Jordan First

My 2nd facebook application - Popular Friends!

11.24.07

Popular Friends Facebook Application

Two months after the launch of my first facebook application known as iDescribe, which now that I’ve mentioned it has crossed 800,000 total installs all over facebook, I have finally come up with the second one, Popular Friends.

Popular Friends is all about finding who your most popular friends are, as well as the most popular people on facebook! Popular friends creates a popularity factor for facebook users based on their activity on facebook, number of friends, number of wall posts, number of votes that they recieve from their friends! As the application develops, I will try to make the application judge users’ popularity smarter!

Check it out and you can all help out by inviting 20 of your friends, everyday! Let me know what you think…

iDescribe - My first facebook application

09.01.07

iDescribe allows you to non-anonymously describe your friends in 5 words from a ready list of words that we’ve selected for you. The words that you are described with are then displayed on your profile in a neat way, with the most common words appearing first to offer an honest look at how others really view you.

Check it out and you can all help out by inviting 10 of your friends, everyday! Let me know what you think…

My entry to the University of Aqaba contest

08.25.07

It’s been a while since we’ve blogged anything on JordanFirst.com but I have an urge to get back to regularly blogging. Anyways, the University of Aqaba had a logo contest that ended 4 days ago, the results weren’t announced yet but the deadline to any further logo submissions is over. So I thought I’d share my logo entry with all of you guys and hear what you think.

Thumbnails below(click for full resolution)

Easily And Quickly Retouch Photos In Picasa

03.09.07

This video shows you how I retouch this photo of the brazilian fan from world cup 2006 using Picasa without the need for Photoshop.

How To Turn Any Image Into Colored ASCII Art

03.09.07

This demonstration shows how you can turn any image into colored ASCII art.

How To Reduce The Time Delay For Menus In Windows XP

03.09.07

This registry tweak shows how you can reduce the time delay for menus in Windows XP, and it works for all versions.

How To Make A Photo Look Like A Drawing In Photoshop

03.09.07

This method could be used on all kinds of photos as long as they have good contrast to make them look like they were drawn by hand.

Remembering 9/11/2005…

11.09.06

One year after 9/11/2005 “Black Wednesday” in which the terrorist bombing of 3 Jordanian hotels took place, I’d like to express my feelings on behalf of all Jordanians on this day, condolences to the families, relatives, and friends of the victims, may your lost ones rest in peace, We will never forget.

I’d like to leave you with some photos I’ve taken of the vigil-night that took place at the Radisson SAS & Hyatt Amman on 10/11/2005, as well as some wallpapers and images remembering Black Wednesday here and here.

The “Art” Of Beauty

10.22.06

Here’s an interesting little reminder that even supermodels don’t look like supermodels.

See the high resolution movie and an interactive “before and after” at campaignforrealbeauty.ca

Quoting one of the commenters on the video: “I don’t use Dove and never will - I’m a guy. However, anything that encourages young women to think of themselves as whole people instead of plastic models should be supported.”

Best “Lost” theory I’ve read

10.20.06

I’ve been reading lots of theories on “Lost” TV series since season 3 started a few weeks ago, but this is by far the best theory I’ve read, and by “best” I mean that this is the one theory that answers the most “questions” and has the least “flaws”.

The more I read this board the more I’m amazed at how many people grasp for rational explainations within LOST. It seems that each time the writers show us the slightest hint of a scientific path through the supernatural jungle, most people are willing to run full tilt right down it. I just don’t get that.

* Do you really think Jack’s dad just up and walked away?
* Do you really think a black stallion lives on the island?
* Do you really think a Nigerian Beechcraft could reach the middle of the Pacific?
* Do you really think the polar bears are from Dharma’s “zoology” experiment?
* Do you really believe in nanobots???

The one thing very obvious to me is that the island will create anything (or anyone) that any of the main characters can think up. The island manifests whatever is desired, imagined, feared, or thought about. The island itself is responsible for these things - or rather, the characters are responsible for them through the power of thought or will.

