Moussa Dao's Blog

Needless to say that I oppose SOPA, another bill introduced by Texas R-Representative Lamar Smith that favors big media and stop freedom & innovation in the web. These companies cannot compete in today’s new mobile, social, and open arena and are relying on their deep pockets and corrupt friends in congress. If you use open source products; have a smart phone; are using facebook, twitter, YouTube; purchase stuff on Amazon.com and EBay, use search engines, you need to call your Representative and voice your opposition to this bill. If this bill passes the internet will never be the same again. Many of the Reps who support this bill are the same crying everyday about deficit, cutting spending, did not want to extend employment benefits, yet they want the FBI to take on new duties. Where is the money going to come from?

It is not the job of the FBI to foreclose on my house and evict me if I am unable to pay my mortgage. There are legal venues available to the lenders to take actions against me and repossess their property. The same is true for IPs. There are already legal venues available to IP owners to take actions against entities they believe are violating their IPs. It is not the job of the FBI to play web police and do their jobs for them.

A lot of people are planning to purchase a flat screen TV this holiday season but, how does one select a flat screen TV? Plasma/LCD/LED?

Plasma is little better technology than LCD and LED but more expensive. The main down side of plasma is “burning effect”. Most retails stores only carry LCD and LED anyway. So, I will focus on LCD and LED TVs. Since most people reading this blog are not techie, I will make this simple and focus only on 4 characteristics of a flat screen TV.
1. The first decision is LCD or LED. LED is superior technology so if 2 TVs have the same characteristics and features, the LED will more expensive. But LED is not the only price determination factor. Let’s move to the next key characteristic.
2. Resolution: 1080p or 720p. It is now rare to see 480p. The higher the resolution, the better the quality of the image. But it is not all about the resolution. The resolution alone does not create a great qualify, that is when the frequently kicks in.
3. Display frequency: Most TVs on the market have 60Hz, 120 Hz, and 240 Hz. The higher the frequency the better the quality. I recommend buying 120Hz or higher frequency. TVs with 60Hz are not a good buy. Most cheap LCD or LED TVs are 60 Hz.
4. Last but not least, the size of the TV: 32”, 42”… The size has nothing to do with the quality. This is all about preference and what you can afford. It goes without saying that the larger the size the most expensive the TV. But if you want to purchase large size, meaning 42” or higher, do not purchase it in 720p and 60 Hz; make sure it is 1080p and 120Hz or higher.

Let’s be little practical.

• A 32” LED 1080p 120 Hz TV is better and more expensive than a 32” LCD 1080p 120 Hz TV
• A 32” LCD 1080p 120 Hz TV is better and more expensive than a 32” LCD 1080p 60 Hz TV
• A 32” LCD 1080p 60 Hz TV is better and more expensive than a 32” LCD 720p 60 Hz TV
• A 32” LCD 720p 60 Hz TV is better and more expensive than a 32” LCD 480p 60 Hz TV

If you can, try to purchase a “1080p and 120 Hz or higher”.

Reports are coming out that Sprint will be the exclusive carrier of the iPhone 5. It looks this is a result of the deal with Apple. The Wall Street Journal reported that Sprint signed a purchase agreement with Apple for 30.5 millions iPhone 5 over the next 4 years. The 30.5 millions iPhone 5 will cost Sprint 20 Billion dollars; meaning Sprint will pay $656 per phone.

Until now, Sprint and T-Mobile have been left out in iPhone saga. If these reports are true, this will be a big boost for Sprint, which has been struggling to catch with the big 2; ATT and Verizon. Sprint is the only mobile provider to still provide unlimited data plan. Apple has a media day tomorrow and we expect Apple to announce the iPhone 5.

I have heard all types of complains about the changes on Facebook. I have bad news for those who complained. Get used to it! Facebook is a technology company and all technology companies have release cycle for new products or updates. The example many people can understand is Microsoft Windows release cycle. Every 3or 4 years, Microsoft releases a new version of Windows. But 18 months, 3 or 4 years release cycle are going away. With the rise of Cloud Computing and Social Media, the level of competition and the pace of innovation have increased. As the result, release cycles for most technology companies in social media and cloud computing are now between 3 and 6 months. What that means is that every 3 or 6 months, Facebook will release new changes. With the entrance of Google in the social arena with Google+, we should expect 6 weeks to 3 months release cycles. Facebook needs to innovate in order to maintain their position as the largest social site and stay ahead of the competition.

Here are the top 5 changes made by Facebook

1. Subscriptions: This is a twitter style of feed. Before one could only get feeds (updates) from people in your friend list or pages. The new subscriptions feature allows users to received news feed from strangers. All one needs to do is subscribe to them.

2. Smart Lists: This is one of the improvements Facebook took from Google+. Facebook has always allows users to tag (coworkers, family,…) friends. However, this classification of friends was not really visible. Now, users can now group their friends in buckets called “Smart List”. The 2 default lists are “closed friends” and “acquaintances”. Users can also create custom list.

3. Updates from pages: Pages can no longer send updates. It used to be that pages can send mass updates to everyone who liked the page.

4. News feed display: There are now 2 types of news feed. “Top Stories” and “News Ticker”. Top Stories are displayed at the center of the page while New Tickers are displayed on the top right. Facebook hasn’t revealed the algorithm used to split the news feed.

5. No more daily email from Facebook. Facebook will no longer spam your inbox with daily emails.

Other changes:
• Unfriend: Facebook has now made it very easy to remove someone from a friend list.
• Ask Question: Self explanatory 
• Removed requirements for personalized URLS.
• You can send birth wished without leaving your page
• Businesses no longer need 25 likes in order to get personalized URL
• Profile button on the top right has been removed

Since Amazon announced $199 tablet, tablet prices have been dropping. Blackberry and HTC dropped the prices of their tablets by $200. Now $299 can get you a 16GB 7″ HTC Flyer or a 16GB Blackberry Playbook. Some Bestbuy stores already sold out on both tablets.

Here are couple cheap tablets:
• Coby has a lot Android-based tablet below $200.
• Archos – 7C 7″ Tablet Computer – $189
• Acer – Iconia Tablet with 8GB Memory – Steel Blue – $329.99

I didn’t think my first real blog would be a Godaddy “How To”. It’s been a while since I had done something with Godaddy. I had forgotten about some the basic stuff such as uninstalling applications such as WordPress from Godaddy. After almost 2 hours, I finally figured it out. That is how I arrived to posting about this post about how to uninstall wordpress from Godaddy.

Uninstalling WordPress from Godaddy is actually very simple.  But the process is just not intuitive and Godaddy “help page” shall I say… was not helpful.

How to Uninstall WordPress from Godaddy?

1.    Logon to your account
2.    Hover the mouse over  “my account” and click on “my product”
3.    On the left side under “my product”, click on “hosting”. All your domains hosted on Gadaddy will be centered.
4.    Click on “launch” next to the domain you want to work on. This action will open the hosting control center of the domain on a new tab/browser.
5.    On the top right, you should see the “install apps” menu box. Under the menu box, click on “View all Apps”. This action will open the hosting connection on a new tab/browser.
6.    On the right under the “my management” menu box, click on “manage my applications”
7.    Click on “View and manage details” next to the domain you would like to uninstall WordPress from. You should see an Admin box in the menu. Click on “Uninstall Application”.  Godaddy will automatically install wordpress.

You can follow these steps to uninstall most of the applications available on Godaddy.