I’ve been keeping my head under my facebook hood working, fixing and debugging my little cute apps , I’m still working on my facebook “Empire” of apps, and getting there really slowly !

So here is a listing of the apps I’ve done so far at their (Not so best)

Horoscopes 2 (Formerly Yozz) -> It’s much simpler and straightforward in version 2 !
Fun Social -> My test to see how fast does socialinterview.com clones grow ! (Impressive)
My Badge -> A friend badging system, I just had an Idea that connecting with people through badges would’ve been cool, but it wasn’t ! haha
Scratch & win -> A scratch card simulator, where you get 5 free cards daily to scratch and “Always win something funny”, I’ve translated it in Arabic to for fellow Egyptians/Arabs !=]

Well, I’ve also done some stupid apps like (How luck are you today, which is floating around 2k users, and some of those crappy quizzes)

The apps are not performing at their best at the moment, as I just started newly on facebook dev and am probably still a toddler !, but I’ve created those apps for the purpose of learning the F8 platform, and know what my users really need!

I’m starting to reach my goals , and I’m working harder everyday to get those apps up and running like never before

I’ve got a proud userbase of 10k users and I really love all of those folks !!

I’m cenralizing my apps on facebook so my users get one Look and feel to know me, I’m planning to build a better way for facebook apps to work, and will build greater social tools and games (I’ve got tons of them in mind) and That’s what I love to do

I’m still on/off on advertisement for revenue, so sometimes you’ll find ads, sometimes not, I still have no idea how I’ll work that out, but I’m sure i’ll reach a decision and you’ll know about it:)

Hope you had fun reading this post, It’s just a little piece of info about my trial on facebook apps and how i’m planning to use them for a living !

C ya

I’ve had hours of frustration, days of head banging and much worse while I started developing Facebook Apps !, So I thought I should write up a little post that will give you 10 important notes you should keep in mind before starting your next hit app !

In the next few points i’ll be discussing how your app should work, how it should look, and what it should contain to become a great app !, so read along

1. You need to do good research before you start working on your app !, The app might already be there, so make sure you look around really good before making any steps forward.
2. To build a hit app, you must utilise all of the platform’s integration points !, from publishing to user’s walls, telling his/her friends about action he/she has done in your app, Integrating a profile box and a tab (Tabs and boxes will be deprecated) , Find every single piece of integration and use it !, this is the real strength points and what makes facebook a great platform !
3. If users like your app, give them an option to become a fan of your app, it will grab potential users !, Fans have been a great way to get more users, and it actually goes exponential!, so as soon as you implement it in your app, You’ll find a great impact on the number of users of your app !
4. Advertisement ? Well you need to think alot about it and find a good strategy !, as advertisement tends to blow away your users!, You don’t want to load your app with ads so the user gets disoriented and leave right away, Keep the main important parts of your App where the user interacts clean and neat !, I find banner ads of a good simple design on top or bottom of the page a good practice !Avoid advertisement as much as you can !, Try to find a better way to get money out of your application, integrate virtual currency, use paypal or Spare Change , If advertisement is a must, then find a nice way to add them to your app !
5. Add the option to invite, but don’t force users to do so. Inviting is a way to allow users to share your app with their friends if they like it !, instead of copying/pasting the app URL, and confusing users.
   Inviting can be great, but If you start forcing users to do so will deter them right away!, I’ve seen apps where you had to answer 15 questions about your friends to see what your friends have said about you, and much uglier things !
   Forcing users to do things is to be avoided at any cost !
6. Love your users, Contact them as soon as there’s new options in your app, Ask for their opinion, Interact with them and allow them to express their selves on your app !, People will want to come to your app to have fun and this will keep them coming back !
7. The developer wiki IS your best friend, and only friend !, You must visit the wiki ALOT to learn about any changes, The facebook platform is under constant change all the time !, you must be aware of every single change and every single modification to come !. you must be aware of your platform !
8. Be really, really creative !, Facebook doesn’t need “Yet another gifting program”, Facebook needs applications to use !, and needs applications to solve real world problems and perhaps add options that you think Facebook is missing !
9. Your design must be Intuitive, and your users shouldn’t be able to differentiate between your app and Facebook’s design !, When you design your app to seamlessly integrate into Facebook, users will be more comfortable with it !
   Loading your app up with strange buttons, funny looking fonts, etc.. user’s won’t know where to go, what is a button and what isn’t and you will end up going a road you don’t really want to !
10. Facebook Connect ?? , YEAH !. Facebook connect is a great way of brining Facebook users and their Identity to your website !
    It’s a great practice outside your app, If your app basically doesn’t run inside facebook, just use facebook connect, you will integrate the power of Facebook into your webapp or desktop app, without the need to go to facebook !, Connect is growing really fast, more and more websites are using facebook Connect and It is becoming more popular between end-users , so it will be a great addition to your app to be able to connect Facebook identities !

Ok to sum up, I discussed the 10 main points you had to know before working on your next hit app, however, I haven’t “Technically” discussed it , I haven’t told you how to write your first app and how to code it, but i’ll talk about it in another post soon.

Have fun on Facebook:)

so what is fring ?

simply:
MSN, ICQ, AIM, GTalk, VoIP, Skype, etc.. on your cell phone

so you can now take all of this into one contact list and just call them for free

it’s really great , just a simple app like fring made my day, no, my entire week

i’ll start calling friends way cheaper now using my cell phone !

so ttyl

oh btw, It’s got facebook, gmail checker, and many other sweet addons that you’ll love

so make sure you get it now !

http://www.fring.com

I’m glad to announce the Official launch of webbstr.com !