THIS IS THE ONE THING THE OTHERS DO NOT WANT THEM TO REALIZE

Look at what’s happened so far:

Locke’s gained his legs back. From the moment he went to wiggle his toes they moved… simply because he believed they might. Locke is one of the very special people who somewhat understands that the island will grant him things (Rose is another). Do you really think he learned to hunt, track, slaughter and skin boars simply from shooting quail with his dad? Do you really think he can throw knives with deadly accuracy? Or is the knife-throw accurate because Locke believes? I think the later. All of Locke’s abilities come from his kinship with the island, yet some people still speculate about where he learned such awesome skills back at his job stocking aisles at Toys R’ Us.

Jack sees his father, who is obviously dead. Do you really believe this guy faked his death, crashed on the island, bolted his coffin, and is roaming around as part of some sort of sinister conspiracy? Or do you think maybe Jack sees his dad because his guilt has him thinking constantly about him and the island manifests him in the form of a vision just beyond his reach?

Look at Charlie. Thousands of miles from civilization, all a heroin junkie would think about is not having access to any heroin. And then suddenly a planeload of it miraculously shows up? Please.

Take Eko. He hears of a crashed plane on the island, and he wants very badly for it to be his brother’s missing plane. So badly that it becomes his brother’s missing plane. Wild coincidence? No. Self-fullfilling prophecy, courtesy of the island. And hey, didn’t Eko’s memories get scanned by the smoke monster right before they found the plane? Hmmmm.

Kate’s stallion is there because she unconciously willed it to be there. Claire thinks her baby might get sick, and so it does. Hurley’s having a tough time dealing with food and suddenly Dave shows up, easily plucked from his subconcious and manifested by the island. His numbers keep appearing because he keeps obsessing over them, not the other way around.

And then there’s Sayid, trying to escape a complicated life during which he was forced to do questionable things. Yet once on the island he inevitably finds himself having to do those same things yet again.

In short, I think the island makes all things possible. Think about this: Was there dynamite in the Black Rock before they needed it to blow the hatch, or was the dynamite suddenly there once they DID need it? And if they’d needed something else could it be possible Danielle would have told them that particular thing was in the ship? It’s a mind-fu k I know. But it’s still a question you have to ask yourself.

I believe that there are no coincidences. I think everything you see is being placed into being by requirement, a la the island. I think the Others know this, which would explain why they’ve been so ‘mysterious’ with the 815 survivors. They don’t tell them the truth because doing so would give them near limitless power. They can’t tell them. It would interfere with whatever agenda the Others are currently trying to achieve.

Finally, I believe Walt had these powers all along - even before the island. His abilities are very akin to the island’s natural powers, and that’s why the Others wanted him.

Theory by: Vozzek

Source: TheoriesOnLost.blogspot.com

The new Intel Core 2 Quadro

09.12.06

Just when you thought you’re not going to need to upgrade your new CPU for a while after all the new processors that came through-out the last 4 years, Intel releases a new CPU with basicly, processing power of two Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs built into one.

Basically, Intel packs two Core 2 Duo processors into one package. This poses several questions: How fast are four cores versus the not-exactly-a-weakling dual-core version? What will the heat dissipation and power consumption figures be like in a PC system with a quad core processor? Which applications can truly benefit from the increased core count? Is the current platform still sufficient? And finally, the question real enthusiasts are sure to pose: What can be expected in terms of maximum clock speed?

Source: TomsHardware.com

Microsoft wants Firefox on Vista!

08.22.06

As crazy and scary as it sounds, it’s true! Sam Ramjii, Director of Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab, has extended an invitation to the Firefox and Thunderbird developers asking them if they’d like to visit the company’s open source research center. Microsoft’s hopes are that, in a four-day span, the company can provide the open source developers with enough information to get the popular web browser running smoothly on Windows Vista.

Last Saturday, Ramjii posted a message in the newsgroup “mozilla.dev.planning” asking Mozilla’s Mike Schroepfer and any other Firefox developers if they’d be interested in visiting the Windows Vista Readiness ISV Lab. Ramjii said that he’s made a special exception for the Mozilla team since this isn’t how the lab invitations normally work.

More on this news at Arstechnica