How strange that just a couple months before his passing the internet was flooded with blogs and news outlets talking about his conversion to Islam. I recall bringing up the subject with a group of friends some of whom felt his presence was not welcome amongst people of our faith, others of whom embraced the idea with just as much passion as they did his music.

In the end it didn’t really matter whether they were right or wrong–all indications do point towards the fact that Michael did not in fact convert to Islam, though Allah (SWT) knows best–but it is that rift in perspectives that I do strangely so now find myself compelled to discuss.

Michael Jackson may have lived the life of an ordinary child star, whose shot to fame did little to jar an otherwise humble outlook on life. He may have been the valiant people’s servant, who ordered tons of pizzas to feed the homeless while on a stay in London. And he may have been the children-focused entertainer, whose amusement styled ranch many a happy child could call home.

Or MJ could have been the child molester many tabloids and several now wealthy children asserted him to be. A reckless spender who put no emphasis towards being fiscally responsible. Or even a careless citizen, with precious little regard for our legal system.

Whatever and whoever Michael “Jo” Jackson once was, the man he is before Allah (SWT) now is known only to him and his Creator. Had MJ converted to Islam as rumors suggested, his past sins and errors would have been blanketed out inshAllah. This is irrespetctive of what those sins were, for where no sin can be as great as disbelief, it is a testament to the infinite mercy of Our Lord (SWT) that even these sins are flushed clean where not repeated.

As Muslims the lessons we can take from the life and times of the King of Pop are limited. But perhaps, as Muslims, it will be in his death, and not in his life, that we can finally learn some of the most important lessons of all.

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There have been few moments in the past few years where I have been truly spellbound by technological breakthroughs, and while there is nothing remarkably revolutionary about being able to do all of the above, the fact that it all “just works” is nice. Very nice.

:)

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Copyright infringement should have been seriously stifled by Blu-Ray, but it wasn't.

I have always held the view that the way to fight content infringement was to make the original content more accessible and restrict the channels through which the content could be dispersed. The first part of this comes down to whether content authors are willing to price their original content at a price point where bona fide buyers are willing to pick up a copy instead of ripping it off the net; and while exploitative pricing is a serious culprit on the infringement scene, my discussion today will focus on the second part of the analysis, namely, how best to limit the channels of distribution.

I have always held the golden key here to be quality with a capital Q. Take movie piracy for instance. It wasn’t until the advent of high-compression technologies such as DivX and Xvid that the distribution of copyrighted movies saw its boom. The reasoning is simple: provide the masses with an easy means of distributing content at at or near the same quality as the original and with an internet line that keeps getting faster and faster, ultimately you will lose the war.

That’s why when Blu-Ray technology was first announced I saw with it the promise of not only an unparalleled viewing experience, but so to a slap in the face to movie rippers everywhere. Here was a movie format which, if you wanted to preserve its exact quality in a file for your PC, could run north of 50GB depending on the movie length. That’s large enough to consume a sizable fraction of most consumer hard drives, and would prove a formidable foe against even the most blazing internet download speeds.

So why has film piracy continued to run rampant? The answer, oddly enough, is for the same reason it boomed in the first place. If the quality of a DVD needed to be compressed into a DivX format to be quickly transferrable, so too now has Blu-Ray found its nemesis in the ubiquitous MKV file format. MKV files serve as open containers that can hold any type of media content, and are the likely home for the high-def heavyweight format to travel in the information underground. With compressed audio and uncompressed video, a typical MKV file will run about 10-15GB, which while not a terribly accessible size, is still small enough to pack into an evening’s worth of downloading. As one friend put it to me, “You have to plan ahead, but you can definitely get Blu-Ray quality on your High-Def TV without the need for a Blu-Ray player or even the Blu-Ray Movie you want to watch.”

The problem is one that should have content producers fast tracking ahead to the next file format. With ever-increasing storage capacity and faster internet download speeds, the time has come to bring more to the table than a better quality picture and more immersive sound. So long as the film industry relies on this tried and failed formula, we will have many more years of copyrighted content splashed all over the internet.

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For months actually over a year, we’ve been waiting for unsanity (the company behind shapeshifter for Tiger) to update its “haxie” for compatibility with the new OS. But for all the many hundreds of frustrated customers in unsanity-land, there has been little to no visible progress in getting a Leopard-compatible Shapeshifter out the gates.

All that has now changed. After a string of half-releases, bad releases, and unabashed vaporware, Magnifique, the first usable Leopard theming software, is finally arrived! Within just a day or two of its announcement on the MacThemes forums, the software already has pages of enthusiastic followers (myself included), chomping at the bit waiting for updates and more themes to salivate over.

Thank goodness for independent (and benevolent–the app is free!) developers. Life would be a little less enjoyable without you :)

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I’ve also been working with my now good friend Andrea Useem (www.religionwriter.com) on livening up her blog to a more Web 2.0 audience. Last but not least I’ve been hard at work on the website for premiere loudspeaker manufacturer Salagar Sonics. If you haven’t checked out their products, which have been featured almost everywhere on the web, including Engadget, you really need to do yourself a favor and scope out the scene over there.And then there’s Hadithuna.

