Amr Eldib's Blog

I was watching the first episode of Black Mirror season 3 couple of nights ago titled ‘Nosedive’. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna give any spoilers. But it’s about a world where ranking on s...

https://amreldib.com//blog/SocialMediaWithoutAttentionIncentives/

I’ve just finished watching Troy Hunt’s video on how he prepares for speaking at conferences. I was happy to see that he does dry runs in the same manner that I do; pacing at the living room...

https://amreldib.com//blog/PreparingForATalk/

Last night and this morning, everyone is talking about how one developer took down big number of large JavaScript projects by removing his modules from NPM . People always talk about how NPM is...

https://amreldib.com//blog/HowToUseIpfsToFixNpm/

UPDATE (NOV. 26, 2016): Cmder 1.3 changed how customizations work. This change was for the better, it’s simpler to apply this customization, you only need to drop in one file in the CONFIG fold...

https://amreldib.com//blog/CustomizeWindowsCmderPrompt/

My longest streak on GitHub is 129 days. I was aiming for 200 days during a time when I wanted to have measurement for my commitment to learning more stuff, and doing more side work. One day I ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/ProxyGoalsAndActualGoals/

I like to capitalize the first letters in names that doesn’t allow for spaces. It makes it easier to read. Consider this name ‘fixjekyllcasesensitiveurlsongithubpages’ compared to this ‘...

https://amreldib.com//blog/FixJekyllCaseSensitiveUrlsOnGitHubPages/

I work in Technical Support, and I participate in a number of online communities. Not a week goes by without shaking my head when reading a question by someone seeking technical help. I consider...

https://amreldib.com//blog/HowToAskAQuestion/

I got a chance last Tuesday to give a session at MaptimeYVR titled 'Intro to GitHub'. It was a lot of fun and a great chance to meet everybody. MaptimeYVR is getting more interesting with every ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/IntroToGitHubTalk/

I spend a lot of time now in the Firefox Dev Tools. The console has a very nice dark theme which makes things easier but some times that’s not enough. You can find the font a little small (whic...

https://amreldib.com//blog/ChangeStyleOfFirefoxDevTools/

TL;DR: for Firefox users, here’s how to integrate Windows Authentication to enable logging like IE (without entering credentials). I use Firefox as my primary browser. At work, we’ve just s...

https://amreldib.com//blog/EnableWindowsAuthenticationInFirefox/

I use a lot of software, and always there’s a nagging voice in head saying “you’re not using the latest version. Update. Update. Update”. Of course, sometimes that nagging voice is up on ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/Chocolatey/

I’ve tried many ways to easily share items from my browser to any of the social networks I’m using. Addons came close to working fine but I always worry (maybe unreasonably) about their load ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/ShareToSocialNetworksUsingBrowserBookmarks/

Out-of-Office Replies are very helpful and, I must admit, very annoying. I’d love to maximize the first part and minimize the last. I only want to know that someone is out-of-office if I addres...

https://amreldib.com//blog/OutlookOutOfOfficeAutoReplyOnlyToEmailsDirectedToMe/

TL;DR Follow these steps to add a bookmark to your browser that opens YouTube videos in a popup window. Aside from my laptop, I use two monitors. This allows my to “multitask” which is fanc...

https://amreldib.com//blog/OpenYouTubeVideosInPopUpWindowWithBookmark/

Today, a colleague at work was trying to modify a configuration file in XML format. He wasn’t sure what were the available options for a certain attribute, so we started looking for an answ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/HowToTurnXmlSchemaXsdToDocumentation/

I was testing Windows 8.1 when I saw something that I liked very much; better Arabic font. I wasn’t going to wait to upgrade all my machines to Windows 8.1 (if I ever do) to get that font. So, ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/UpgradeWindowsFontForBetterArabicReadability/

This is my technical blog. My personal blog , where I write mostly in my native Arabic, is hosted on Tumblr which is a nice platform but is really bad in supporting Arabic and other RTL languag...

https://amreldib.com//blog/AddRtlSupportAndWebFontsToTumblrPosts/

This is gold. Recently, I’ve attended a developers’ conference and some of the sessions were a model for how to deliver a passionless boring lecture done so nicely that the only thing interr...

https://amreldib.com//blog/HowToRuinYourTechnicalSessionIn10EasySteps/

Everybody loves command centers. We all would love to be Capitan Kirk, setting there seeing information coming in from all over the place, and we can act on it without having to do much work. T...

https://amreldib.com//blog/RealTimeGisUsingSignalrAndEsriJsapi/

A quick look on Twitter, you notice how quickly the Internet is going through the five stages of grief over the shutdown of Google Reader . Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Accept...

