to have a 20Mb connection at home and use it for HDTV, VoIP and browsing.

In 1999, when I was a student in Amman, I read an article in a Jordanian newspaper that there was a plan to build a fiber optic network all over Amman within 10 years, it made me laugh hard. Anyway, here it is! What will it be used for, how much would it cost etc. is the question, lets just wait and see.

This month at toot we have good news and bad news, lets start with the good news.
Wael, toot’s designer, just had his first baby girl, Joon. She is cute, don’t you think?
The bad news is that Jad, our geek at toot, had to go into surgery for his dislocated shoulder, the poor guy will have to stay at home tied for 5 weeks! (or maybe he’s lucky :p)

Mabrouk Wael and Salamat Jad.

The Egyptian toot bloggers have a lot to say about the seceterian clashes occuring between Muslims and Christians.

Check out Jar Il Qamar’s first-hand witness impressions of what happened (Arabic).
“تنتابني افكار عده .. و تصلني مشاعر متباينه .. غضب ديني؟؟ .. غضب من الحكومه ؟؟ غضب من سلبية قياداتهم ام غضب من امتهان انسانية جماعه لحساب اخرى ؟؟
كان غضب المتجمهرين اشبه ما يكون بغضب من رأيت من متظاهري كفايه .. لولا الطابع الديني .. كان البعض يطلب قدوم المحافظ .. و البعض يطلب وزير الداخليه شخصيا .. تحكي لي سيدة عن احباط غياب العداله : لو مسكوه بس و عرفنا انه اتحاسب حاستريح
..
يزداد عدد المتجمهرين و يزداد اللغط بينهم .. حتى الآن لم يتطور الموقف الى هتافات او شعارات .. مناوشات هنا و هناك فحسب .. شكوى بالظلم .. سيدات من اقارب القتيل يبكين .. و رجال يصرخون بعصبيه ”

Freedom for Egyptians:
“The illogical vague explanation and handling of the Egyptian official media and the government to the Alexandria violence is not helping any party. In fact, it leaves lots of unanswered questions and rooms for rumors to flame more violence.

Some other funny official stories blamed Friday violence on Denmark’s Muhammed Cartoons. Should we understand that if they were not published Egyptian Copts would have enjoyed equal rights and full-fledged citizenhip? The easiest way to escape taking responsibility and taking responsibility seriously is to lay the blame on others.”

Justice for All:
هذه الهمجية الوحشية القذرة….هذا الفعل الوسخ العفن ..وهذا السلوك اللعين ..يحتاج من كل مسلم في مصر ان يقف مع نفسه ويسال ..ماهذا بحق الله ؟. كيف يمكن ان يصنع هذا بشرا فضلا عن ان يكون مسلم ؟

ماهذا الخراء بحق الله ؟
اي دين تؤمنون به ؟؟؟واي مبادئ واي وطنية ؟
ما هذا العته ؟؟؟
ماذا جري لكم ما مسلمين ؟؟؟؟
نكستم دينكم في الارض والله…وانتهكتم حرمة الله سواء الذي فعل الجريمة او ارتضاها او تواطئ فيها او بررها او شارك في صناعة الاسباب التي ادت اليها
ما هذا ؟ اي حب لمحمد ؟ واي جهاد ؟ ما هذا الخراء الذي تلطخوه بالله ورسوله كلما ” حزقتك ” خراءة تسميها دينية”

Big Pharaoh:
“Today I am ashamed to be called an Egyptian. This happening in my country??!! Someone please wake me from this nightmare. In the absence of a Cross, Quran, or a banner, you couldn’t really differentiate between the two.”

Finally, here is a little from the Sandmonkey on how local Egyptian media is dealing:

“The local media disgusts me. I sat down yesterday trying to see any coverage on any of the national or satelite News channels about the clashes that were occuring yesterday and there was nothing. Zip, Zilch, Nada. No one mentioned it in details, just in passing. Instead our great egyptian TV gave us the Miss Egypt contest, which was really awful, because the girls were FUGLY. Check out the contestents here and weep. The country was very normal, as if nothing happend in Alex at all. On the surface everything was calm in Cairo.

Well, this shit did happen, and it might continue happening today. And since our national and international media don’t want to show the images of yesterday’s clashes, I will right here. Just because you didn’t see it on TV, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen people. God bless blogs, because the media sucks. There you go!”

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