I wish I had the same financial backing to devote more time to this site, but the truth is it’s been a baby of mine that like most babies has grown too fast and too soon. I’ve spent days out of my otherwise otherworldly schedule to move this website, upgrade it, and troubleshoot issues with posting, plugins, and themes. Not to mention the crash course in server administration I hadn’t planned on taking quite just yet. While I’ve been hard at work doing all of the above I’ve watched idly by as a site that once incurred out-of-pocket costs of about $10/month shot up to $100/month in the mere span of just a few days.Is it worth it? Absolutely. A team of dedicated Muslims formed Hadithuna.com because we believed the stories and lives of Muslims throughout the world was too important to be left untold.

In the year and a half since it’s formation Hadithuna has been featured by major journalists, at outlets, such as the BBC, American Public Media, and altmuslim.com, just to name a few.Earlier this past month we spoke at the utterly large SXSW convention, to an audience of several hundred, about combatting net radicalization and the role of the Muslim voice.So while we have met with some difficulties, and we are undoubtedly rebounding from a tough and thorny fall, we march on, with strength of sincerity and compassion. We will continue our mission.

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A good friend of mine recently started a website at www.religionwriter.com. You’ll recognize the design as using the same wordpress theme as my own blog, but with a few modifications. Insh’Allah she’ll be rolling out with a site facelift soon.

One area where Religion Writer’s site does differ from my own however, is content. Andrea’s got the kind of thought-provoking blog posts that drive you to deep thought faster than Haley’s comet. She’s written posts about Ramadan, interviewed prominent On-Faith Journalists, and even penned a stirring post about the first Mormon Presidential Candidate–no, it’s not Mitt Romney.

Religionwriter.com is also about Buddhism, Catholicism, and the Amish. It’s a delightful mix of religious interviews, commentaries, and book reviews, and it’s free as in air. Go check it out!

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In truth, there are rare occasions where I find myself so enthused by a website that it hits my list of sites to blog about. But Mint.com is no ordinary website. To begin with users sign up with Mint and add accounts to their profile. After the usual Credit Cards and Bank Accounts are added through the secure interface, Mint scans your account details to determine whether your interest rate is too high, your gas bill just average, or if you’re spending too much money renting out DVD’s.

What’s more is this fantastic service comes at little more than the cost of air. It’s free as in zilch, nadda, zip, nothing. Which means you can probably fire that financial planner and start saving your first buck.  

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A month and a half ago Fatema was leaving messages on my Facebook wall, asking me when I’d be ready to hop over to Saxbys Coffee Shop. We were getting Mocha Frolattes. As we walked from Lauinger library to the corner of 35th and O street, we talked about life, marriage, graduation, and the good things to come.

A day or two later we were taking a stroll around the River Front in Georgetown. Fatema shared with me just some of the anxiety she was having over what to do with her life, while I stared back at her in avid fascination. She was an individual of remarkable accomplishment, and my mind puzzled how she could ever worry which of the many doors available to her was the right one to walk through.

I could never have imagined those final few encounters to be the last I would see of the beautiful, the bright, and the radiant, Fatema Khimji. I had mailed her an invitation to my wedding celebration. And I had half-expected her to show up.

If any good has come from an otherwise hopelessly tragic incident, it is in that everyone close to Fatema has become more conscious of the time we have left, and how well we use it. Insh’Allah she and her father are in a far better place. And Insh’Allah our prayers for her and her family are answered by the Almighty, Allah(SWT). May they rest in peace.

Innalillahi wa Innalillayhi Raji’oun. To God we Belong, and to God we Shall Return.

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What this means for the throngs of Mac loyalists who have long-since drudged having to leave their favorite browser simply to write a post on their blog or reply to an email from gmail, is that they may now emphatically chose not to do so. :)

Written below are four easy steps to get RTE functionality built into sites where it’s not already there.

STEP 1:  Download and install Safari Stand. 

STEP 2:  From the new “Stand” menu in your menubar, select Safari Stand Settings:

STEP 3:  Within Safari Stand Settings select “Include Debug Menu”

STEP 4:  Relaunch Safari. From the new debug menu select “User Agent” and then “Firefox 2.0.0.2″

The page will reload and if you’re on a page with a rich text editor then you should get those shiny icons you’re so familiar with from FireFox.

So what works and what doesn’t? Well from my Wordpress blog I was unable to hyperlink a bit of text without going to the html editor. And although I was able to upload and send images to the editor without any difficulty, I didn’t get the usual anchors over the images to manipulate their size, and left/right alignment. I hear Matt, the developer of Wordpress, mentioned the next iteration would include a hook so you wouldn’t have to do the above spoof to get it to work. Perhaps some of these bugs will be ironed out with the update. 

But it’s rich text editing in Safari. Something me and a few Mac fans have been waiting on for a very long time. So I’m definitely not going to gripe about it being in its infancy right now :) 

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Amidst this all I find myself fishing for new meaning. Should I watch People’s Court to be entertained by the abuse angst between judge and citizen? Or are those sometimes always outrageous monologues by the wrongdoer and wronged to be my source of satisfaction? Perhaps only time will tell. In the meantime, here are some of the best bits for your enjoyment.

People Expect My Vomit:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/YtNL1krS-1Q" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Judge Judy’s Pinky Is Smarter Than You Are:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZJDK6ctRjqw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

MADtv Puts It All Into Perspective:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/lC3lHXDnwj0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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