https://amreldib.com//blog/FiveStagesOfGriefOverGoogleReaderShutdown/

We all love Intellisense in Visual Studio, but with JavaScript is a little difficult to do that given it’s a dynamic language. However, most JavaScript libraries now comes with VSDoc files that...

https://amreldib.com//blog/UsingIntellisenseWithEsriJsapiInVisualStudio/

“The Cloud is coming”. Actually, it’s more like “The cloud is here”. It’s being forced upon us on every platform (Almost every platform, at least, Windows, OSX, iOS, Ubuntu and Andro...

https://amreldib.com//blog/PersonalClouds/

A little over two years ago, a group of techies got together for a Skype conversation. Mohamed Meligy tells the story . It was a great talk and we really enjoyed it, he says and I remember. Wha...

https://amreldib.com//blog/EgyGeeksBuildingOnlineCommunity/

I’ve blogged a year ago about App Stores, calling that everybody gets an App Store or as Scott Hanselman tweeted it “There’s an App Store for that!”. I had hope for Microsoft to build a...

https://amreldib.com//blog/AppStoreForTheRestOfUs/

With all the different PCs between work and home, desktops and laptops, synchronization is becoming very important. I wanted to sync blog drafts between different computers which turned out to be...

https://amreldib.com//blog/SyncWindowsLiveWriterPostsBetweenComputers/

Who doesn’t already know Firefox ? But what other projects is Mozilla working on? I’ve taken an interest lately in finding out more about Mozilla. I think it all started with reading some ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/MozillaBeyondFirefox/

I was reading this blog post on Planet Mozilla feed on the moral dilemma on using Ad blockers and I left a comment that is the idea behind this post. I use an Ad blocker and I’m aware that I...

https://amreldib.com//blog/OnAdBlocking/

My main protection against hard drive failure for a long time has been RAID 1 . I would get two identical hard drives and RAID them so that everything I do on the first drive would be replicated ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/MirroringHardDrivesUsingPowerShellAndSyncToy/

Couple of days ago, I downloaded and installed the latest beta of Adobe Flash (11.2.202.18 Beta 1). I downloaded the IE version and the non-IE version, and the x64 version. I like to test out the...

https://amreldib.com//blog/HowToRuinYourPublicBeta/

Last week, I found a great PowerShell tutorial over at Pluralsight (by Robert Cain ). PowerShell has been a topic that I wanted to learn about for quite a while. As any power user/geek type of p...

https://amreldib.com//blog/PowerShellStudyNotes/

A few weeks I started with the hardware in Part 1 , today I continue with the software and services. OPERATING SYSTEM Windows, what else? For a .NET developer, it’s really difficult to use a...

https://amreldib.com//blog/WhatIUsePart2/

One way you can tell a geek is by looking at their setup. Setup is not just computer, OS and applications, but all surrounding elements that they use on daily basis. And it’s not the elements o...

https://amreldib.com//blog/WhatIUsePart1/

I, like most bloggers out there, love Windows Live Writer. One problem I have with it is that I have to set it up whenever I re-install Windows. Long ago I found that I can backup all my posts (...

https://amreldib.com//blog/HowToFixWlwBackupProblemWithWindowsx64/

When I hear all the news about all the new app stores for the big three (Apple, Google and Microsoft), all I can think of is Opera giving away cars to her audience. “You get a Car, You get a Ca...

https://amreldib.com//blog/EverybodyGetsAnAppStore/

One very common problem that occurs when a new team takes over an existing project is their desire to “just move some stuff around”. That’s a code word for “I can’t believe that you’r...

https://amreldib.com//blog/DontHateMyCode/

I love VMs. To have a sandbox inside which there’s an operating system of your choice where you can try anything and not fear its effect on your host machine, that is empowering. I started u...

https://amreldib.com//blog/VMBasedDevelopmentEnvironment/

Read the Part 1 for an intro to this post. The AppLogger class is a class I use to encapsulate log4net and make easy to use. By “ease of use” I mean less lines for me to write to start log...

https://amreldib.com//blog/ConfiguringLog4netPart2/

It’s been quite a while since I started using log4net for logging, and it changed how I debug applications. I found it much easier to find the source of an error by reading the log after the ap...

https://amreldib.com//blog/ConfiguringLog4netPart1/

I like Bing and I’ve been using it since its launch last year. One of the ways that can improve my experience with Bing is to make it easier to filter search results by a certain URL. I do thi...

