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1. Sign the Broadband Manifesto

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I couldn’t take a better shot with my camera because I was running low on batteries, the photo ended up a little bit blurry. I would like to thank my brother Rami, Elie Haddad and Michel Sfeir.

Tell me what you think!

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Very cool and motivating video for entrepreneurs…

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1. Sign the Broadband Manifesto

Web Applications have been growing very fast. As they require better hardware (that are fortunately available), they also require a faster internet connection. The concept of Cloud is getting more and more popular, your data is no longer stored on your PC, it’s now stored on the holy cloud. Clouds allow you to have your information synchronized with all your machines (mobile, laptop, desktop, PDA etc…). This has become critical but can we handle this massive amount of data transfer?

I did a survey and found out that the big majority still have 128kbps internet connections, which is equivalent to 0.125 mbps (excluding the big portion of people who are still using Dial up modems). A normal user can get a maximum of 1mbps (which is fair, but very limited in terms of daily/monthly quota). Let’s compare it to other countries:

I am an entrepreneur and I cannot tell you how much this matter is disturbing me. The Lebanese pathetic infrastructure is directly affecting our economy. Why?

1. Young generations are not capable of keeping up with the technology.
2. Enterprises are afraid to launch branches of their companies in Lebanon. (Think about employment)
3. Lebanon is not known as a technology oriented country.
4. It’s very tough to launch a startup in Lebanon. (Woopra as an example)
5. Great entrepreneurs are leaving the country seeking better infrastructure for their venture.

I had a chance to meet the Lebanese Minister of Telecom Eng. Jubran Bassil a few months back and discussed this problem, he seemed very open and promised to be looking further into that. Bassil recently revealed on the press that he’s aware of this issue and working on a plan for this summer (2009). What if he doesn’t get elected again?

The ministry was also very excited to launch the Edge (not even 3G) connectivity for mobiles. I can’t believe they were serious about that!! I mean, I’m not paying 5$ for only 5MB of usage and 2$ for every extra MB. It’s like paying 5$ everytime I check my email inbox. I hope our Telecom ministry is not serious about this crappy solution.

Not to forget the huge Ogero scandal. As they have become DSL providers, they are not supplying private ISPs enough bandwidth for them to acquire the largest chunk of DSL users. I personally have 2 DSL accounts, 512 kbps and 1 mbps (at IDM), is it possible that I’m downloading at the rate of 5 kB/s and less than 1 kB/s at peak hours? And what about this silly quota limitation? 5GB of download per month? This is ridiculous.

“I have heard many reports of “unfair market practices” by Ogero vis a vis the DSPs.” said Mrs. Salam Yamout, a member of the Lebanese Broadband Stakeholders Group. “ISPs not being able to offer their customers DSL service because they do not get capacity from Ogero. This is the case of GDS in Achrafieh for example. In another case, a customer reported that an Ogero representative called him to offer him the Blink service within 24 hours while he has been waiting for his ISP DSL service for few days. Such practices are condemned in countries that have liberalized their telecommunications market, but not in Lebanon! It is said that there are 100,000 DSL subscribers in Lebanon (fastest DSL pick up in the world) 80% for Ogero, the rest divided among the 5 private DSPs! This fast pick up is a reflection of the starvation of the market for broadband. How else do you explain that Lebanese people are flocking in numbers to get poorer quality service, more expensive, and slower connectivity than in other countries?”

If you feel that we need the change, sign the broadband manifesto which was started by a group of people like you and me, sick and tired of the way this country evolves.

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This plugin was inspired by Google’s AutoSuggest feature which was initially created by Yahoo. Also, Facebook has been using this technique frequently which helps load data faster and of course consumes less bandwidth on both the client and the server’s ends.

Installing this plugin is very straight forward:

1. Download it from the WordPress plugins repository
2. Upload the directory wp-autosuggest to your WordPress plugins directory (/wp-content/plugins/).
3. Activate the plugins from the Plugins section in your WP Admin area.

