The first release of Minbar was somewhat hurried, and was more intended for personal use, and as a test of whether Muslim Gnome users really want something like this.

It turns out a lot of people are happy about the idea, and there is an acceptable level of adoption amongst Gnome users. Thanks everyone! This encouraged me to work together a better Minbar for next release, and may be, just may be, build it and distribute for Windows.
So this is meant to get some ideas from people on what they want. Currently I am thinking of:

• City names list, choosing a city instead of entering its details.
• Hide window on start-up (Already in CVS).
• Windows port.
• Fix the menu icon.
• Package it for deb and rpm distributions.
• …? (Your idea here)

Any more?

Alriyadh, a popular Saudi newspaper were kind enough to do an interview with me about CDMaftooh.

I took the opportunity to voice concerns about the Arabic Open Source movement, and voice out that we do actually need governmental/educational help to spread the word.

They published the interview in their 13th March 2007 issue. I’d love to get a hard copy from any of you my Saudi brothers! The server took a hard beating on that day, I thought It wouldn’t make it through, but it did.

Read the interview, It is in Arabic.

Time for a blatant me me post.

Finally my application to the Gnome Foundation has been accepted, I am now an official Gnome Foundation Member!