note: The application that I am about to discuss has a promotion whereby any reviewer of the application is rewarded with a license. While this might seem to introduce bias, I will try my best to be as objective as is possible.

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PicLens: Learn More

I just wanted to share with you my thoughts on an awesome app that I have come across. If you use the mac web browser called Safari and you love viewing online photos on sites such as Flickr and PhotoBucket then you definitely should check out PicsLens. This awesome free plugin turns the photos into a slideshow of sorts complete with fullscreen mode and controls. It is really slick and stable for a beta build (i.e the program is not yet finished) and I have really enjoyed it on Flickr. However, my only complaint is that it only works on a handful of websites. It would be awesome if it could be updated to work on any online gallery. However as I am not a coder I don’t know if it is feasible or not. Nevertheless, it has really made browsing online photos more enjoyable for me, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to any photo lover.

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I was sitting there feeling really, really tired and I was going to go sleep when I looked up and saw that the clock on the wall was an hour ahead of my computer’s clock and thats when it hit me, the clocks went back an hour! Mmm an “extra” hr of sleep! Boy do I need it after a hectic week in college and several intense workout sessions. Oh well I am feeling sleepy…so very sleepy…bye!

While I was in Saudi, around August, my beloved iPod Shuffle passed away for no apparent reason! I adored the little bugger and I used it everyday for the past year. One day I was updating it and it just conked out on me! I couldn’t format it, I couldn’t mount it, it was bricked! I googled it and I was blown away with what I saw. There were thousands of people that were having the same thing!!! PC users and Mac users alike were experiencing it however the claims ranged from Apple has a built in timer that bricks it after 1 yr! to it was a firmware issue. I thought that neither were true since I hadn’t updated it firmware. Anyways despite my best attempts at administering CPR, I pronounced him dead and I became the proud owner of an iPod Nano 2GB!! Well you can imagine my astonishment when I checked my RSS reader today and one mac blog had an article on the iPod Shuffle. Apparently you could download a tool from Apple that would perform some Voodoo on it and resurrect it! I jumped to the Apple Support page and low and behold the tool existed!! I downloaded it, dug out my dead pod, and crossed my fingers. And then lightning shot from the ceiling accompanied with screams of ITS ALIIIIIIIIVE!! and the little bugger rebooted and showed up in iTunes 7.0!! Happy times indeed! I don’t care what sacrifice was made to the iPod gods but it was worth it because now I have 2 iPods! Continue reading this post…

Hello there! I am well and able to blog again. My last post was sometime in June and it was a happy one indeed. The whole world was engrossed in the World Cup, Uni was out, and the weather in Beirut, Lebanon, was gorgeous. However, as the saying goes, there was trouble brewing in paradise. My life, and the lives of some 3.5 million souls, was about to take a dramatic turn. Literally in 3 days, we went from having everything to literally being in a war zone. Lebanon was plummeted into a war that spiraled out of control for over a month.

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Hello again and here comes another World Cup related post. My blog is starting to resemble a World Cup only blog, but who can blame me as its the World Cup for crying out loud!!! The first match of Group C has finished with Argentina beating the Ivory Coast 2 goals to 1. It was a thrilling match with loads of tackles, fake injuries!, controversial decisions, saves and nerve shaking moments. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I am sure that everybody else who watched it did, because it was such an explosive match. The Argentinean players were lightning quick, determined to win and highly skilled as were the Ivory Coast players. With Argentina being heavily favored to win, they eventually did but it was anything but easy. Ivory Coast had some great shots on goal but only 1 produced a result. Their defense was also really tight and that gave some top Argentinean strikers some headaches. The Ivory Coast kept the heat on despite a 2 goal deficit and that persistence paid off with a fabulous goal towards the end of the match that seemed to ignite the stadium (and everyone else in my room!) . It really was a really entertaining match and even Diego Maradona was having a good time! Wow I can’t believe that I managed to watch all 3 matches today but I sure as heck don’t regret it!! There was some fantastic football played today, some surprising upsets, and tons of quality passes and shots. Great stuff. Unfortunately I am going to have to study for my finals tomorrow and after tomorrow so I am going to have to miss some matches. Oh well!!

The title says it all really.  I have just finished watching the 3rd World Cup match and it was such an amazing spectacle that I just had to spread the love!.  In fact it was more like an epic than a football match.  The tiny islands of Trinidad and Tobago (I will respectfully refer to Trinidad and Tobago  as T&T from here on) were up against the might of Sweden in a match that was supposedly going to yield a thrashing of the islanders. But nobody could have predicted the outcome.  While some cocky fans and journalists were touting figures such as a 4-0 score against T&T the reality was more like 0-0.  The Swedes were creamed by the little country that could.  Trinidad and Tobago’s first World Cup match ever was by all accounts a smashing success.  While they had entered the game with nothing but smiles on their faces and the expectations of a crushing defeat by the hands of Sweden they fought with more tenacity and courage than any other team in my opinion.  It was a thrilling match with the Swedes’ top international strikers not able to get a single goal.  T&T’s defense was amazing to begin with but was even more amazing when they were reduced to 10 men with a top striker being sent off due to a red card at the start of the second half.  With just 10 men T&T fought on and kept the game tied for an incredible 92 minutes without a single goal being conceived.  I also loved what happened at the end of the match.  The T&T’s fans looked like they had just won the tournament!  It was like a massive carnival with songs, dances, and cheers filling the stadium (and my home theater!). There was no violence or abuse by the Swedish fans. In fact the fans, although obviously distraught and upset, were congratulating the T&T fans and shaking their hands. There was no animosity or ill fate that unfortunately has occurred in the past between rival fans after a defeat. It was such a great sight. I could keep on rattling on and maybe later on I will update this but I just had to post this message because it was such an entertaining game and one which, for me, really made me happy and match that  highlighted how beautiful the beautiful game can be when violence, racism and ill intentions, that are sometimes present at matches, are absent. This has been a stunning and surprising 2 days of football in what looks like is going to be an unforgettable World Cup with tons of surprises, upsets, and tales of remarkable victories . The 3rd match of the day is going to kick off so I am gonna grab some supper and then watch it (because this is just an incredibly entertaining World Cup), I will see you later, bye.