A Complete Beginner's Guide to RSS

For those of you who are confused about RSS, I wrote a guide a few weeks ago for ijtema.net. Unfortunately, some bizarre technical issues were preventing me from publishing it right away, so it was significantly delayed. It's up now, so head on over and have a look for yourself.

A Complete Beginner's Guide to RSS

The most common definition of RSS is “Really Simple Syndication”. Essentially, it is a standardized way of publishing frequently updated information. Many websites with frequently updated content will publish “RSS feeds” in order to alert readers whenever new material is posted...

Ijtema.net: New, Shiny, and Exciting!

The long awaited ijtema.net revamp is complete! I'm a little late in announcing it, but better late than never. In addition, the winners of the photo contest have also been announced, so take a look at the many excellent submissions.

Other new features:

• Beautiful new layout courtesy of Shazia Mistry
  
• New Multimedia content - the best of Muslim art and video
  
• Podcast reviews
  
• ...and more to come!

As always, you can contribute to ijtema.net by directing us to the best articles, videos, and audio content you find through your Internet journeys.

Enjoy!

To my neighbour

As part of the Monday original content on ijtema.net, here are some thoughts that crossed my mind after a discussion with a colleague.

I don’t blame you for having a skewed image of me. Every day, it seems like there’s another story that undoubtedly affects your perception of the Muslim community. Whether it be the ridiculous response to offensive cartoons, or the nearly daily attacks that take place in our war-torn countries, it must be difficult for you not to think we’re just a little bit suspicious. The murder case here at home, which has dominated headlines this past week, certainly does not help our case.

Read the entire post here, and leave your comments there.

Update 2007.12.24: You can also read the (slightly edited) piece at altmuslim.com, where it was recently featured.

Awake

Ijtema.net is back up and running, as of today! JazakAllah to Manas for getting the ball rolling again.

But what is this website?

Ijtema.net is an initiative to scour and identify the best of the Muslim blogosphere. There's a lot of good content out there, but finding it is not always easy. The team at Ijtema.net goes through the laborious effort of digging through tonnes of content daily, to find the content that best articulates the issues that matter. Update 2007.11.08: I've added a little feed that shows the last five posts from Ijtema on the bottom-right corner.

But wait, there's more!

At least, there will be, insha-Allah. Stay tuned.

But what about Irrelevant Opinions?

As most of you know, I just took an extended break through all of Ramadhan and beyond. To be honest, nothing interesting happened during these few weeks, but it was refreshing. I'm still waiting for some inspiration to write, but things are at quite a lull. If I don't find anything meaningful to write anytime soon, I'll just find something to complain about eventually.