Note: For some templates, the designers have changed the Input ID of the search (I did that), so you can change the ID of your search box from the Settings > WP Autosuggest (It’s s by default).

There are a lot of customizations and options I’m considering, like Color Themes, Display etc… If you are familiar with the WordPress Codex and feel like contributing to this plugin, contact me!

WP AutoSuggest page has been created for you to follow the updates which will be followed by a detailed blog post.

If you have some suggestions, please write a comment.

Stay tuned.

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1. Stay motivated

   The best way to get motivated is to read success stories. The more you see people succeeding, the more you feel you have higher chances to succeed. Of course, if you read stories about people failing, that’s not going to motivate you! As an entrepreneur, you’ll pass through really hard times but if you are motivated enough they will not affect you at all.

2. Get inspired but do not copy

   Don’t be ashamed to get inspired from others’ work, keep doing it every minute but do not copy anything, keep your stuff original. Inspiration is a very good way to make you sense better, learn from others’ experience and you will have a clearer vision of what’s already there and where you need to add your innovative substance.

3. Invest your own money

   There are two very important reasons for you to invest your own cash in your business. At the very early phase, no one may be fascinated by your thoughts unless you have crazy links with investors. You need to deposit a good budget to facilitate your growth; otherwise the big brothers will suck you up. The other very vital reason to invest your money is to make you more devoted. When you put some liquid in your business, that’s going to help you not give up easily. I’d say US$3000 is a good amount to begin with for entrepreneurs on the web, but don’t take my words on that, businesses vary a lot from one to another.

4. Don’t be greedy

   Grant ownership when required. If you feel that someone can be an added value to your company, you ought to give away a portion of what you possess because 100% of nothing is nothing and 1% of a decamillion dollars company is something. So if you believe that by giving away ownership to some experts, they will give the company a superior assessment, just do it!

5. Find a partner

   Two thinking together is equivalent to a hundred times one thinking alone. This has been proven with time! Most millionaires and top founders of companies started their project with a team of 2 or 3. Finding a partner is not easy. Do you think you need someone who thinks just like you? how would that help you add value to the company? You need someone different, clever who argues with you about ideas, they might be seeing things that you are not enlightened to and vice versa.

6. Think big

   If you are serious about your business you should think at the forefront about things. You should visualize your company successful and agonize about the scalability for example. Some companies, who implemented brilliant ideas, have failed because their architecture was not scalable enough to lever the amount of clients and ended up small businesses forever. It’s always a good time to reorganize your business and make it bullet proof from an early stage.

7. Failure is not an option

   “Man does not attain all his heart’s desires for the winds do not blow as the vessels wish”. As an entrepreneur, do not anticipate things to occur as you always expect. At some point, your implementation will fail! That should not be the end of your business but just a selection that you need to reconsider. People dissipate so much time on a milestone that fails, most of them give up! but only wise entrepreneurs continue embracing the fact that this failure is not going to take place another time.

8. Create something you need

   A business is more likely to become successful when there is a need for the services it provides. Why would you create something you don’t really need or find useful? Some people want to create just anything to make money. If you are in that category, I advise you to practice a hobby or do anything you love and with time you will experience a need for several services that are not yet implemented and that would be a great inspiration to work on. Bottom line, don’t waste your time trying to find the idea that will make of you a millionaire, the idea will come to you with time. I would love to talk more about this subject so I will write later on a detailed post on how to come up with a great idea to implement if you have the will.

9. Enjoy failures

   As I said previously, failure is not an option. That doesn’t mean that you’re not going to fail! What i meant was that you should not allow a failure to stop you. I’m personally a very fortunate person as I learned to enjoy failure. Every time I failed, I tried to uncover the cause of it and get around it. You want to become an experienced person in your field? The more you fail, the more experienced you become. Benefit from failures!