https://amreldib.com//blog/FilteringSearchResultsBySite/

A year ago, I released an Arabic translation for my favorite alternative of Windows Explorer, Cubic Explorer. After a year of updates of the software, I thought the translation might need some u...

https://amreldib.com//blog/UpdatedReleaseOfArabicTranslationForCubicExplorer/

It’s been a good year for Firefox and Mozilla. They released the 3.5 version with lots of improvements. We celebrated five years of Firefox. Ubiquity has become more stable, got lots more of...

https://amreldib.com//blog/NewFirefoxAddonsCollection/

It’s clear to me with every newly released version of a web application that we need a mechanism for users to choose which web app release to use. With the rollout of new features in Facebook...

https://amreldib.com//blog/VersioningWebApps/

There are many Windows Explorer alternatives available on the web. The one that I’m using is CubicExplorer which is pretty cool. It supports tabs, saving sessions, multiple sessions, bookmarks...

https://amreldib.com//blog/CubicExplorerArabicTranslationAvailable/

With everyone reviewing the first “beta” of Windows 7, I wouldn’t say that this is a first look. If you haven’t seen these snapshots before, you’re definitely not online. Two quick no...

https://amreldib.com//blog/Windows7MissingPoint/

It’s probably not news by now, but you should know up front. I  really like Firefox. I favor it over IE , Chrome , that Apple thing , Opera , and even Oprah (these are the only links I could ...

https://amreldib.com//blog/HowFirefoxCanOutlastOtherBrowsers/

If you’re following up with the US presidential election these days, you probably heard about Bill Clinton praising Sarah Palin and describing her as a candidate who can’t be underestimated....

https://amreldib.com//blog/RaisingExpectations/

I must confess something. Google Reader really changed a part of my life. Before it, I used to spend - at least - 5 times the time I’m spending now to keep track of all those web sites and blog...

https://amreldib.com//blog/WhatGoogleReaderIsMissing/

It doesn’t really matter why exactly help system has become inefficient (if it ever were efficient). That fact by itself is not that important unless we do something about it. If you’re devel...

https://amreldib.com//blog/WhyHelpSuck2/

Ever used the help system? Of course you have. Hated it? Of course you did. No body likes to go into the Help menu and just browse the Help Content. Everybody seems to try to use those other reso...

https://amreldib.com//blog/WhyHelpSuck1/

Of course by now you already know that Firefox 3 has been released yesterday. Instead of just talking about how great the new version seems to be, I’m gonna cover the release coverage. Here’s...

https://amreldib.com//blog/Firefox3/

So, looks like Acrobat 9 is getting map support. But instead of talking about what is it exactly what Acrobat 9 is supporting (which you find here ), I’m gonna focus on with the question "why"....

https://amreldib.com//blog/GettingOnTheGeoTrain/

Yesterday, I watched the new “Get A Mac” ad. And unlike other ads before, no new Mac features were introduced and the joke wasn’t even that funny. There is no doubt about the fact that M...

https://amreldib.com//blog/ItsGettingReallyOld/

I was watching TV this morning and I went through my 37-channels favorite list and I found nothing interesting to watch. So, I turned to the TV guide. I don’t use the guide that much so here’...

https://amreldib.com//blog/PersonalizedTvGuide/

When I tell anyone one that I work in GIS and tell them about what it’s about, I always get the response of "Oh, I know what that is, it’s the little screen in my car with the navigator". No...

https://amreldib.com//blog/GisGpsLbsGeoweb/

I think it would be fair to say that there seem to be a competition going on between Microsoft and Google. It’s ridiculous to deny it since Microsoft is making all of those moves to compete wit...

https://amreldib.com//blog/MicrosoftVsGoogle/

As you use the Internet on daily basis, either in work or home or both, for business or pleasure, you spend more and more time in front of your browser. Over the last month, I’ve been trying to...

https://amreldib.com//blog/InternetDayToDayToolsForGeeksOnly/

As the year is coming to an end, everyone is gazing into the future and making predictions for 2008. So, I thought I’d gaze a little into the future of Windows.. Windows 7 is the codename for...

https://amreldib.com//blog/Windows7Rumors/

Ever wondered how firefox is still running even though all of Mozilla’s products are for free.. First, it must be denotations, the “Best Browser Implementing Web Standards” - according to...

https://amreldib.com//blog/HowFirefoxMakesMoney/

Welcome to my blog, This is my second trial to have a blog, visit my my old blog at live spaces. last time I tried to write complete full articles about technologies. even though that was great,...

https://amreldib.com//blog/WelcomeToMyBlog/