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#231637 - 26/08/2004 03:56 Is this Arabic and what does it say ?
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5914
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
I've spotted that a whole bunch of images from my photo album, mainly pictures of my young newphews and nieces, have been linked in this forum thread:

http://www.mysadness.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=688

The forum is in Arabic, or something else similarly unintelligable to me. I would like to know what the thread is about.

Can anyone here translate ? The bit in particular I am interested in is the second post in the thread (which starts with the picture of the boy with face paint).


Edited by andy (26/08/2004 04:04)
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#231638 - 26/08/2004 14:45 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
webroach
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Registered: 23/07/2003
Posts: 869
Loc: Colorado
Yes it is arabic. I can't find a proper translator, though.
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#231639 - 26/08/2004 14:59 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
andym
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3995
Loc: Manchester UK
Is it me or do you find it a little uneasy when people link 'personal' photos and place them on a public forum. Are you going to block offsite requests for the pictures?
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#231640 - 26/08/2004 15:43 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andym]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5914
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
I would feel fine if I could read the page. It does seem a very odd selection of photos to link.

I would rather not have to block off-site links, because I post links to the site myself here and elsewhere so if I did there would have to be various exceptions built in.

Don't know how easy blocking selected off-site links would be in IIS, I might have to code an ASP/ASP.NET page to serve up the images in the photo album.

I am keen to find out what the page says though. I tried one translation service trial but it produced nonsense.
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#231641 - 26/08/2004 16:33 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
DWallach
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
Hmm.. you've inspired me to see if I can observe my own images being inlined anywhere.

Based on two days of log data, it looks like there aren't too many surprises. Some sort of blog site (xanga.com) has a number of users who are inlining a photo of mine as their page background (about 40 hits in two days). I also found a thead on a (lame) architecture chat board where Dallas and Houston people are arguing about which city had buildings of any given style first. They inlined one picture I have of the Houston downdown skyline. I also found a guy who interviewed me for a radio show and is inlining my high-resolution headshot and putting it on his page at low resolution.

My sister is to be appearing in a Fox reality TV show starting in a few days (The Complex: Malibu), so I can only imagine whether or not she'll pick up rabid fanboys who'll manage to find the few pictures of her on my site and will splat them all over whereever.

Meanwhile, if you want, I'll see if I can ask some of the Arabic-speaking students here if they wouldn't mind translating that page for you...

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#231642 - 26/08/2004 17:01 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: DWallach]
JBjorgen
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Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3582
Loc: Columbus, OH
Out of curiosity, which one is your sister? It'd be cool if they "won."
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#231643 - 26/08/2004 17:35 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
g_attrill
old hand

Registered: 14/04/2002
Posts: 1172
Loc: Hants, UK
Quote:
Don't know how easy blocking selected off-site links would be in IIS, I might have to code an ASP/ASP.NET page to serve up the images in the photo album.

I think you could use an ISAPI filter, but in ASP.NET it should be pretty easy - you can hook into all sorts of useful parts of a request. For instance proper regex rewrites can now be done with little additional code added in.

Also doing on-the-fly thumbnails is very easy in ASP.NET - there is built-in image handling and compression code that seems to be pretty quick.

Gareth

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#231644 - 26/08/2004 17:49 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
Dignan
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Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
Andy- which pictures are yours? I mean, from what site exactly? Are they like the one with the kids at a birthday party? I just want to be able to get you specifics on what they're saying about your pictures as well. My girlfriend's parents can read it, I believe, so I'll run it by them.

Quote:
Out of curiosity, which one is your sister? It'd be cool if they "won."

If I remember correctly from his post about that wedding they went to, I believe it's Jayna. Dan, what exactly do they do on that show?
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#231645 - 26/08/2004 18:30 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: Dignan]
DWallach
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
Quote:
I believe it's Jayna. Dan, what exactly do they do on that show?


