Tuesday, February 19, 2013

A Glimpse into History

     The Presidents ‘Day is an important holiday in the history of the United States. President's day is in fact the celebration of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln's birthdays because both presidents' birthday dates are on February, Washington on 22 and Lincoln on the 11 of February. As a federal holiday honoring George Washington was first implemented by an Act of Congress in 1879 for government offices in the District of Columbia and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices.

     Some states might have a different naming or date for presidents' day but in my opinion it is because each state is proud of the president that was elected from their state, For example:

  -In Massachusetts, the state officially celebrates "Washington's Birthday" on the same day as the Federal holiday. State law also directs the governor to issue an annual "Presidents Day" proclamation on May 29 (John F. Kennedy's birthday) honoring the presidents with Massachusetts roots: Kennedy, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Calvin Coolidge.
 -Alabama uniquely observes the day as "Washington and Jefferson Day", even though Thomas Jefferson's birthday is in April.
 -In Connecticut, Missouri and Illinois, while Washington's Birthday is a federal holiday, Abraham Lincoln's birthday is still a state holiday, falling on February 12 regardless of the day of the week.
In Washington's home state of Virginia, the holiday is legally known as "George Washington Day."

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Is This The Future Car ?

While I was searching for an self generated  entry to write about, I chose to write about something modern and new. So I started looking in the news articles and found this article which is part of an episode of one of my favorite shows "Top Gear".


The article is about the worst/smallest car ever, or could it be the future car?. Personally I would rather ride a bike or just walk than driving that car, if it was the future car. This car might be handy in traffic jams, but basically that's the only good thing that it does, other than it is slow and dangerous to drive.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Entry #1. Why do we blog?

       Blogging is the basic step to web-design. I am not new to idea of blogs, but in fact I am new to the idea of writing a blog that is going to be graded. Four years ago I developed an interest for web-design. I started looking in the Internet for a fast ways to learn how to design a website, all clues and peoples' experiences led to blogs. After that discovery I started researching blogs, how they are made and for what purposes. I read many blogs and visited many sites that teach how to make blogs. I realized that creating a blog is a lot easier than designing a whole website and it is vital to know everything about blogs before I jump into web-design because blogs are just a branch of web-design and most of the famous websites have blogging section integrated inside of them that people can interact and express their opinions through. Some websites give blogs different names like "Forum" or "Discussion Board", these pages carry the same purpose and style of blogs but with different names.
       
     In my opinion, I think all the websites should have blogging section or whatever name it carries, so people can express their opinions about that website or the products that websites offers. 

        Not only does blogging give you the chance to express your opinions but it also provides a huge amount of information that is helpful to a lot of people. Especially when blogs discuss topics that weren't mentioned in many websites or there were controversies about these topics, as it gives the internet surfer the opportunity to read different opinions about the topic that concerns him. 

       The definition of blogs according to Wikipedia is : "A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log) is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first). Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often were themed on a single subject. More recently "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited." in addition to "Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

     
 To be fair in my judgment of blogs I try to pick the topics that interest me or affect my life, and that's why I picked the following blogs to talk about.

Google Official Blog
    The first blog I chose to talk about is Google Official Blog. I enjoyed reading this blog because it’s interesting to read, and there are videos and pictures integrated in it. I like reading Google Blog because it keeps me updated on the projects Google are conducting and the new ways they are applying to improve their services to maintain their reputation and rank in the World Wide Web. As for the style of the blog, it was professional well organized blog that targets any internet browser because the language is easy to understand. This blog was also opened a door for people to give their opinion and suggestions about Google products.




Cisco's Blog
    The second blog is Cisco Blog. At the Beginning, I was excited when I found this blog, but when I started reading through this blog I found it hard to understand some terminologies and noticed that the writer was addressing people with a lot of background about Cisco Networking. Although I was going to study Communication engineering when I was in Egypt, that's what pulled my attention to this blog, but still it was hard to understand some posts in this blog, and that's why I didn't enjoy this blog.

Introduction: Who am I ?

     My name is Raid AL Bayati. I was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1992. When I was 12 years old, I traveled to Cairo, Egypt and lived there for 7 years. In Egypt, I met people from different countries and cultures, visited historical sites, learned the Egyptian dialect and witnessed the beginning of the last Egyptian revolution. 

     I came to the United States in January 2012. and as for my interests, I like all sports but mainly soccer and my favorite club is Manchester United , I played soccer as a goal keeper back in Egypt, and I also practiced some boxing in my first semester at college in Egypt. I haven't played soccer since I came to the U.S. 
      
      My hobbies are playing video games like: (Guild Wars 2, Call of Duty Modern warfare 3, God of war, Assassins Creed), watching movies and riding bicycle. 
      

     
  My plan in GCC is to finish my prerequisites to transfer to ASU and get a bachelor's degree in Computer Science.