The launch time stamp is : Wednesday, 28th of May 2008. 4:04:15 AM.

check the website and give any feedbacks you want !

I’m all ears

I’ve been using Google hacker as my default start page for a long time now, and i thought i should share it ! for people that don’t know what google hacker is:

It’s a google webpage targeted for hackers, the entire page is written in leet speak “1337″

the page can be found at:
http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/

also some other variations:

Google for linux
http://www.google.com/linux

Google for BSD (Cute lil beastie )
http://www.google.com/bsd

There might be others i’m not aware of, but those are the ones that caught my intrest

use one of them on firefox and you’ll p0wn the world

If you don’t know what Linux, BSD, Hacker, Firefox or what even Google is, this post isn’t for you

Have fun !:)

I checked the link they gave right away:
http://betavine.net/web/guest/projects/students/egypt_competition

It’s a great way to develop better mobile applications, but the problem they’re not getting lots of developers, till now “since yesterday”, the competition’s forum has only 3 posts me and two other guys !

It’s really weird that we don’t have much developers interested in the idea !

I’m in there not because of the money “5,000 EUR” , but because I’m interested in mobility and socializing using mobile devices !, It has much better and endless uses, and I’d like to test my potential in this field.

So I started working on my project right away and hopefully I’ll reach something !:)

wish me luck

I just wanted to use my Nokia N73 as a modem to get internet while on the go or in a place without a hotspot !, how ? read on !

First of all, I’m running on Ubuntu Gutsy.

secondly , I’m using a Nokia N73. Not all phones work same !

Third, My provider is Vodafone Egypt, Not all countries/providers work the same!

1. I started by connecting my phone to the USB cable into my box.
2. Check if you have a wvdial.conf file “/etc/wvdial.conf” you might want to backup ! “cp /etc/wvdial.conf /etc/wvdial.conf.bak”
3. Configure wvdial , type “sudo wvdialconf”
4. You will see some information text scrolling, wait till it’s finished.
5. After wvdialconf has finished it’s work, It dumps all it’s settings into a new “/etc/wvdial.conf” file !
6. head over /etc and open it, type “sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf” I prefer vim, but you choose your favourite editor.
7. read out the settings for your phone device in my case: “/dev/ttyACM0″ , yours can be “/dev/ttyUSB0″ or something similar depending on your phone and USB ports !
8. To make it work in Egypt, I had to tweak the settings and find Init strings to make it work !, Finally , I have found the right settings and it works, Make sure your wvdial.conf file looks like mine : REMEMBER (Vodafone, Egypt, NokiaN73): http://www.mostafaberg.com/share/wvdial.conf
9. Now you are all set !, If you are in a different country, check this link out: it’s a great place to find wvdial.conf files http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=633981
10. Now you’re ready to connect !
11. Open up a new terminal window, connect using “sudo wvdial” command, watch what happens, if it works, you should get something like this output:

WvDial<*1>: WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.56
WvModem<*1>: Cannot get information for serial port.
WvDial<*1>: Initializing modem.
WvDial<*1>: Sending: ATZ
WvDial Modem<*1>: OK
WvDial<*1>: Sending: ATZ
WvDial Modem<*1>: ATZ
WvDial Modem<*1>: OK
WvDial<*1>: Sending: ATE0V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2
WvDial Modem<*1>: ATE0V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2
WvDial Modem<*1>: OK
WvDial<*1>: Sending: AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”internet.vodafone.net”;
WvDial Modem<*1>: OK
WvDial<*1>: Modem initialized.
WvDial<*1>: Sending: ATDT*99***1#
WvDial<*1>: Waiting for carrier.
WvDial Modem<*1>: CONNECT
WvDial Modem<*1>: ~[7f]}#@!}!} } }2}#}$@#}!}$}%\}”}&} }*} } g}%~
WvDial<*1>: Carrier detected. Starting PPP immediately.
WvDial: Starting pppd at Tue Apr 1 01:59:32 2008
WvDial: Pid of pppd: 14872
WvDial<*1>: Using interface ppp0
WvDial<*1>: local IP address xx.xxx.xx.2xx
WvDial<*1>: remote IP address 1x.xx.xx.xx
WvDial<*1>: primary DNS address 1xx.1×1.1xx.1xx
WvDial<*1>: secondary DNS address 1xx.1×1.xxx.1xx

Voila!, You’re online !!

Hope you like this mini tutorial =]

It has been a crazy week (Month & year too) hehe

I’ve been playing around topcoder till my eyes turned into a C shell ! lol

I’ve also been developing Djanitor, my Documentation generation tool mainly for C, and other languages too !

the idea behind the project started by a friend of mine Mahmoud aslan, he told me that our friend Ahmed Sammoud was writing Tornado OS, and wanted some sort of documentation generation tool, so I decided to write one, to be used by me in my projects, and to be the tool Ahmed wanted

My code is hosted on launchpad, http://www.launchpad.net

It’s licensed under GPL.

Visit it’s home here:
http://www.launchpad.net/djanitor

The code is still too early to do anything, but soon it will, I’m always working on it in my free time !

want to contribute ? I’d love to !:), visit the project, contact me and we’ll work all together !:)

have a great day !:)

My first post in 2008 !:p

Everything is going great here, I’m now on topcoder;), I just setup my computer to run the Arena !>:), hopefully i’ll get familiar with the Arena and start coding too !

I’m in the phase of getting familiar with it , and deciding which language to use, I’m confused between C++ and Java !

If you’ve got any ideas , leave a comment !:)

Topcoder is a great place to have fun with code , I really love the idea and will stay there in my spare time writing code..

check it out:
http://www.topcoder.com