I don't entirely know. The general idea is that it's Survivor meets This Old House or something along those lines. Eight couples are supposed to revamp apartments in the same complex, all given the same budget and presumably other wacky constraints. At the end, they are somehow judged or auctioned off or something, and whoever wins gets all the loot. There's also some sort of "kick you off the island" mechanism. At least before she left, she had absolutely nothing more than the vaguest idea of how all of this worked, mostly based on watching episodes of an Australian reality show ("The Block") upon which the Fox show is based. Once there, she was completely incommunicado. They were only allowed to bring one suitcase each of basic clothes and toiletries. No computers. No cel phones. No tools.

Well, she's back home now, but she's bound by something of a NDA, so she can't tell me squat. The NDA, all by itself, is quite a piece of work. She's "responsible" for keeping her family quiet. She can't have a personal web page. She can't give press interviews. On and on. Basically, Fox 0wns her. But, because reality shows are technically game shows, she doesn't get paid squat (unless, presumably she wins).

I knew some swing dancers who competed on a show last year, a revival of Dance Fever. They were eliminated in the first round of the judging and came out crying foul over many of the details of how poorly the show was run. I don't have terribly high hopes for this one being any better, but I'm going to have to suck it up and watch the damn show so I can see for myself.

Here's what the Fox web site says:

Quote:
From the creators of AMERICAN IDOL comes a new kind of makeover show. THE COMPLEX: MALIBU moves real-life couples into a cliffside apartment building in Southern California's coastal enclave of the rich and famous, and puts their construction, interior design and, most importantly, their relationship skills to the test with the chance to win a large cash prize. Home renovation under normal circumstances can be stressful enough to tear a relationship apart, but when couples are forced to keep within a tight budget and faced with strict deadlines and competitive neighbors, the stakes are even higher.

Eight couples will compete for the opportunity to restore and redecorate one of four units. Under tight deadlines, the couples will battle each other for control of the units, while trying to add the most value to each of the rooms. A panel of real estate professionals - an interior designer, a real estate agent and an architect - will rank the rooms from best to worst and help decide the couples' fate: who stays and who goes. The renovated units will be sold at public auction, and the couple whose unit nets the highest-percentage profit will receive the profits from ALL of the units.

THE COMPLEX: MALIBU is based on the hit Australian show, "The Block," now in its second season. The first season finale last August drew the highest rating of any show in that country in 15 years.

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#231646 - 26/08/2004 19:05 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: DWallach]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
That would have sounded interesting if I didn't know that "relationship skills" (or the lack thereof) is going to be the largest part of the show.
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#231647 - 26/08/2004 21:13 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: g_attrill]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5914
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
Quote:
I think you could use an ISAPI filter, but in ASP.NET it should be pretty easy - you can hook into all sorts of useful parts of a request. For instance proper regex rewrites can now be done with little additional code added in.



Yeah, it would be fairly straight forward to code up some pages to do it. I suspect this is one area where Apache is more useful, no doubt one of the built-in modules can handle stuff like this

Quote:

Also doing on-the-fly thumbnails is very easy in ASP.NET - there is built-in image handling and compression code that seems to be pretty quick.



It is, in fact I already do this on some pages on my site, just not on the photo album yet. I must get round to finishing my album code one day.
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#231648 - 26/08/2004 21:20 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: Dignan]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5914
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
Quote:
Andy- which pictures are yours? I mean, from what site exactly? Are they like the one with the kids at a birthday party? I just want to be able to get you specifics on what they're saying about your pictures as well. My girlfriend's parents can read it, I believe, so I'll run it by them.