10. Learn from others’ mistakes

    Everyone commits mistakes! All mistakes are avoidable. It’s very imperative to watch other people’s mistakes; do not mock them, but learn from them and try to avoid it. A competitor can fail at some time because there is a mistake in their business plan, they couldn’t prevent it because it wasn’t tested. It’s your opportunity to use their experiment not to commit their mistake.

11. Listen to others’ advices

    Entrepreneurs tend to think they are smarter than other people. They are definitely smart but not the smartest. What makes of you a smarter person is your experience. There are people more experienced than you are, listen to their advices. Same thing with young people; they think they know everything but after a while they discover that their parents were right. It’s not a coincidence, the parents had more years to acquire experience in life. Never overvalue your level and listen to what more experienced people say.

12. Do not hack your work, redo it

    While working on your task, you will realize some architectural errors. What most people do is tweaking or tuning! That would lead to another major problem. Never say: “I wish I’ve done it the other way”, just do it all over again the other way. That will save you so much time later on. Many people do not consider modularity when they initiate their projects, but when they reach a certain milestone, they wish they’ve done it modular. Would you start again or keep hacking it? I’d say rebuild it the right way. I’ve personally thrown away thousands of lines of code every few months because I was always learning how to do things better and faster.

13. Give it the time it needs

    If you expect to start generating revenue in few days, go find a real job! Entrepreneurs who own today big companies have had a very long vision. They didn’t expect to start generating income the next day. They knew that it might take them months or years. Ok! This is not motivating I know. You want to make money very early but, unfortunately, you are not an employee to get paid weekly or monthly. If you are not willing to sacrifice and give it some time, I advise you to get employed. By the way, do not expect to build a competitor project to Google in few weeks.

14. Don’t give up

    Entrepreneurs can give up very easily for many obvious reasons:
    - They are not supervised
    - They are not making income
    - They are doing tough work
    - They lack management
    - Mistakes are most likely to occur

    Commitment is a must. To be committed you must:
    - Enjoy what you are doing. Millionaires say they have never worked a day in their lives; they were enjoying what they were doing.
    - Consume your own money. As I said earlier, when you spend your money on your project, you will think twice before giving up because you will loose.
    - Do anything to stay motivated.

15. Commit to perfection

    You are a tiny fish in a huge ocean full of sharks. If your project is not bullet proof, the big companies will easily crash you! You are the only employee in your company. If you believe you cannot handle all the tasks by yourself (management, design, development, architecture, business…), consider finding a partner that can relieve you with that. A company cannot survive if one of its departments is malfunctioning.

Are you an entrepreneur reading this? You must have something to share with us! Leave a comment if you have something to add.

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If you have a blog or a website, one of your important goals is to raise your Google Pagerank. Why? Because a higher Pagerank will give you more credibility into your business or persuasive articles. Fortunately, this blog’s Pagerank is 5 which is very good for a personal blog. It took me 3 years to have this pagerank! I’m not going to explain how to get a higher Pagerank, but Search Engine Optimization specialists say that more backward links from higher pageranked websites to your website will help you raise your Google Pagerank.

To see your Google Pagerank, you can install the Google Toolbar. Or, I have created a simple Java Program that shows you your pagerank and I’ve provided the source code. Check it out!

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YouTube™ has just released their Collaborative Online Orchestra Project. At the moment, it seems that it’s only classical music oriented. Are they going to expand the music style? is any startup ready to work on something like that? Being part of an eBluesBand would make me more than happy .

I would see it this way:

1. Start a new project that has only one instrument: The Metronome
2. As a guitarist, I decide on the scale and start improvising.
3. I’d publish it online and wait for contributions.
4. A vocalist, keyboardist, bassist or drummer can pickup my project and perform on it.
5. I get notified that someone has a contribution that is pending moderation. As soon as I approve, he/she becomes a part of my band.
6. And so on, until I decide that the track is complete.
7. Sell it on iTunes? or publish it for free?

This is really an amazing project to work on. If you are a serious developer, you love music and willing to invest some time to work on this project, let me know! We can come up with something together.

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