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Task Cards: First eSpace iPad App

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:05:22 GMT

Just a couple days ago eSpace, in its first collaboration with Fictiv, opened the curtains to unveil our first iPad application. Being productivity buffs ourselves, and upon realizing that there is still a need for a cheap, simple, and yet effective productivity app, we went ahead with creating an index card based to-do list organizer called Task Cards.

Marginize: A Real Entrepreneurship Story

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:44:54 GMT

One day we got this call from Ziad Sultan, a young and enthusiastic entrepreneur from Boston, MA, and he had this crazy Idea. His vision was to create a margin to websites… creating an augmented or meta web, where people can share their thoughts in real time on any website. eSpace created a team working very closely with Ziad, and over the months the startup, Marginize was created, enrolled in TechStars, and a mere three months later graduated being the only company succeeding in raising the money it needed even before the end of the event. The aspiring story about Dharmesh, a very successful entrepreneur and angel investor, sending his interest to invest in Marginize through marginize was the talk of the community in Boston for a while now. Around the same time as the TechStars event, which eSpace had the privilege to attend and catch on the fever, Marginize was featured in TechCrunch and a featured app for Google’s Buzz.

eSpace Shows IE6 the Chair

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:07:48 GMT

A problem we’ve been battling over for a while now is whether or not we should discontinue supporting Internet Explorer 6 in our new web applications. Not only does IE6 prove time and again to be buggy and infamously unable to adhere to standards, but it also takes about 20% more time during the development phase of any project for special handling. That time could be much better put to use in other things like code review, testing, and bug solving.

Tawazi - Parallel Design Patterns in Ruby

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:21:56 GMT

Tawazi is the Arabic translation for the English word "Parallel". Tawazi is a library written 100% in Ruby. Tawazi provides Ruby developers an easy-to-use, easy-to-extend, high-performing parallel execution frameworks inspired by the theory of Parallel Design Patterns (http://parlab.eecs.berkeley.edu/wiki/patterns/patterns).

For years, processor manufactures consistently delivered increases in clock rates and instruction-level parallelism, so that single-threaded code executed faster on newer

processors with no modification. Now,to manage CPU power dissipation, processor manufacturers favor multi-core chip designs, and software has to be written in amulti-threaded or multi-process manner to take full advantage of the hardware. Handling Parallel processing and concurrency issues every time we write our software has many drawbacks:

1-Not all application developers has deep knowledge about parallel processing and councurrency control. They should focus in solving their application problems instead of dealing with parallel processing problems.

2-No code reuse. Every time you will repeat the same "patterns" to solve parallel processing problem.

3-A big source for bugs and concurrency mistakes, specially for large and complex systems.

4-Poor code clearness and readability. No common language between developers.

Dataflow design pattern for Multicore-enabled programs

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:44:49 GMT

Multicore technology is the solution chosen by hardware manufacturer to translate the advances in semiconductor manufacturing into more processing power. For years, software developers used to run their code on the newer processor with no (or few) modifications to have it run faster. After the move of multicore this is not the case. Software has to be written in a multithreaded or multiprocess manner to take full advantage of the hardware. Software developers will be forced to develop massively multithreaded programs as a way to better use such processors. Multicore CPUs will make parallelism explicit. After more than 40 years of research in the field of parallelising compilers, the results are still limited.

Go Egypt Go!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:03:32 GMT

How can we all experience together the final stand-off game between Egypt and Algeria for the WorldCup 2010 qualifiers, without having to be in the same room?

Just one of the many thoughts we usually muse about during our lunchtime discussions. But this time we decided to do something about it. And so came the idea of creating a page where all tweets regarding the game will be aggregated. Four hours later it was done. Just use the tags #Egypt, #Algeria, #Egyptmatch, and #Sudan in your tweets and keep www.egyptweets.com open throughout the game and afterwards!

So, as all eyes are directed towards Khartoum, all hearts direct to the heavens with their hopes and dreams, direct your browsers to egyptweets.com!

May the best team (a.k.a. Egypt) win!

Web Developers Needed

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:56:09 GMT

Organization, meticulousness, an ability to envision what you are creating from scratch and to be accommodating: to us, a strong web developer should have all those qualities. A web developer is the core of the website construction process, and as such has to be up to the task at hand and has to realize that all the subsequent steps of design and content creation depend on the developer's ability to realize his/her vision. We are seeking dedicated web developers that find that they fit this description and have the spirit needed to bring out the bets of our creations and his/her own. If you are interested, send your CV at HR@eSpace.com.eg with subject title "Junior Web Developer" .

Technical skills:

Web development using Ruby on Rails.

For more vacancies available check eSpace Careers Page.

Podcast Now on iTunes

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:29:21 GMT

You can now find our podcast in the iTunes store. Click here to view our podcast channel and to subscribe. Please note that you need to have iTunes to view this item; you can download iTunes for free here.

eSpace Talks: Tune in to Our First Podcast

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:50:28 GMT

Web 2.0 is an amazing thing; people everywhere partake in the miracle of communication to share knowledge, ideas, and fun. In the world of blogging and podcasting, no little piece of knowledge is kept secret and anyone with a question is almost certain to find an answer. Which is why it is sad that with so much free access to delivering and obtain knowledge, Arabic content is quite scarce.

eSpace's Coverage of RubyKaigi in Rails Magazine!

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:42:55 GMT

Software developers or reporters?

Both and more! Seems like eSpace is becoming at the core of events in the Ruby on Rails community, as Muhammad Ali, our CTO, and Ehab El-Badry, our COO, report to Rails Magazine about their trip to RubyKaigi. Not only did they give a full exclusive coverage of the event, but they also conducted a couple of interviews there with Yukihiro Matsumoto, Ruby's chief designer, and Koichi Sasada, the creator and maintainer of YARV. You can read the digital issue here, and be sure to drop a line if you think our staff has any blooming writing talent!