From:

[image]http://www.norman.cx/photos/20030726 will and jamie's 4th birthday party/thmb/thmb_IMG_3800.jpg[/image]

(William or Jamie, can't tell which as they are identical twins, with face paint)

To:

[image]http://www.norman.cx/photos/20031108 fireworks/thmb/thmb_IMG_5579.jpg[/image]

(my brother with his latest mobile phone, not)


Edited by andy (27/08/2004 05:14)
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#231649 - 26/08/2004 21:21 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5914
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
I have no idea why the bbs is refusing to recognise those as inline images, odd.
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#231650 - 26/08/2004 22:49 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Capital letters as the extension, probably.
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#231651 - 27/08/2004 02:45 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: wfaulk]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5914
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
Nope.
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#231652 - 27/08/2004 03:25 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
Possibly the % sign? I haven't tried any images myself with spaces in their names.
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#231653 - 27/08/2004 03:25 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
davec
old hand

Registered: 18/08/2000
Posts: 992
Loc: Georgetown, TX USA


The %20 needs to be a space in the image code
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#231654 - 27/08/2004 05:16 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: davec]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5914
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
I replaced my %20 with spaces, that didn't help. I've never had this problem linking to my images from the bbs before.
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#231655 - 27/08/2004 07:26 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
David
addict

Registered: 05/05/2000
Posts: 623
Loc: Cambridge
A List Apart has an article with some good ideas for how to approach this sort of thing using Apache rewrites.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/hotlinking/

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#231656 - 27/08/2004 09:46 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
Cybjorg
addict

Registered: 23/12/2002
Posts: 652
Loc: Winston Salem, NC
Gasp! They have my picture directly above the face painted kid! I'm enraged!

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#231657 - 27/08/2004 10:46 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
davec
old hand

Registered: 18/08/2000
Posts: 992
Loc: Georgetown, TX USA
That's weird, I made that post above and it worked, but now if I edit that post, the image doesn't show up...
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#231658 - 27/08/2004 11:19 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
Dylan
addict

Registered: 23/09/2000
Posts: 498
Loc: Virginia, USA
My friend - who is fluent in Arabic - looked at the page for me. He said it's strangely written and doesn't make a lot of sense. His summary:

"it's supposed to be some kind of birthday wishes to this bint jumeirah person. He talks about how happy everyone is celebrating her brithday and stuff"

Basically, it's the type of post you'd make for your friends with your own pictures. "Here's little billy doing this and here's johnny doing this" type stuff.

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#231659 - 27/08/2004 12:03 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: Dylan]
pgrzelak
carpal tunnel

Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Is it my imagination, or does that make the page even creepier than it was before?
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#231660 - 27/08/2004 15:28 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
bbowman
enthusiast

Registered: 12/05/2002
Posts: 205
Loc: Virginia, USA
It looks like a Malaysian site. I'm not sure what it is about, but perhaps a lot of family stuff. Malay is written with the Arabic alphabet. It probably seems strange snce malay is spoken a bit differently than Arabic. Maybe something distanly akin to reading portugese thinking that it was spanish.

Didn't it strike anyone interesting that even though it was written in Arabic, most of the pictures were of Asian people?
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#231661 - 28/08/2004 00:00 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: bbowman]
davec
old hand

Registered: 18/08/2000
Posts: 992
Loc: Georgetown, TX USA
Quote:
Didn't it strike anyone interesting that even though it was written in Arabic, most of the pictures were of Asian people?


Yes but the fact that there were pics of UK people related to persons on this forum made me not think too long about it. But you are probably right about it being a Malaysian site.
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#231662 - 28/08/2004 11:19 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: Dylan]
JaBZ
addict

Registered: 08/08/2001
Posts: 452
Loc: NZ
lol so instead of using his own pictureshe just decided to rip Andy's ones

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#231663 - 28/08/2004 19:17 Re: Is this Arabic and what does it say ? [Re: andy]
g_attrill
old hand

Registered: 14/04/2002
Posts: 1172
Loc: Hants, UK
In the HTML the language is identified as "ar", and the domain is registered to: "mohamed almehairbi", "AbuDhabi, 70866, AE" so it is highly likely to be Arabic. Unfortunately the only online Arabic translation engine I found output complete rubbish!

Gareth

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